Please Help me make the right choice

[Simon Taylor]

So i have started a Youtube Channel and now want to record my footage of FIFA 16 and other games.

I have Fraps but only 15 Gb free on my SSD that i can write to so when i record it goes very laggy which i am guessing is my SSD bottle necking?

My choices are to either buy an Elgato HD60.

or

Get a dedicated larger SSD so i continue too use Fraps and maybe get 8gb more Ram (if that will make a difference?)

Now obviously there are pros and cons, but will i be better getting an Elgato because of the strain it will take of my computer whilst playing games compared to using Fraps and playing? Will the quality be better for either?

My Computer specs are as follows:
Intel i5 4670k
G Skill RipJaws 8GB
MSI G45 Gaming Mobo
Msi Nvidia 970 GPU
128gb Samsung Evo SSD
1TB Western Digital HDD

 

[MarkW]

SSD's need free space to function properly. Fill them up, and they do get very, very slow. Get them completely full, and sometimes, the SSD cannot recover from that.

Recording game sessions creates huge files as you have learned. I would get a larger SSD than what you have now, and use it exclusively for recording. And after you are done recording, I would move those files over to the hard drive to make room for the next recording session.

 

[Simon Taylor]

Yeah that is what i was thinking Mark, do you think my computer the little Lag i get when recording will stop once i get a new empty SSD to write too? And would any SSD such as the Sandisk 240GB SSD be up to the task or would i need a fast one such as the Samsung EVO 840?

 

[TheManWithoutBias]

Once you get a new HD or SSD it might improve performance a little bit but fraps can also cause some Lag. I would recommend using the built in video recorder in your GTX 970. Download geforce experience, click shadow play in the upper right hand corner and configure it however you want to.I have had very good experience with Shadow play and I have no frame drop and the video looks great. I also have a GTX 970 so you shouldn't receive any frame drops either. Also another reason you might be lagging is because Fraps is a CPU intensive recording software and can effect performance in CPU intensive games. But Shadow Play uses a built in recorder in the GTX 970 that isn't in connection with GPU performance at all. I hope that rant makes sense.

 

[MarkW]

You have the same CPU that I have.
You have a better GPU than I have.
I have twice the memory that you have.
I always prefer the fastest devices I can afford. I do own a 1TB Samsung 840 EVO. It is fast. but the Samsung 850 EVO is a little faster. And from what I have seen, they normally have very similar prices. I just took a look at Amazon.com... Samsung 850 EVO 256GB $89.99 ... Samsung 840 EVO 250GB $126.60. Looked somewhere else, and I see almost identical prices. So checkout the 850 EVO's.

Anyways, I think our systems are very similar. I see no reason why you should be having lag. You might need to turn down the in-game settings for some games, but we all have to do that, even if you have a Titan you have to do that at times.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that the Elgato HD60 seems to be a console only thing. At least at the 2 places I checked on.

So I think you should be fine with another SSD. Watch your in-game memory usage, and if you are getting over 7GB, I would expand it to 16GB. Anytime your system is needing to use the swapfile, it is going to affect your performance, so keeping some memory always available is a good thing.

 

[TheManWithoutBias]

If you do use Shadow Play of Geforce Experience it might lower the lag until you fix you're storage issue