FRAPS - What combo to go with?

[Furial]

Hello there.

In lack of a better Category I decided to post in here, I hope I got it right.

First of all, here's my rig:

CPU: i7 950 3.06ghz
GPU: Radeon HD6870
RAM: 6GB DDR3 2000mhz 9-9-9-24-2N
MoBo: Asus Sabertooth X58 (SATA3 and USB 3.0 capable)
Main HDD: X-Raptor 10.000 RPM 16MB Cache, 150 GB Sata1 (Have it for 6 years, seems a bit dodgy at times, does some cranking sound from time to time and I used to have some random reboots which I believe it was due to this)
Storage HDD: WD ElementsUSB 2.0 1TB
Monitor: Samsung P2450 (1920x1080)

I can play with 60 FPS with no problem but everytime I try and fraps at full-size(a must) I hit 5-15 fps. Fraps is set for 30. With this I concluded that my current writing speed is insufficient and that my HDD is my system bottleneck.

My WoW is on my main disk while my fraps is on my storage HDD. I've tried the other way around with no improvements.

I thought of buying something like OCZ IBIS 100GB 3.5" HDSL SSD (Read Speed: 740MB/Sec, Write Speed: 690MB/Sec, Flash: MLC, Controller: 4x SandForce SF-1222, Buffer: 0MB) but I was told that 2 HDDs in RAID0 would give me a better performance than an SSD.

Seeing that my MoBo is SATA3-ready, what would you advice me to get (SSD? HDD? 2xHDD's and RAID0 them?) and where to put my OS, Fraps and game(mainly World of Warcraft) to maximize my performance? Should I keep my 150gb disk too or just my future HDD/SSD and my storage disk?


Thank you in advance

 

[reprotected]

Your hard drive is not the problem. One of my hard drives has an RPM of 7,200, and I can run pretty well at 30 FPS recording. Here are my settings: 29.97 FPS (30+ is useless). Try that.

 

[scotu]

RAID0 will certainly give you much better capacity and write speed per $ than an SSD (actually HDDs by themselves do that), but if you need a TON of write throughput (idk how much you'd actually need for FRAPS @ 1080p) two HDDs in RAID 0 can give you over 200MB/s writes for < $150. If you were going to add another HDD or RAID HDDs, you should just keep your current main drive and add these as additional storage.

It shouldn't really matter where FRAPS or the game is on these Hard drives, just where you write to. Also, iirc, setting FRAPS to a specific frame rate will actually cap the game's playback to that rate, making it unplayable most of the time (unless you set it to 60, and do something like, use virtualdub to reduce it down to a more reasonable size and framerate after recording)

 

[Furial]

@reprotected

29.97 did nothing for me, no reason to do either, same as 30, or 60, keeps me at 5-15. Resolution matters too, on a 24' with video settings on max, I doubt the disk can handle it.

 

[Furial]

@scotu

yes, I meant where should I write FRAPS to, not install it. And with the latest FRAPS version you can now record at 30 while playing at 60, it won't cap you.

So what would the final verdict be?

WD X-Raptor 10.000 RPM 150 GB - OS

RAID0 SATA3 7200 RPM HDD's - Fraps

Storage 1TB disk - WoW + Musics + Movies?

 

[Furial]

After an exhausting research, I've concluded that WD's SATA3 speeds are 126 MB/s, Seagate has 138 MB/s and Hitachi has 1 that might be 207 MB/s (1656mbit/sec according to them).

I feel like I'm paying for the size as they're mainly all 2-3 TB.

Wouldn't I be better off with:

2x SSD OCZ Vertex 60GB Read Speed: 285MB/Sec, Write Speed: 275MB/Sec? They're 115 euros each in comparisson to the 1-2TB 70-120 euro HDDs?

I could use my games in 1 SSD and Fraps dedicated on the other disk and simply just drag the file to my 1TB storage disk when done.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this possibility as it's driving me insane.

 

[scotu]

could do something like RAID0 3 x Samsung Spinpoint 1TBs. That'd give you 3TB of storage with a reasonably wtf write speed, and not break the bank.

 

[Furial]

Nothing was changed and I'm recording with everything on max at 30.0 fps while playing at 60.0... I swear my hardware is cursed.

Regardless, I've ordered the 2 SSD as space is no issue for me at all and this way I'll be able to record at 60 fps.