How to record PC games with High Quality.

FULL TEXT TUTORIAL IN DESCRIPTION :D

I Used Camtasia itself to actually record my screen.

Please let me know what you think, i put quite a bit of time into this.

First of all, what you want to download is Camtasia Studio 7 and the newest version of Fraps(Prefferably cracked so you don't have a water mark in the way)

You can find both of theese programs on HF, torrents, or WBB(Warez-bb)

You will need a pretty good PC to record games while you play them, I can, but i just use theatre mode in black ops for my recordings most of the time(Less FPS lag)

By good PC I mean 4GB ram, quad core processor, and beast ass GFX card.
I also recommend that you have more than one hard drive, when you record on the same hard drive that your game is on and you're trying to record live gameplay, it will cause some FPS lag.
Why you ask? Because the game is writing bits to the hard drive and so is Fraps, however Fraps does it at a much higher rate since it records uncompressed AVI's, and the files are massive. When i record in 1080p(1920x1080, my native res) just 1.27 seconds of gameplay is 3.90 GB.

This is where the 4GB of ram comes in handy.
When you try to render out your videos in camtasia using uncompressed AVI's, it will do 3 things. The video preview will lag. Sometimes it will render out 100%, and produce no video file. And sometimes it just won't render. If that happens, try closing camtasia, then re-opening it. If that fails, you WILL have to restart your PC for it to render out properly. While your video is rendering, DON'T DO ANYTHING ON YOUR PC. Sometimes that will fuck up your video render.

Another fix for this common problem is to use a program called "Easy H264"
If you decide to do that then i'll teach you how. Note: This is also somewhat time consuming.

Leave all of the settings alone on the bottom. Select your file, and select where your output file will be and what it will be named.
The only problem i have with this program is the fact that you have to do that for every single video you're converting.
Other than that it's a very reliable programs and easy to use, i highly suggest doing this for much longer videos(commentaries, etc)

For fraps, when you install it, use theese settings for non live gameplay(Eg. theatre mode recordings in games like Black Ops or demo recordings for games like CS:S, Cod2, Etc.)
Click "Movies" tab
Set "Video Capture Hotkey" To a key you don't use often and won't accidentally press or whatever key you feel comfortable using.
Click the "Record Win7 Sound" box and use Stereo(Better quality, 320khz)
Under "Video Capture Settings" Use 30 FPS and the Full-Size options.
If you're recording live gameplay i suggest doing one of two things.

Lower your monitor AND game res to 1280x720 or if your monitor won't do that res use 1366x768 and render it in 720p.

Or use the Half Size option, your quality will diminish greatly, but it will get the job done. to get 480p using the half size option, set your monitor/game res to (again) and render. If you didn't use the half-size option then set the res to 1280x720, also known as 720p.

Now it's time to go record some sweet ass gameplay. Go and do that, and then open up Camtasia Studio.

Import your video file to Camtasia, put it in the timeline. When you put it in the timeline, it will ask you to set the res. If you recorded it live using the half sized option, just press "Recording Dimensions" and use that setting. For videos you recorded at 1280x720, use the recording dimensions again. If you recorded at 1366x768, then again, use 1280x720p. Fucking classy yo. Now turn the volume down to 80% for just standard game clips that you're uploading, if you're doing a commentary or montage i suggest turning it down to about 15-20%. To turn the volume on the clip down, just click on the audio tab just above the clip timeline.

Now that you've done that, save your project, do NOT render it out yet.
You never know what will happen so it's always a good idea to save your progress instead of loosing all your hard work in camtasia.

Now that it's saved, go ahead and render your video out. Don't forget to save :p. Click produce and share on the toolbar on the top, and find the option that says "Web", it produces the best quality videos. Now render that shit out. Usually videos that are like 1-2 minutes don't take long, but longer videos(5+ minutes) will take some time. I must state this again, DO NOT DO ANYTHING WHILE YOUR VIDEO RENDERS. Step away from your PC and do something in the meantime.

Now that your video is done rendering, watch it. Make sure your video didn't fuck up during the render and make sure everything is as it should be.

Upload to youtube and enjoy.

Please tell me if this helped and feel free to ask me questions.