How I Record CSGO for Fragmovie on My Low-End PC

The low spec of my computer is Nvidia GTX650 2GB and AMD FX6350 processor at stock speed  of 3.9GHz. I game on the lowest setting at 1024x768 and get the average of 100-120fps but sometimes will drop to 80s when there is heavy smoke.

Fragmovie on the lowest setting is not suitable as everything will look ugly especially those jagged edges. It should at least be at medium setting to look good but then this will drop the fps to below 60 when doing a recording on a potato computer (without doing the steps below).

Read also: CSGO HLAE Commands for Fragmovie

Preparation

To record smoothly, the first thing I do is to close any unnecessary applications running in the background to reduce cpu and ram usage. Also to set the power plan to High Performance.

Recording Software

The next thing is I decide which recording program to use. I have tried Bandicam, OBS, Fraps and Nvidia Shadowplay. Among these programs, Fraps and Shadowplay give me stable fps during recording. Bandicam and OBS are good however they sometimes do not perform well which I do not know why it happens thus giving me stuttering recording even the game demo was playing smoothly.

Recording & Editing

I play the demo at 1/4 speed which means the replay is slowed down to 25% of its original speed. You can do this by pressing shift+f2 and click the 1/4 button. Recording at this demo speed will give me more video details (frames) per second so during editing when I speed up the recording to 4 times the video will play at normal speed and this will look smooth because I have more frames compared to recording at normal speed.

Recording at high settings on a potato pc will definitely drop my fps but the additional frames/details per second I get from 1/4 speed compensates it.

Audio is then also sped up to match the video length and pitch is locked to the length also so that it will sound normal. Here, the editing software needs to be able to do this such as Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Console Command

Slow motion is optional but it makes the video look cool. This is easier to achieve at high fps for recording simply by typing "host_framerate 1000" in the console and the demo will play very slowly and it is perfect for slowmo. Unlike playing 1/4 speed like above which is also slowmo effect, the audio from host_framerate will stay at the same original pitch. I would only recommend doing this when the clip does not need the game audio.

Others

Other thing that makes a CSGO video (not recording) smooth is motion blur. This is not the in-game motion blur, it is produced during editing. This motion blur is the Smart Resample in Sony Vegas and Frame Blending in Premiere Pro. However, this does not work well at video rendered below 60fps because it will produce ghosting effect. It would only look good if the recording is at 60fps or above and the rendering is at 60fps or above as well. Disable resample or frame blending if rendering is at below 60fps.

In addition, you might want to try a plugin called ReelSmart Motion Blur for the video editing software.