Guild Wars 2 frapsing at max quality 1080p. i5 2500k?

[Guest]

Hi, right now my setup consists of my sig. Currently debating purchasing a large hard drive to record GW2 on near max settings (probably everything maxed but reflections as this takes about a 10-20 FPS hit on my current setup. I want to be able to record with very minimal stress to my system to the point where it does not affect my play as much as it does. Will a 2500k be able to accomplish that? I will be ordering a 7200RPM 1-2TB drive. GW2 will be on my Samsung 830. Right now I can record, however it does disrupt my "skill" at times where FPS drops can happen. The venomous X will of course be transferred to whichever CPU I get and overclocked to the max

Edit: Why do signatures not always post?
~ AMD Phenom II x6 1090t @4.0GHz - Asus Crosshair IV Formula - 2x4GB Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3 @1600MHz - Radeon HD6950 - Asus Xonar Essence STX - Samsung 830 SSD - Antec TPQ 850w - TR Venomous X - Lancool K62 ~

 

[jpardo2]

If you really want to record the right way with less restrictions on performance and fps, I'd buy a capture card. They are moderately priced and can be found from many online retailers like newegg, amazon and tigerdirect.

As far as your setup, you'd be fine with your 1090T. The 2500k is a great chip, probably the most well known processor that Intel has made in the last few years. The 6950 has plenty of muscle as well, and with the capture card it will not suffer nearly as much as recording in house.

Many capture cards will get the job done for a mere $100-$150 USD. It's like having a DVR for your cable TV, really no performance lost while recording and watching simultaneously. Good luck!

 

[Guest]

I was thinking about that. Either way I think I'd like a new chip to fully max out the game. Is there anything that would absolutely dominate what's out to the general market? What people are buying most of (2500ks), is there something that one-ups it by a decent margin? I don't really have a budget however I'm not burning cash on a near-useless extreme CPU from intel. Do you have any reccomendations for capture cards? How exactly are those set up? Are they easy to set up? And does it take the place of fraps or is it an extra program to run along side of it?

 

[jpardo2]

The 2500k is a great chip, very recommended for many different solutions such as gaming, multimedia, video/photo editing and lots of other things. The 3570k is it's bigger brother, and for an extra 20$ I personally think it's worth it in the long run. It has around 10-15% more performance at stock clocks, and also features hyper-threading which is a good feature to have, not something you need. Newer software is starting to take advantage of hyper threading, and the performance potential for applications that can take advantage of it will get better with time. If money really isn't an object, and don't want the 3930k or X series, the next best Intel chip is the 3770k ($350 range I think) and next in line is the 2700k ($320ish).
Both of those are great chips for the money, if you want to spend $250 or under I'd go with the 2600k or 2500k (no hyperthreading).

As far as capture cards go I've never owned one, I'd recommend going to a reputable retailer like newegg or amazon and search for capture cards and select the "Best Reviews" filter after you search, or the "Most Reviews" filter. Based on what I see on Newegg.com, these are the top selections:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116065

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100098

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116030

Some of them require you have a sound card installed as well, all depends on which one you buy. Some of them record up to 1080i (kind of a big deal, I'd prefer 1080p).
The PCI x1 solutions are probably the fastest performers since they are able to use a greater deal of bandwidth on the PCI slot vs USB. Just do your homework, when you find one you like, google it for more reviews (youtube unboxing/reviews too). Good luck.

 

[Guest]

A lot of things I'm reading about these is that I pretty much need another PC to use it. Isn't there a way to install it in mine and only use mine? I notice that it has cables to hook up to a monitor, which is how this all works I suppose. Meaning it's impossible without some wonky setup or? Definitely not interested in investing in another comp, monitor, or something of the like. If it's not possible with a single setup then I'll probably get a 3770k.

 

[jpardo2]

The 3770k is a great chip, you won't be disappointed.

 

[super-smashman]

Ok, well not many people seem to know this but you can easily make FRAPS run 10x better by saving the video files to a different drive than the game is being loaded from.

Super important.

When I record to my 3 HDD array my fps doesn't change. It shows 60 but if you snuck up on me and pressed record while playing I wouldn't notice.

 

[Guest]

Already stated in OP that I would be doing that.

 

[super-smashman]

Yeah then that should solve your issues.

I went from "Ugh screw this I can't even see when I turn"

to

"Wait... is it recording..? Oh yeah it's red!"

 

[Guest]

I already had another hard drive of which I've recorded to. Still not good enough for my liking. I'm very picky with performance. Question is will a 3770k actually do any good vs a 2500k. Reviews spout all over the place that it's not worth it. However I can't find anything on it about recording while gaming.

 

[super-smashman]

... Then the answer is no. You need faster storage. If you think recording is bound mostly by CPU cycles think again. It's bound by your storage drive trying to cram GB of data in seconds to it.

You wont notice any difference between 3770k and 2500k.

 

[Guest]

I'm not saying it's CPU bound. I'm saying having other drives to record off of isn't a solution for me with my current chip without wasting a ton of money into a lot of hard drives that are useless for anything other than recording. I don't want to buy tons of product and then later on possibly not use it and have it sit there as empty storage space as I already have a very capable SSD for my needs. I'm ok with buying a capture card and a new CPU/Mobo, but not tons of hard drives to go along with it.

I do take a bit of an FPS dip when I record, enough to put me under 60 fairly often because I can just barely hold 60 FPS with the 1090T as it is. The point I'm getting at is I would like better game performance in general as well which does definitely require a new chip. As for which one, is what I'm wondering and why. I know for a fact the 2500k smokes the 1090T. The question is, is there anything better than that without going to extremes to give me more of a performance boost for recording and gaming. And the second question being is there such a thing as a capture card I can simply install on my current setup without extra hardware (another monitor/system etc) for it to do its job, because if that is the case I will deal with my current chip and buy one of those because it would be a very cheap way out for what it is.

As for 3770k vs 2500k do you have any information on it? From what I'm seeing the 2500k will overclock higher, that often doesn't translate into a lot more performance as diminishing returns happen pretty quick on clock speeds it seems. In terms of real world performance how doesn't the extra cache on the 3770k and the idea that it's more efficient not put it above the 2500k for overall performance considering I'm not just staring at gaming benchmarks.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Honestly I don't think a CPU upgrade is worth it for you.

 

[super-smashman]

I'm not saying it's CPU bound. I'm saying having other drives to record off of isn't a solution for me with my current chip without wasting a ton of money into a lot of hard drives that are useless for anything other than recording. I don't want to buy tons of product and then later on possibly not use it and have it sit there as empty storage space as I already have a very capable SSD for my needs.

Who said anything about "a lot of hard drives"?

All you'd need is a FASTER drive (read:SSD). As long as its not the same drive that current game/OS is running of of, you will get a dramatic increase in Fraps performance. You don't need more than one extra drive. An extremely cheap and small SSD will work amazingly.

The point I'm getting at is I would like better game performance in general as well which does definitely require a new chip.

If you aren't CPU bound, you do not need a new CPU. Period. You're mistaken in thinking your CPU has anything to do with that drop in performance.

The question is, is there anything better than that without going to extremes to give me more of a performance boost for recording and gaming.

Want better gaming? Get a better graphics card.
Want better recording? Get a faster secondary storage drive.

 

[Guest]

MMOs are very often CPU bound. Not GPU bound. GW2 is in fact CPU bound, to the point of which they even state it that it's very heavily so. It's not a simple better graphics performance = better gaming for most MMOs and honestly it gets really annoying when I see people giving horrible information like "buy a better GPU for more frames!" when these people are playing things such as WoW and Rift. Buying an SSD would be a massive waste of money as would multiple hard drives. I'm not buying $400-$500 worth of storage when it's not going to solve my problem. I need and want a new chip, there's no question to it. A 6950 is plenty of GPU power. Recording is just barely good enough with what I have, but I know it can be better through a different chip due to the 100% fact that I can't get what I want out of the game with my current chip WITH or WITHOUT recording.

 

[esrever]

Guild wars 2 currently has horrible net code and is not very optimized. It will not really be perfectly smooth even with the 2500k.

 

[Guest]

Of course not. But it should be a big difference from a 1090t.

 

[super-smashman]

Buying an SSD would be a massive waste of money as would multiple hard drives. I'm not buying $400-$500 worth of storage when it's not going to solve my problem.

Lol, where do you live where storage costs this much?!

A $60 Vertex 2 is all you'd need. Where are you getting this notion that storage is expensive? Its just not. You don't need more than a handful of GB to record if you encode and dump the files after each session. I've never deleted a raw out of my recording folder and I'm sitting on 105GB.

Go ahead and get your 2500k but don't be surprised when nothing changes.

Also you should run desktop meters so you can see where the bottlenecking is happening and when.