Amarec - Frame Dropping

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-12-28 05:02:43 pm

2012-10-28 12:05:35 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Hey all. I've been using Amarec for a while and its been working pretty consistently. But for some reason now, the preview just doesn't show up anymore, and the top showed it kept cycling through inputs. I an using a Dazzle DVC 100 with composite video. When I opened the settings to change the input to composite (or to no input like I had before when it was working) the preview showed up on the window. I also tried hitting the graph button on the recording window, which when I had it set to composite actually worked until I tried to record.

Then I figured something else out about this problem - I f I have input set to composite, the exact times when the preview is shown or the recording actually records are the times when the recording window is NOT in the foreground or focus. In other words, I need to leave the recording window open, but I have to right click, or open up the settings menu, or open up anything else and just click on that. I can record fine like this, but I think I should be able to fix the problem somehow, it seems strange that its behaving like this. Any suggestions?

Thread title:

Hey all. I've been using Amarec for a while and its been working pretty consistently. But for some reason now, the preview just doesn't show up anymore, and the top showed it kept cycling through inputs. I an using a Dazzle DVC 100 with composite video. When I opened the settings to change the input to composite (or to no input like I had before when it was working) the preview showed up on the window. I also tried hitting the graph button on the recording window, which when I had it set to composite actually worked until I tried to record.

Then I figured something else out about this problem - I f I have input set to composite, the exact times when the preview is shown or the recording actually records are the times when the recording window is NOT in the foreground or focus. In other words, I need to leave the recording window open, but I have to right click, or open up the settings menu, or open up anything else and just click on that. I can record fine like this, but I think I should be able to fix the problem somehow, it seems strange that its behaving like this. Any suggestions?

honorableJay

2012-10-29 01:32:23 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Try making a backup of the amarec.ini file (which stores all of the settings) and delete the main one. You'll have to setup the program again like it's your first time running it, but if any options you chose are the culprit this will fix them. If not, you can just copy the backed up file into the main amarec folder and you're back to where you started.

Ghostwheel

2012-11-04 12:41:07 am

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Thanks, that worked. I guess I just somehow screwed with something I shouldn't have in the end. I'm still just baffled though as to what really happened. I can't think of anything that would cause that and I'm curious.

honorableJay

2012-11-04 10:56:32 am

The Dork Knight himself.

I'd simply assume Amarec wrote something wrong into it's own ini. At least the damage wasn't permanent.

Ghostwheel

2012-11-04 04:12:19 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Ok, thanks. One more thing, its not major but I keep dropping frames at places, in groups of 30-60. It probably happens once every 30 minutes, and I think its probably just a computer thing (even though I'm on high performance and not running anything else). But is there anything else I can do to try and eliminate it? I already tried raising the buff size and setting priority to realtime.

nate

2012-11-04 05:20:00 pm

try setting priority not to realtime but to highest and buffer size to the maximum you can reasonably provide given the amount of ram you have installed.

honorableJay

2012-11-05 08:10:14 am

The Dork Knight himself.

Not sure if you're doing this already, but you can also try recording all game footage to a secondary drive that Windows isn't installed to.

Ghostwheel

2012-11-05 11:10:36 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Ok, I'll set priority to IDOL (for some reason I thought realtime was highest) and I have 4 GB of ram, so what buff size would that correspond to? Should I just raise it until I have problems? And I don't have an external hard drive, but I have a 16 GB flash drive, which should hold about 50 min of video. I'll try and start using that, and when I get around to recording next, I'll let you know how it goes.

honorableJay

2012-11-06 11:20:43 am

The Dork Knight himself.

A flash drive might not be the best to use. The space isn't an issue, but the data transfer rates are going to cause a lot of stutter and dropped frames.

nate

2012-11-06 02:52:26 pm

"realtime" is the highest priority but you will prevent other things from running that you may need to run so it's probably not a good idea.

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-08 08:42:01 pm

2012-11-07 11:20:43 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

You know, that flash drive comment just made me realize why virtualdub was probably failing as hard as it did. Every single time I recorded I recorded to that flash drive and I always got stutter. Never though that was the problem haha. I'll get to recording tomorrow, and try and fix the Amarec problems though, as in general I like Amarec better anyway.

Edit: Ok, so I'm on priority idol, and at 1024 MB buff size, any higher and it just gives me "AV2 Create" and stops recording, which I assume means I've exceeded the reasonable limit for the ram I have. The dropping is much less frequent, like one second an hour. Over the entire time I was recording tonight I dropped 120 or so frames in two bursts. I shelled out for a Dazzle a couple of years ago, but an external hard drive on top of that seems a little pricy. If there is nothing else to try, I'll just live with what I've got, because its really not too big a deal.

nate

2012-11-08 08:59:48 pm

why are you on idle priority? that will allow pretty much any other program to ruin your day.

how much ram do you have?

Ghostwheel

2012-11-08 11:54:47 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

4 GB (3.43 usable). So what priority should I be on? Normal? What did you mean by highest before if not realtime and not IDOL?

Tranquilite

2012-11-09 12:40:37 am

Just set priority to one step below realtime, which would be just 'high'. 'Above normal' would probably be fine too.

nate

2012-11-09 03:30:11 pm

iirc it goes:

realtime (does not allow anything else to run)
highest
higher
normal
low
lower
idle (must allow anything else to run)

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-09 11:12:49 pm

2012-11-09 06:05:20 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

I have 4 options, and this is exactly what it looks like:

IDOL
NORMAL
High
realtime

I also just realized one other thing... There is a check box next to the priority header. So your priority preferences don't even apply unless you check that box? Well that explains a few things then. Like why being on realtime or IDOL seemed to minimally affect things. I'll try checking it and putting it on high.

Edit: I just managed to produce two segments, and neither of them had more than 2 or 3 dropped frames, so I'll take that as the situation probably improving. I still lose a second or so sometimes though, and the problem never seems to go away completely. Because it only happens sometimes, its tough to tell whether my chances are getting better. Anything else I can try?

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2012-11-10 03:38:59 am

Tranquilite: 2012-11-10 03:37:50 am

2012-11-10 03:34:33 am

Odd, the priority settings for me are as follows:
Realtime
High
Above Normal
Normal Below Normal
Low

EDIT: Oh wait, there are also settings for priority inside Amarec's Config, which is why you only have IDOL, NORMAL, High, Realtime settings available. Just FYI, you can also set priority of any process in the task manager.

Attachment:

Priorities.png

Ghostwheel

2012-11-10 06:07:12 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Oh wow haha. That's too much, I can't believe that's the source of the misunderstanding. Well I'll try that too. Might as well, you know.

Ghostwheel

2012-12-28 05:01:49 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Sorry to bring up this topic again, but I'm trying to record a 30 minute segment right now, and its almost impossible to pull off without getting some ugly frame dropping. I still losing about 30-60 frames over the course of the session. I still can't afford an external hard drive, so other than that, do you guys have any suggestions?

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2012-12-28 05:51:00 pm

2012-12-28 05:50:37 pm

If you cant get yourself another hard drive, and seeing as how we've tried every other sane way to increase performance, then I have two suggestions which might make things a bit better for you.
1) Free up as much space as you reasonably can on your drive (don't delete anything important though).
2) Defragment your harddrive using something like Defraggler.

This is the last thing I can think of to increase performance without buying anything.

Ghostwheel

2012-12-28 10:32:36 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

I've never heard of defragmenting before. Just read up a little bit on it, and it was slightly helpful. But I'm curious, what are the risks to doing this, if there even are any? I'll get to deleting some stuff, and see if it helps.

Omnigamer

2012-12-28 11:22:12 pm

All the things

Defragmenting should be safe in nearly any situation so long as it's coded correctly. That said, if you have an SSD you do not want to defragment it. Ever.

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2012-12-29 01:30:53 pm

2012-12-29 01:28:53 pm

Defraggler does a really good job of defragmenting, and it even warns you if you try to defragment an SSD Cheesy

Also, defragmenting takes a long time, so be sure to let it go overnight or something.

Cool Matty

2012-12-29 08:23:46 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Usually won't help, though, as Windows by default runs its own defragmentation in the background every week. Contrary to popular opinion, one defrag isn't really better than another (either a file is fragmented, or it isn't), and Windows has the advantage of knowing which files are used more often, so it can move them to the faster part of the disk.

Vultuz

2013-03-10 12:21:30 pm

I have no clue about my Amarec problem with capturing SNES (PAL version)
every other console working fine, SNES making problems.
Sound is ok, but i only have a blackscreen/freezed video from the first frame that could be shown.
did i have to mind something if i wanna setup a SNES with my grabber (Hauppauge)