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BB FlashBack has three ‘record modes’ – three different ways of recording the screen. Sometimes you might need to change record modes if you’re to get the best performance while recording. This article explains when you might need to do this and how to change modes.
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| Why change record modes? |
Because the different record modes cope better at recording different types of on-screen things. Why have record modes at all? Because the sort of things people want to record, and the capabilities of their PCs, vary a lot.
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| Which mode is best? |
That depends on your PC and what you want to record, but it’s pretty easy to get an idea of what each mode is good for.
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Capture driver mode
This mode works great at recording ‘standard’ windows applications. By ‘standard’, we mean programs like MS Word, Excel or Windows Explorer, where there’s usually not a whole lot of animation and moving images going on. The capture driver can record these with very little impact on your PCs performance.
The capture driver only works on Windows 2000 and Windows XP PCs. It’s set as the default mode for those operating systems.
GDI mode
This mode is better than the capture driver at recording moving graphics, like a movie player, game or a Flash animation on a web page. Select GDI mode if you're recording any of these things – using the capture driver will probably produce a more 'choppy' or jumpy movie.
GDI mode works on all versions of Windows, including Vista.
DirectX mode
This mode may give better performance than GDI mode on certain PCs. It cannot be used for recording movie-player type applications or games.
DirectX mode will work on most PCs that have a video card capable of running DirectX 8. Those with older or 'onboard' video cards may find that it isn’t available for selection. It will not work with Windows Vista or NT4.
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Summing up:
- Capture driver
Good for standard Windows applications, on Windows 2000 and XP.
- GDI
Better for recording video playback, animations etc. Works on all versions of Windows.
- DirectX
Can't record movie player applications or Vista. May not be available if you have an older, or 'onboard' video card.
Something we should warn you about: if you’re planning on recording full screen video games or high resolution movies, BB FlashBack will probably struggle, regardless of the video mode you choose. We wish it weren’t so, and we’re trying hard to come up with ways for it to get perfect recordings whatever you throw at it, but you’ll find that’s the way it is all for all general purpose screen recorders.
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| So how do I change modes? |
- Go to the Recorder Options window. You can get to this from the main Recorder menu.
- Go to the Record mode tab of the Options window:
- Then select a mode. If one isn’t available for selection, this means that BB FlashBack has disabled it because your PC isn’t capable of running it properly.
In the image above, DirectX mode is disabled – it can’t be selected. The reason for this is in blue: my PC can’t run it at an acceptable frame rate.
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| Frame rates |
The frame rate of a movie is the number of distinct images (or ‘frames’) shown in a second. The higher the frame rate, the smoother any movement will be.
You can set a frame rate when using DirectX or GDI modes - the number of frames BB FlashBack records every second. A sensible value is set automatically, but if you find your PC slows down a lot while recording in DirectX or GDI modes, reducing the frame rate might help.
Change it on the Record Mode tab of the Options window:
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| Getting best performance from GDI mode |
Some applications, like media players, use ‘hardware acceleration’ features of your video card to speed up drawing of graphics. BB FlashBack can't capture applications that use this feature, so you might see a blank rectangle in your recording where you expected to see some video playing.
Switching off hardware acceleration ensures that your recording will have everything as you saw it when it was being recorded.
BB FlashBack turns off hardware acceleration by default when recording with GDI mode, but if this causes problems with some applications, you can disable the option to keep hardware acceleration turned on.
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| If you upgrade your PC: |
When BB FlashBack Recorder runs for the first time, it tests your PC’s video capabilities and figures out which record modes you can use, disabling those that won’t run well.
Say it disables DirectX mode on your PC because your video card isn’t up to running it, but then you upgrade the card to something newer. You might now be able to run DirectX mode. All you need to do is run the video test again, so BB FlashBack takes a fresh look at your PC and enables DirectX mode if the new hardware looks fast enough.
You run the test from the Record mode tab of the Recorder Options window. Just click the ‘Retest’ button near the bottom:
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