Problems With FRAPS and KSP

[turkwinif]

Hello, I was considering making a tutorial video on how to get to orbit, land on the Mun, going interplanetary, docking, etc., since it seems that a good-sized group of people have trouble with those things. I own FRAPS, so I tried recording KSP with it. It drops the FPS down to 5-10 (FPS drops everywhere: Main menu screen, VAB, launching, space) from the usual 20-25 FPS (~100 part ship launching). Do you guys know what the problem is? I suspect limited RAM, but it could be something else.

My specs:

Display adapter (I assume this means Graphics Card) (Device Manager): AMD Radeon HD 7520G

CPU/Processor (Device Manager/Task Manager): Dual-core AMD A6-4400M APU with Radeon HD Graphics

Max Speed (Task Manager): 2.70 GHz

(jumps to 100% usage during KSP and recording, may be limited by CPU now that I look at it)

Only have about 70 processes running right now.

RAM (says Memory in Task Manager, assuming it's RAM): 4 GB DDR3 (only 3.5 GB can be used)

Speed (Task Manager): 1600 MHz

In use (during KSP and FRAPS recording): 2.9 GB

Slots used (no idea what this means, but I'll include it anyways): 1 of 2

I have a sneaking suspicion that my CPU is limiting my KSP experience (and recording). Looking at this data, would you guys happen to know why my FPS drops like mad when I try to record with FRAPS? And if you need any other information, or if I've given the wrong information, please let me know.

(One more question: KSP is limited to 4 GB RAM, right? So, if I got a little bit more RAM, a better CPU, and a slightly better graphics card, should I be able to run KSP more smoothly? Say, a good 50 FPS?)

EDIT: Oops, forgot to include mods I use!

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

Kerbal Alarm Clock

ANOTHER EDIT: I will be using a clean install for the tutorials (no mods).

If this is in the wrong forum, could you please move it?

Edited January 7, 2014 by turkwinif

[hotmailcompany52]

Have you tried running on lower graphics in KSP and you should install texture compression mod for KSP?

[Vargson]

I think your problems are likely due to the graphics card (the 7520G is very slow) and maybe due to the CPU, too. KSP is a 32bit Process and is able to use up to 3.6 GB of RAM. Would RAM be a Problem, KSP would crash.

FRAPS is a real performance killer. I am not sure what would be the better option in your case.

Regarding better hardware, when I am back at home, I can perform some testing and try to determine where KSP needs the most power. Although, I guess other users may have done that already. Searching through the forums might help in this regard.

[sjwt]

Fraps will drop your frame rate, how much is usually determined by your free hard drive access bandwidth. It writes a hell of a lot of data, check your resources monitor to see if anything else is eating your HDD access at the time.

Check you are running the latest version of FRAPS and your video card drivers, at one stage I updated my drivers and lost the ability to record KSP at all.

Try dropping your recording settings down, best option is to lower it to half video size that gives you a 4 fold increase in performance, you can also enter a lower frame rate such as 20.

Good luck

[Lannister_International]

I'm afraid your PC looks a bit underpowered for what you want to do. Especially seems how other you tubers will be recording on MAX settings at full 1080.

It's a shame you don't have an Nvida card for Shadow Play capture. I notice 5 fps drop max with that.

Even if you used another PC to capture (with a card) 20 -25 FPS isn't the best to start with.

I just realised that your trying to do this from a laptop?!? (Your graphics card & proc aren't great to be honest).

If this is the kind of thing you want to do properly, I'm afraid you'll have to spend a lot of money on a high end laptop or spend a large sum on a mid-rig of some kind.

Sorry for super unhelpful advise.