Video capture hardware or software

[scottmd52]

I'm just looking into recording game play on my pc and want to know what I should get, hw or sw. Ive read about a program called FRAPS to install for recording video of game play, but there's a lot of argument about lost fps. If I am just starting, do I really need to worry about losing some fps? Next, if I should go with a hw solution, what should I buy? Again, just starting so not looking at a$1000 solution, something reasonable, decent? Any help much appreciated.

 

[scorpinock2]

Look into camtasia, it uses extremely low resources when recording.

 

[scottmd52]

Look into camtasia, it uses extremely low resources when recording.

Anything in the under $100 level? I use Camtasia at work, but it's at the same cost as the hardware solution mentioned above.

 

[Sunius]

MSI afterburner. It's free.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

 

[scottmd52]

The MSI option is interesting but it sounds like it would require an MSI video card?

 

[Sunius]

Nop. It doesn't.