My Recording Setup for Walkthroughs

A lot of people have asked me how I make my walkthroughs. This is not for LPs - this is for the commentary-free ones, so if you want to do commentary, look elsewhere. Anyway, let's get on with this.
For the most part, I use HyperCam 2. HyperCam 2 has been free for a long time now, so don't worry about the stupid "Unregistered HyperCam 2" watermark. It's free to use in this day and age. You can download it here.
When you open it, you should start at this screen:

 So, the first thing you want to do is uncheck "Show rectangle around the recorded area" but check "Make this rectangle blink". If you don't, the video will play faster than the audio and it goes way off-sync. I'd also recommend you check "Iconize HyperCam Window to the Task Bar". This way it will stay out of your way but you can still check its status at any time. I leave my computer at 1024 x 768 res, so a windowed 640 x 480 game will typically be at 192 start x 157 start y. Now for the next screen:

This is how my hotkeys are set up. These I have nothing to comment on, just tweak it to your liking.

 I scribbled over part of this picture to obscure my real name. Anyway, this is the one most people would like to know about. I use Ligos Indeo 5.11, which most people wouldn't have. You should easily find it or 4.5 free to download somewhere on the net, it's free stuff. YouTube has a 30 FPS cap, so there is no need to go over that. As for what I have configured in the compressor...

I was able to achieve minimal file size with it configured this way. Before I did it this way, I was getting files of ludicrous sizes like 10 GB in a 15-minute video. Now I achieve about 1 GB in that time. This is the best way I have found, and it works quite well. Moving onward...

Oh boy, sound. This is easily the most fun part of the whole thing. I'm being sarcastic, of course. Sound is the biggest pain in the butt when it comes to finding out how to record video. It's pretty sad when this becomes a bigger pain than all else. For the few who still use Windows XP like me, it gets a little bit cryptic, but I'll do my best to walk you through this. Firstly, go right click the volume icon on your task bar and click "Open Volume Control. Now go here:

This screen should pop up:

 

 Guess what? You're at the wrong place. Click the "Recording" prompt.

What the actual sound is varies. I have Stereo Mix, which is relatively common in most computers, even today. Check whatever you think is the correct option, and if you are unsure, once this is done keep repeating through trial-and-error and you'll eventually get it. Click OK and...

Pick "Select" to what you think is the correct one. The ones you had checked in the previous screen are the ones you'll find here. You may also want to adjust the volume; remember, your speaker volumes are not the capture volumes. In fact, even if you mess with the speaker volume in the middle of a recording, the volume inside the recording will not change at all. HyperCam is quite sensitive, and starts overpeaking even if you barely go high at all. Once that's checked, you are good to go. Just pick your audio device in the drop-down menu in HyperCam and you are set.

Now for Vista/7 users. You guys thankfully have a much less cryptic one. These pictures were taken off YouTube user DJCandyz, so credit to him. First, right click the volume icon on the taskbar just like in XP and click "Recording Devices":

Now you'll get this:

Hold it there, this isn't what we want. In fact, it's far from what we want. Right click and pick "Show Disabled Devices":

Alright, NOW we can move on. You should see some more devices. More than likely the one you want is going to look like a circuit board. That's the option you want. Right-click it and pick "Enable":

Go select your sound card in HyperCam's settings, and presto! You are set for sound! Geez, why is it so cryptic to do this?

Whew! Alright, back to where we were what seems like years ago. This is my setup. I chose 16-bit because in 8-bit, either you get a lot of white noise or the audio overpeaks. Bad thing. I also have it recording at 22 khz, but I've never messed with that. Alright, FINALLY onto the next thing.

Tweak these to your liking. The record cursor option is something you should uncheck sparingly - unless a game uses a virtual cursor and HyperCam puts the regular cursor on the screen with it, you should leave this checked. It allows people to follow along with the video much more easily. For the starburst, use it when you only feel it's necessary. I have used it in my debug videos, when I often show I'm clicking on something and it's doing nothing. For the mouse click volume, PLEASE DON'T USE IT. It's annoying as heck and adds little to the video. Just go with the starburst option if you really want people to know. The screen notes are something I almost never use; the one time I used it was in my Freddi Fish 4 walkthrough where I took messing with debug mode a little too far and had to note why my purple sea urchin count suddenly went up. These options are left untouched for the most part though.

Well, that'll do it. Some pointers:

- When you're recording the game, make sure it records well. If HyperCam is not fond of a particular game you want to record, I suggest finding something else.

- DO NOT RECORD DIRECT3D GAMES WITH HYPERCAM. You will get a very flashy, seizure-inducing effect. It is not pleasant to look at. Go get Fraps for that kind of stuff.

- To record full screen games, first check what the resolution is. Most older games are at 640 x 480, and I assume that's what you want to use HyperCam for. Set it to Start x and y at 0, and when the game has loaded start recording.

- To record 256 color games, wait until the game starts. Then begin recording. If you start before the game transitions to 256 color mode, it will appear messed up. 

- For heaven's sake, do not record full screen games while recording your whole desktop and then opening the game. I sure as heck don't want to see a huge black border around the game, let alone having it a really small unsee-able box.

Well, that's all. I hope this tutorial helped. For those who ask, I will not make a Fraps tutorial because that program is easy to use and picks your sound card stuff for you. It's $37, so no it is not free. Anyway, I hope this tutorial helped, and if it did, I'll be glad to see you begin to make walkthroughs yourself.