Video recording problems in Worms with Nvidia card?

[Junkman]

Lately, I've been using ZD Soft Game Recorder in order to record Worms Armageddon matches as they are being played. Everything went fine until I got myself a new Nvidia card (Geforce 8500) to replace my previous ATI card I've been using (ATI Radeon X1300).

No matter which recording settings I use, the game will run at about 2-3 frames per second when I'm recording. The second I stop recording, the game will run smoothly again. However, I didn't had any framerate issues with the previous card, as the game could manage to stay up to at least 30 fps when recording, and perhaps more at times.

I'm pretty baffled by this. My new Nvidia card manages to run Bioshock without a hitch (my other card barely even got up to 15 fps on it) yet it crashes and burns when trying to record Worms. I also tried Fraps, yet the performance is still as bad. Anyone here have tried recording the game with video recording software using a similar card, yet managed to make it work?

Any help would be appreciated. I certainly don't want to shelf my new card only because I can't record Worms with it.

For the general information, my computer specs are the following:

AMD Athlon 64 3800+
1 gig of RAM
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Geforce 8500 (162.18 drivers)
Windows XP Media Center Edition

I also tried reinstalling my recording software and Worms, but it led to no good results. I also have the latest 3.6.28.0 beta patch installed for Worms.

[KRD]

First and foremost, you should update your WA to the latest public beta version if you haven't already done so. That's 3.6.28.0 when I'm posting this and here's a download link for ye: http://www.clansfx.co.uk/downloads/WA_update-3.6.28.0_Beta_Installer.exe

But because your problem really does sound related to your graphics card rather than the game, here's a workaround until someone more knowledgeable comes by. Instead of recording games as they happen, find recordings of them in the \User\Games\ folder afterwards, run them and film those. As an added bonus you can speed playback up [number keys], slow it down [shift + number keys] and rewind to either the first [R key] or any other [first M then R, like on a calculator] frame of the game.

Hope this does the trick as a temporary solution.

[Junkman]

I'm already running the latest beta patch for the game, although I forgot to point it out in my post. Silly me!

Yeah, your workaround for the problem didn't work, so this is indeed a graphic card issue, it's probably too new for the game. I'll probably just stick back my old graphic card in temporarily until I'm done with recordings.

Yet, if anyone can find out how it works, it would be awesome. I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of opening my case and switching cards all the time (I couldn't place both cards at the same time since I'd probably fry my power supply or something).

[CyberShadow]

That sounds like a problem with your recording software, not Worms Armageddon.

Anyway, why not use the built-in "Export Video" feature? It will save a series of PNG files, which you can later convert to a video stream. Of course, you'd have to record the sound separately.

[Junkman]

I tried using both ZD Soft Game Recorder and Fraps on various games, they both seemed to work fine on other games.

I also couldn't use the Export Video feature, since the commentary is recorded online through Skype. Since there's a small waiting time between turns while the connection establishes itself to receive other players' commands, this would obviously get desynchronized since those events don't occur in the replays. This means I couldn't do a post-recording of this, besides it's a lot better when you record the voices as the action first happens.

Anyway, I've installed back my older card until there are Nvidia drivers which will allow better compatibility with Worms. It sucks that I need to temporarily shelf the card, but it's not for a long period anyway.