Low CPU Real time Video Encoding

[striker9]

Hello,

I'm trying to Record my screen while I'm playing Games, Now I know these kinds of programs already exists, for example 'Fraps'.
But I've figured out how VirtualDub is able to record your screen with much better quality.

i've been looking for a while for a good codec to use, as XVID realtime encoding with a heavy 3d Game running at thesame time isnt a good combination, I'm looking for a Codec that doesnt take much CPU to encode. It doesnt need to be compressed that much, as it will be re-rendered later on.

I'm recording at 1120x700 with 25 fps.


Thanks,
Striker

Edit:
I've been trying PicVideo MJPEG. It still eats alot of CPU at my resolution/fps.

[Baldrick]

I guess it will be hard to find such a codec. You could try huffyuv and lagarith but as they don't compress much at all they use lot of hdd and it takes some cpu.

[jagabo]

PicVideo MJPEG has about the lowest CPU usage of all the high compression codecs. Divx at its fastest setting is pretty fast too, much faster than Xvid at its fastest. Both of those are on par with HuffYUV but they allow you to compress more, thereby reducing disk I/O too.

[striker9]

I've installed HuffYUV, but it seems to only support 24-bit color depth, and my game/desktop is 32-bit, thus this codec doesnt seem compatible for my setup.

lagarith works fine, but it uses about 20% more CPU then PicVideo mJPEG.

I'm now gonna try jagabo's suggestion and try DivX and try to find out its fastest settings, ill be back with the results.

One more note, Disk I/O isnt a problem, as its a reserved hard drive only for video.

Thanks for the help,
Striker

[striker9]

Ok, DivX it is, it uses about ~35% less CPU Then PicVideo mJPEG.

I wouldve never guessed this codec wouldve had this much speed since its used in alot in high quality avi's
Also the files are much much smaller then the other codec's I tried.

I'm gonna try recording at my FULL screen resolution now (1680x1050). Ill edit this post with results.
Edit for results: Takes the CPU usage back to levels where it starts to disturb the game, It works great at 2/3 of my resolution (1120x700) and im gonna keep it that way.

Once again thanks for the help,
Striker