S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Xfire vs. Fraps Video Capture

The Issue:

You are a gamer. You think it would be cool to capture gameplay videos and post them on video sharing sites like youtube. The question is: what software should i use to capture video inside of my games?

Well, you can probably imagine that your framerates will significantly decrease once you start recording with any program, but which one works the best? If recording drops your framerates down into the teens, or lower, you won’t even be able to play the game.

The Test:

I ran a test in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to see what sort of toll both Fraps and Xfire video capture take on your game performance. I used the same setting for both programs (Half size, 60fps). Here are the results:

There is a very noticeable difference between the two programs.  The game’s framerate took a huge hit with both programs, though Xfire was quite a bit worse.

The Verdict: 

Now I love Xfire, I think it is a wonderful tool that all gamers should have, but it’s video capture is not quite up to par performance wise. Xfire video has it’s pros though. If you already use Xfire, you don’t need any other software, its FREE, and it can upload videos to the web automatically. Fraps on the other hand is not a free program, but is specialized to capture video, so you will see better performance out of Fraps. If you want the best, go buy Fraps, but remember, Xfire video is still new, and will improve over time.  The choice is yours, this article was only designed to help you decide.