How to create video output with WinUAE?

Hello!

I'd like to ask whether there's some kind of manual how to produce video files using WinUAE. I want to create some instructing videos but I am complete newbie in this area.

Everytime I try it, my computer goes to knees, I cannot move the mouse smoothly in WinUAE, everything is very slowdowned. I don't think my computer is so slow (Athlon2500+, NVidia Gfx Titan 4200).

In addition, if capturing 1024x768 desktop, the output is reduced to upper-left quarter of the desktop only.

Is there any hotkey that enables capturing immediately? I mean I don't want to have WinUAE GUI at the beggining of each video, you know.

Thanks for help.

[wanderer]

I'm certainly no expert on this, but I've only just captured a video so here's my 3-minute experience: Yes, there's a huge slow-down while capturing, but the captured video plays fine, at full speed. This speed issue could probably be fixed with some option-tinkering. As far the winUAE gui, well it doesn't make sense to capture it, and in my little video (in the zone real soon) it's not there, winUAE doesn't capture it.

[Toni Wilen]

1024x768x32 at 50/60 fps? Think about required bitrate or CPU for real time compression. 1024x768x50x3 is over 100MB of uncompressed data per second..

Use smaller resolution, 16-bit, overlay-mode (should prevent GUI appearing in Picasso96-modes when recording) Note that Picasso96-recording is not really supported feature..

ok, I'll try it and report. Thank you!

[kas1e]

right now i was tryed to save winuae output to the avi , on my 2.4 p3 with good geforce card. But, it is can'be usable (very not smooth). if i set screensize to the 640x480x32bit, result is the same. Maybe need some options to enable or disable ?

[BippyM]

I use winuae to rip at native screensize of game demo (320x256 or 640x512 at 16bit etc). I use no compression because it is much quicker etc..

I then use virtualdub to convert it to whatever res is needed.

I have a fairly good setup tho so slowdown isn't much of an issue (Geforce 6800gt, SATA drives etc..)

[Toni Wilen]

Video encoding needs huge amounts of CPU power. Try encoding existing uncompressed high resolution video someday..

Only lores/nondoubled resolution is usually small enough for realtime encoding without slowdowns.

Note that even uncompressed 640x480 can cause slowdown. 640x480, 16-bit/50fps means 30 megabytes/second bitrate (800x600 would be 48MB/sec).

Most systems can't sustain 20MB/s+ write rate to HD. Possible reasons are filesystem overhead, fragmentation, too slow harddrive, too slow bus, slow access from display ram (use Null filter or get PCI-E display card), other processes accessing same HD etc..

[BippyM]

Guys it doesn't matter if WinUAE doesn't record at 50fps as long as it is set to.. When played back it *should* be okay (Always has been for me). This is due to winuae saving each frame once (like it should).

Toni will expand on this more I believe... Toni?

[Ironclaw]

Yeah, if it's all in slowmotion while recording, the final avi file will still have all the frames. The reason for the slowdown is because your computer can't handle the amount of data being saved per sec, so it slows down the game/demo whatever.

[BippyM]

When the AVI output was being developed there were instances where winuae would grab at 50fps even if winuae was running slower, this resulted in extra frames being grabbed so the resulting avi would have the same issues..

This was rectified a long time ago though so should be okay now, just ensure you are using a fairly newer version of winuae.

[Toni Wilen]

In A500-mode slowdowns caused by capturing are not visible in recorded video. In "as fast as possible"-modes it can cause side-effects.

[amiga]

Maybe an ideal solution would be to capture as a sequence of images,
instead of avi, eh, Toni ?

great, I managed to create nice looking avi files!!!

The reason why it always captured only upper left quarter of the screen was that even though I run fullscreen, the capturing video size was limited to those values specified in WinUAE settings -> Display -> Windowed section. So, for example, there should be 800x600 if such a screenmode is captured...

Really, the WinUAE GUI wasn't captured as I mentione before. I do not know where did I have this experience from

Here's the result. Thank you for your help guys!

[Toni Wilen]

AVIOutput was full of bugs that explains wrong resolutions and possible crashes.. It should be better in next release.

[Paul]

I’ve just wrote and uploaded a new guide about how to record a video in winuae (see General Guides page here at http://guide.abime.net)

[BippyM]

Looks good to me Paul

[Toni Wilen]

9. Go to Filter properties and make sure you have the Enable box unticked (to disable)

I recommend enabling Null filter (without scaling). At least on some display cards/drivers it will make recording much faster because data is captured from system memory buffer instead of from display ram. (usually reading from display ram is slow, especially with non-PCI-E cards)

[Ironclaw]

Jup, enable Null filter does wonders to the playing speed and recording speed, everyone should use it.

I always use it and it works wonders for me .

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I recommend enabling Null filter (without scaling). At least on some display cards/drivers it will make recording much faster because data is captured from system memory buffer instead of from display ram. (usually reading from display ram is slow, especially with non-PCI-E cards)

Now that's better, much, much faster. Works at full speed now. Thanks for the tip Toni.

Edit: Guide updated