Dropping framerate when recording games with Bandicam I was umming and arring if this is the right place to post this, however the FAQs say this site applies to software and recording, amongst other things.

I've recently started recording a certain Java based video game on my PC - along with audio commentary - using 32 bit Bandicam and Audacity for microphone input. My computer is as follows:


Windows 8
3GB DDR2 RAM
Core 2 Duo CPU
256MB RAM graphics card (nVidia of some sort, few years old)
120GB 7200RPM SATA drive - OS
1TB 7200RPM SATA drive - Videos


I've been tweaking settings in my graphics control panel and within the game to get the FPS up. Finally I got to the point where I could comfortably record at 30fps. Yesterday, I installed Microsoft Office 2010 and VMWare vSphere for work purposes (sometimes I work from home). These had large installation files and fragmented the machine a bit - I ran a defrag and everything seems OK.

Unfortunately since then, my framerate will start around 40fps when recording and drop over 5-10 minutes to 30-40, then 20-25, then around 10-15 and stay there. This persists even if I stop the recording and start it again; When not recording I have the game set to limit to 60fps, which it sits on quite comfortably. Closing the game and reopening resets the FPS for the next recording.

I did notice Audacity writing its temporary files to the OS drive, so I tried without Audacity - no change. I've monitored the CPU, memory and disk I/O during recording - none of them hit anywhere near their max.

I realise I need to get new hardware and I'm hoping to over Christmas, however until then I'm trying to get this machine to work. Could anyone provide any suggestions to help me get a stable framerate?

If this is not the right place for such a question, please do point me to the right part of Stack Exchange or any external forums you think may help.
You are hitting a bottleneck of some kind - from your description it is hard to see whether it is CPU or I/O based, but things that could well be culprits:


You are only running with 3GB of RAM - this is pretty low. The Java engine can require large amounts of RAM. I play a fair bit of Minecraft and 8GB really helped me out!
A Core 2 Duo is not exactly cutting edge - get a nice fast Quad Core i7 CPU if you want a gaming machine.


Until you upgrade, the following may help:


Your drives should be on separate controllers, otherwise they will have to share the bandwidth.
Reduce screen resolution and graphics depth/quality
Shut down all other applications (including background apps)