Actually... I think everyone just semi gave up on this subject. There are some apps out there that captures full screen games and turn them into movies, or hw2 demo had this in-game 'record' function, which has been axed on the official release and no one could make it work again. But those recording apps usually screw your fps down to almost unplayable rate (obviously very bad in busy times when it already gets slightly laggy with no recording), but I found an app that has no impact whatsoever (at least on my machine with 2ghz pentium dual core with 2gb ram, radeon hd 3850 on winxp sp2, never tested on another machine, but if you bought a comp in the last 1 or 2 years, you might have a comp that is good enough imo) and can record, and encode in a reasonable size with very decent graphic (although the encoder used here is called xvid, which means people need to just download a smaller decoder in order to playback the video, but no biggie imo).

Go to http://www.growlersoftware.com/ and pick up GunCam, it doesn't have the sexiest interface ever, but it does a great job at recording hw2 for real. It's another shareware, so do something about that yourself (but so is fraps which only makes you record 30 seconds on non-registered version...). Still works as a demo version for a few weeks.

The app tells you to install xvid encoder/decoder as well, and just do so. Once it's installed, launch it, go to 'Setup' -> 'Capture Setup' and leave the fps at 15 and set video size to whatever you want (i set mine at 1440 x 900, which is same ratio as my actual display but slightly tinier since I couldnt set it up to 1680x1050 app complaining width has to be less than 1600. So, say if you have 1280 x 1024 display, I guess just use that) and click on 'Capture full screen'.

And in the Setup -> Trigger Setup, set a key to trigger the recording. Maybe just add something like F12, since hw2 doesn't use it.

In Advanced Setup, take out the check on 'esc' at the 'stop capture triggers', since you dont want to have recording stopped by pressing 'esc', press the trigger key to actually stop the recording and leave the rest. If you alt-tab, you have to start recording again when you get back to hw2, since pressing alt-tab will stop recording automatically with this setting and it is safe to keep it that way for vid to work.

But there are few occasions vid flickers all the way through, maybe due to alt-tabbing or pop up on desktop to minimize hw2 even if it was before recording, so, better not let desktop show after hw2 is launched.

You may want to test the sound input at the Sound Setup to see if the sound can be recorded properly.

In the Advanced Setup, you may want to take away the 'Enable 'record on' overlay' option off, if you don't want to see green square indicating the recoding status, but it's nice to have it though, so you won't be playing without recording when you wanted to.

At the Video Export Option, set the destination folders for the recorded vids, and make sure the 'use xvid codec' is chosen.

Once done, minimize the app (which then goes to system tray), launch hw2, and press F12 (or whatever key you set) and hear the sound that tells you recording had started. i had no impact whatsoever while every other (3 or 4 other apps i tried) got my 120 or so fps down to 20 or so to make the game quite laggy, which was just brilliant. then maybe just play a minute or 2, and press F12 again. quit hw2. double click on the system tray icon, you should see an entry in the list of vids, click on that and click on 'preview video' to see if it really worked. if it did, click on 'export video as blah blah...' button on the right. click on 'append selected film' and on the right bottom side, click on 'as AVI'. if you want to put text at the end of the vid, click on the 'use end frame text' and insert some stupid text. now set the quality level to 90 and press OK.

the initial recording will be saved as a file with gcf extension and this will turn into an .avi file with xvid encoding. could take pretty short for just a few min vid, but takes some while when you encode a full 30 min game, but not a big problem when things just work cool.

I asked the author of the app if it could export as a streamable media instead of a simple .avi, since this file has to be downloaded fully before anyone can view it, which is kinda dumb, when 30min vid can be 200mb in size with no streaming capability, if its possible, it'll be even better. I can prolly even host some vids for stream. Or if someone know how to turn an avi format into something streamable without crazy hacks but maybe with a simple convert, I'd want to know that.

The app author even put a decent tip page at trying to increase fps during game, might be worth a read : http://www.growlersoftware.com/fpstips.html

and do NOT ever alt-tab out of game, once you do, the record vid starts to flicker mad until you restart hw2, so shut down those apps that pop up anything during game or record will be wasted. (edit : with the option of stopping recording with alt-tab, it seems to still work, but you have to start recording again, once you come back from it. not too sure when flickering occurs...)

If you just want the xvid decoder to view the vid someone made, go here and get one. (linked from the official http://www.xvid.org/)
http://www.digital-digest.com/software/ ... id=0&did=1

It seems, it's quite heavily relieing on the CPU, so, I guess a few tweaks to do is

- lower capture resolution in the config
- lower capture fps (but going too low will make a laggy vid)
- use another hard disk drive than the disk that has hw2 and windows installed for media storage
- overclock cpu

overall, excellent app, no slowdown, the end result with xvid encoder just rocks, 200mb in 30 min and you can even read the chat text in the game.

-- edit --

All of my records are kept at records/

Ah thank you Hidser! This just what I needed.

umm, like always, the verbosity level increases...
xeno forum seems to be pwned for a while now...

http://tflclan.myfreeforum.org/about1810.html
http://www.aod-homeworld.de/aod_forum/v ... php?p=9140
http://chikens.net/showthread.php?p=76593
http://genesisclan.myfreeforum.org/about333.html
http://www.sobanforce.com/forums/index. ... topic=2713

It is called 'use the registered version of Fraps'...it won't slow down your game, you can set the fps rate to record at, and it has no limits in recording...if u don't have any spare money torrent it up.

Thanks for writing nontheless, I'm sure it will help people out.

You tried it on fraps?

for me, no matter what fps i set for recording (and that is recording fps rate, not setting your game fps obviously...) they all go down to 20 fps or so. and I guess thats still no slowdown, unless you have 8 core cpu or something, then it's pretty unpractical for the many people anyway.

i guess, what you're saying isn't showing what things really are... try both, see if fraps play as smooth as the other one.
and even if it does, i (and others) haven't heard of the possibilty for one time at all, nor heard anyone even recording it in hw2, and that sounds like you (or the whole gens) kept it secret? that may be just fine, but, thanks for coming by

unless you mean, the demo version of fraps is meant to lag and once you get a registered version, it magically starts not to lag. and i heard other people try fraps and lagged too. but oh well, whatever, use fraps if you want.

This program will save a 30 min game in decent sized .avi file (maybe 200mb). Fraps lags ur game and its recordings take up half my hard drive (think more like a few Gigs...).

Despite hid's gigantic post, it's (he's) really all fluf. U can install this program easy and start recording in some 2mins time.

lol... i wrote up all the gotchas and all... not just letting u guys explore it by saying 'heres the app address, hf bye'

anyway, like cloaked said, fraps builds up a massive 40mb every 15 seconds, and im sure you can just do some calculation on how big it will grow for a full game, and the graphic is no better than the xvid version, unless you want to take the time (even if its possible) to re-encode the entire massive chunk fraps produced down to that without degrading on the quality, i don't know what is better when it lags...

oh and stop stealing apps on torrents or telling people to

The demo version of Fraps lags your game along with the other limitations, but it's useful for getting short footage to make into a music video of something. The registered version doesn't so lag at all far I have noticed, you can just have it on all the time and play the game without any lag it all. It is true however that a full recorded game (say, 30 mins)with Fraps usually takes up 2-3 gig or more. You press F9 to start recording, press F9 again once you want to stop it. The footage will automatically be stored in .AVI format (or another format, most likely .WMV) in your C:/Fraps folder. No need to convert footage first, you record it and it's ready for use.

I'll have to check your program Hideki, does it have any limitations like watermark shown atop the video?

i have much better proposal: send eMails to Relic, to finally come up with a Patch v1.2 that adds Game-Recording!

I know, i've tried fraps demo enough to think it doesn't do what i wanted to do, if the registered version works good (which can be odd, if they made demo suck this bad, they aren't really catching people's attention, at least i wasn't going to pay for fraps...), then that's cool, yet, the re-encoding process of making it shrink to some usable state would be quite a job anyway. (this guncam thing needs to re-encode after the record too, but since it's built-in, it's quite easy, with preview and edit functions and outcome is just very good imo with minimal hassle)

the app doesn't have any watermarks (until the trial period expires in a few weeks), though it has text shown on the last frame, which is nothing, you can even add your own along with it.
here's a sample (20mb - right click for 'save as').

records/record-demo.avi

oh and thomas, you can go back to your cave now i guess the truth of the world is too harsh for your dream... gl for exam anyway