Can anyone suggest a good PC screen-recorder?

[Purrie]

I'm looking to record my friends and I playing through some PC games, not necessarily for any purpose other than to laugh at later. I'd want it to be able to record in high quality and capture both in game voice and our voices through Skype... I'm willing to pay, just as long as it's reasonable
Thanks

 

[hellome]

Well there is camtasia. I use it but I am not positive it takes outside sound unless you use 2 different recording things if your computer/laptop has a mic. But it deffintely takes in game sound.

 

[bevbor]

As far as I know, all screen-capturing programs that good for business-presentations preparation, are bad for game recording. Lags, wrong colours, enormous CPU eating, etc, etc...

A normal solution for screen capturing during gameplay with decent quality is:

second computer with video-capture card installed and dedicated only to video-capturing during the game you want to record

- OR -

external video capturing device, like DVR. There's a lot DVRs under $100, see the Internet.

Cheers

 

[seaninja]

Fraps Is probably your best bet. I've used it for about five years now, and it has been great for me. You get full resolution recording, but the files can get very large. http://www.fraps.com/
I hope this helps

 

[Finelargeaxe]

Anyone recommend the screen-cap program that comes with Gigaware's webcams? I don't have quite enough juice in this desktop to multitask while gaming (Unless it's older games like Halo: CE or Diablo II...maybe KOTOR), so I haven't had the chance to test it yet.

 

[thatdecade]

Fraps Is probably your best bet. I've used it for about five years now, and it has been great for me. You get full resolution recording, but the files can get very large. http://www.fraps.com/
I hope this helps

Agreed, fraps works very well for capturing gameplay. Free version has no watermarks... Can take game screenshots or videos...

The only limitation of the free version is that fraps is limited to 30 second videos. After 30 seconds, press the record key again, then later can splice the multiple 30 second videos into a longer movie. I recommend windows movie maker for that, is free with windows live essentials.
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials