Help! This May Be My Last Chance (FFX Recording)

[volntn2000]

Hello to all!

First off I will say PCSX2 is amazing. I have just begun using it and it is fantastic. I have a problem though, and after reading what seems to be 100's of posts and the configuration guide, I am stumped.

I played FFX years ago on the PS2, while my young kids watched. They LOVED it and for some time have asked me to make a "movie" of my gameplay. When I came across PCSX2 and the built in recording options I thought I was on my way. I have an HP Pavillion p6624y, AMD Athlon II 635 Quad core, 8 GB DDR3, 1 TB HD, 500 GB HD, 400 GB HD and an XFX 5670 1 GB Radeon video card. PCSX2-wise, I am running GSDX 3693, the sse2 version.

I have tried all of the included codecs and FRAPs and none seem to allow me to play the game at a decent FPS while recording - the best I have gotten is around 40 FPS. Admittedly, I am trying to record at 720p or a little lower to get a really nice capture. The best codec I have tried so far (for me) has been the x264vfw codec. Gameplay is slow, but the video is crisp. For whatever reason, I cannot get the audio to capture for more than just a few seconds - otherwise I might just try to suffer through it.

So, any help on the following would be GREATLY appreciated
1. Given my setup, what would be the best combo? I am at my wits end.
2. What is the deal with the audio - I just don't understand why its not recording properly. I played non-stop for ~10 minutes and only had about 10 seconds of audio.
3. Is it better to play from the original game or an ISO on the hard drive. I have been using the HD option based on what I have read. Also, it looks like its better to play off of one hard drive while recording on another. This has been what I have been doing based on the posts I have read.

I am REALLY at a loss. I should be in good shape hardware-wise, but it seems like a struggle. Am I just being unrealistic? Thanks again!

[rama]

- About the audio: Are you using SPU2-X to record? The others are untested.
- Playing from the same HDD and recording to another is just perfect, yeah.
Note that you're not HDD speed limited. It's all more of a CPU issue.

Your codec choice is also fine. Make sure you're using the latest version, then try to
play with its settings. (It has multi thread support. Great try for your quad core )

[volntn2000]

- About the audio: Are you using SPU2-X to record? The others are untested.
- Playing from the same HDD and recording to another is just perfect, yeah.
Note that you're not HDD speed limited. It's all more of a CPU issue.

Your codec choice is also fine. Make sure you're using the latest version, then try to
play with its settings. (It has multi thread support. Great try for your quad core )

Thanks for the feedback! I am using SPU2-X to record, which is why its surprising that I am having this problem.

[Shadow Lady]

You can set a lower preset on x264, "faster" should be enough to keep good speed while keeping quality.
No idea about audio, try using the SPU2-X plugin if you aren't already and if you're using it try another one instead.
It's better to play the game from the HDD. (doesn't really matter which you use really, FFX doesn't load constantly so speed difference would be minimal while it seems your CPU is the one having trouble keeping up, if you were using uncompressed record then it'd be on the HDD ).

You could also try to record with a program like FRAPS.

[volntn2000]

Thank you for your help. I am happy to say I finally figured it all out (to some degree). I kept the x264 output and discovered that I have to Browse to the output file to get the wav file to save properly (I was just changing the file name before and that just did not work). Pinnacle did not like the avi file that was saved, so I converted it to divx and added the wav track and it looks like I'm good to go. I have been able to play and record at 48-62 fps and needless to say I'm thrilled with that too. Now, I just hope the kids appreciate what I've gone thru to do this.