How to Record Dota Game Using Fraps
Capturing your Dota matches requires a balance between visual fidelity and system performance. Having spent years refining my own recording workflows, I’ve found that Fraps remains a reliable, low-latency tool for capturing raw, high-quality footage. Below is a technical breakdown of how to configure Fraps for optimal results in Dota.
Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
What do the options do?
Selecting "Start Fraps minimized" keeps your taskbar clean; the program remains accessible via the system tray icon.
"Fraps window always on top" is useful for monitoring settings during setup, though it becomes inactive once minimized to the tray.
Enable "Run Fraps when Windows starts" if you want to ensure you are ready to capture the moment you launch your game.
Fraps supports hardware integration, such as the Logitech® G15™ keyboard LCD. If you own a G15, enabling "Display status on keyboard LCD" allows you to monitor FPS graphs without overlaying them on your game screen. If this option is missing, ensure you have installed the latest G15 drivers from the official Logitech support portal.
Does Fraps have a performance impact on the game?
Yes, there is a minor overhead when drawing the framerate counter. To gauge this on your specific hardware, run a benchmark in a controlled environment with and without Fraps active. Note that the overlay automatically disables during benchmarking to prevent skewed data. When recording full-motion video, expect a higher performance hit, as the software must write significant amounts of uncompressed data to your storage drive in real-time.
FPS (Frames Per Second)
What do the options do?
The Overlay Display Hotkey toggles your FPS counter. I recommend placing this in a corner that doesn't interfere with the Dota HUD (usually the top-left or top-right).
The Benchmarking Hotkey is essential for performance testing. Pressing this logs the average framerate between two points. Note that "Save frame rate to file each second" was removed in Fraps 2.7.0; use the detailed statistics option instead, which generates CSV files for FPS, frametimes, and min/max/avg values in your benchmarks directory.
How can I average the framerate between two points?
Press your assigned Benchmarking Hotkey to start. A green indicator confirms logging has begun, and the counter will vanish to ensure the most accurate reading. Press the key again to stop. The average will display in a red box, and full data will be saved to FRAPSLOG.TXT.
Why doesn’t Fraps show above 30fps, 60fps, 75 fps (or any other framerate) in my game?
This is usually due to Vsync or internal game engine caps. Vsync synchronizes your GPU output with your monitor's refresh rate (e.g., 60Hz). While disabling Vsync can show higher FPS, it often causes "tearing." For the smoothest recording experience, I recommend keeping Vsync enabled during standard play.
Screen Capture Questions
What do the options do?
You can define a custom folder for your screenshots. Fraps supports BMP, JPG, PNG, and TGA formats. If you want to document your performance alongside your stats, keep "Include frame rate overlay on screenshots" checked; otherwise, disable it for clean images. Fraps supports resolutions up to 2560x1600.
Video Capture Questions
What do the options do?
Full-size capture records at your native game resolution, while Half-size reduces the resolution to save disk space. For Dota, I suggest choosing your desired frame rate (30 or 60fps). Use "Detect best sound input" for the most reliable audio capture.
Why is the AVI movie generated by Fraps so big? How can I reduce the size?
Fraps records with minimal compression to ensure the game doesn't stutter, resulting in large files. You must post-process these files. I recommend using VirtualDub or tmpgenc to compress your AVI files into formats like DivX or MPEG.
To compress with VirtualDub:
If you encounter a "source format error" with DivX, ensure you set the codec to "Unconstrained Profile" in the configuration screen.
When I view the movie I saved the video skips and the sound crackles. What's wrong?
This is typically a playback issue, not a recording issue. Your media player may struggle to read the high-bitrate raw file. Once you encode the video into a compressed format, the playback issues should resolve. If you continue to have trouble, ensure your audio input in the Windows Control Panel (Sounds and Audio Devices) is set to "Stereo Mixer" or "What U Hear."
Where can I find the custom Fraps FPS1 codec?
The FPS1 codec is installed automatically with Fraps. If you share raw footage with others, they must also have Fraps installed to view the files correctly.
Guide link:
Record Your Dota Game and Publish it to Youtube
Download link:
FRAPS 3.0.3 Setup (2.0 MB)
Capturing your Dota matches requires a balance between visual fidelity and system performance. Having spent years refining my own recording workflows, I’ve found that Fraps remains a reliable, low-latency tool for capturing raw, high-quality footage. Below is a technical breakdown of how to configure Fraps for optimal results in Dota.
Frequently Asked Questions
- General
- FPS (Frames Per Second)
- Screen Capture
- Video Capture
General Questions
What do the options do?
Selecting "Start Fraps minimized" keeps your taskbar clean; the program remains accessible via the system tray icon.
"Fraps window always on top" is useful for monitoring settings during setup, though it becomes inactive once minimized to the tray.
Enable "Run Fraps when Windows starts" if you want to ensure you are ready to capture the moment you launch your game.
Fraps supports hardware integration, such as the Logitech® G15™ keyboard LCD. If you own a G15, enabling "Display status on keyboard LCD" allows you to monitor FPS graphs without overlaying them on your game screen. If this option is missing, ensure you have installed the latest G15 drivers from the official Logitech support portal.
Does Fraps have a performance impact on the game?
Yes, there is a minor overhead when drawing the framerate counter. To gauge this on your specific hardware, run a benchmark in a controlled environment with and without Fraps active. Note that the overlay automatically disables during benchmarking to prevent skewed data. When recording full-motion video, expect a higher performance hit, as the software must write significant amounts of uncompressed data to your storage drive in real-time.
FPS (Frames Per Second)
What do the options do?
The Overlay Display Hotkey toggles your FPS counter. I recommend placing this in a corner that doesn't interfere with the Dota HUD (usually the top-left or top-right).
The Benchmarking Hotkey is essential for performance testing. Pressing this logs the average framerate between two points. Note that "Save frame rate to file each second" was removed in Fraps 2.7.0; use the detailed statistics option instead, which generates CSV files for FPS, frametimes, and min/max/avg values in your benchmarks directory.
How can I average the framerate between two points?
Press your assigned Benchmarking Hotkey to start. A green indicator confirms logging has begun, and the counter will vanish to ensure the most accurate reading. Press the key again to stop. The average will display in a red box, and full data will be saved to FRAPSLOG.TXT.
Why doesn’t Fraps show above 30fps, 60fps, 75 fps (or any other framerate) in my game?
This is usually due to Vsync or internal game engine caps. Vsync synchronizes your GPU output with your monitor's refresh rate (e.g., 60Hz). While disabling Vsync can show higher FPS, it often causes "tearing." For the smoothest recording experience, I recommend keeping Vsync enabled during standard play.
Screen Capture Questions
What do the options do?
You can define a custom folder for your screenshots. Fraps supports BMP, JPG, PNG, and TGA formats. If you want to document your performance alongside your stats, keep "Include frame rate overlay on screenshots" checked; otherwise, disable it for clean images. Fraps supports resolutions up to 2560x1600.
Video Capture Questions
What do the options do?
Full-size capture records at your native game resolution, while Half-size reduces the resolution to save disk space. For Dota, I suggest choosing your desired frame rate (30 or 60fps). Use "Detect best sound input" for the most reliable audio capture.
Why is the AVI movie generated by Fraps so big? How can I reduce the size?
Fraps records with minimal compression to ensure the game doesn't stutter, resulting in large files. You must post-process these files. I recommend using VirtualDub or tmpgenc to compress your AVI files into formats like DivX or MPEG.
To compress with VirtualDub:
- Open your raw AVI file.
- Go to Video -> Compression and select your preferred codec (e.g., DivX).
- Save as a new AVI file.
If you encounter a "source format error" with DivX, ensure you set the codec to "Unconstrained Profile" in the configuration screen.
When I view the movie I saved the video skips and the sound crackles. What's wrong?
This is typically a playback issue, not a recording issue. Your media player may struggle to read the high-bitrate raw file. Once you encode the video into a compressed format, the playback issues should resolve. If you continue to have trouble, ensure your audio input in the Windows Control Panel (Sounds and Audio Devices) is set to "Stereo Mixer" or "What U Hear."
Where can I find the custom Fraps FPS1 codec?
The FPS1 codec is installed automatically with Fraps. If you share raw footage with others, they must also have Fraps installed to view the files correctly.
Guide link:
Record Your Dota Game and Publish it to Youtube
Download link:
FRAPS 3.0.3 Setup (2.0 MB)