How To: Recording game video without VOIP (Teamspeak) in sound recording.

[RainMotorsports]

This is dedicated to those people who think for some odd reason you cant run multiple simultaneous sound cards/audio streams in windows 7. I run three actually one is usb.
Photography and editing are the suck today, super hurry and no photoshop (PSPX2 and my raw files = shoddy results).

The Scenario
We want to record gameplay with Fraps, Playclaw, any app and have Team Speak, Skype, other VOIP apps not ruining the recording. The problem is we often can not direct the game sound anywhere but the default device and not since XP has proper access to applications sound existed. This can probably be done in a software solution but with consequences to sound latency.

The Hardware Solution
If you already run a dedicated sound card and either use powered speakers or have something to use as an amp this is going to be pretty cheap. All you will need is the headphone mixer.

Teamspeak allows us to direct audio to a different sound card and Skype respects Windows 7's default communications device setting. This allows us to put the audio on a non default device that is not being recorded. The only problem now is to combine them back to one headset. Thats where a headphone mixer comes in. It even lets us adjust Game/Main volume and VOIP on the fly.

I needed a sound card to do this which doubles the price of the project, many gamers already have one. Picked up the ASUS Xonar DS because of availability issues with the lesser 5.1 model.

I cheaped out and picked up a nice Passive Mixer hoping the signal loss would not be as drastic as it was. If you want to do this with non powered headphones you will need an amplifier or a powered mixer.

Problems with the Xonar
- For the love of god please don't install the driver on the CD if you get this card. My machine was so screwed after rebooting. Most apps would not run, all web browsers and even the installer for the newer drivers. I tested the latest driver on my spare drive that has my benchmarking setup and it worked fine. A rollback in safemode and driver install later all was well.
- You may need to turn off the GX mode for game recording if you end up with no sound at all. Other than that love this card.

Mixer needs an Amplifier!
Alright so I could have spent money on a powered mixer or picked up a cheapo. I took a shot in the dark with a passive mixer and indeed its not gonna work.
Powered speakers work awesomely so if your one of those people who don't use a headset this will work fine. I went ghetto and grabbed a stereo from down stairs!


Setting it up


Alright once the sound card is installed and drivers are in place you may or may not have two mixers in windows. Not needed but to get it right click on the speaker icon and hit volume control options. You can set this in here but since for skype we are setting one device as default communications device you can check that. Same icon hit up playback devices. Set the dedicated sound card (if you wish) as the default device and you can also set the onboard as the default communications device if it didn't do it for you already.

All sounds except maybe skype will be coming out the dedicated card at this point. Go into teamspeak (screenshot above) and set the playback device to the onboard sound. It will now play from there. Hook both sound cards to the mixer. Hook the mixer to the speakers or to the amp for the headphones. Adjust your base volumes. Your amplifier should probably act as your master volume and the individuals can be set from the mixer. Might be a matter of preference.

Done!
Might seem a tiny bit complicated but it really isnt. If you have what you need laying around then its probably worth while. If you have nothing and or dont record game footage then well....

All windows sound game included will be on the main card and recorded by default with fraps, etc. Teamspeak, Skype and any other software that can be directed to the other card wont.

 

[Rob Williams]

Thanks for the write-up!

I'm an audio noob, so let me make sure I have a couple of things straight.

First, this method requires two audio cards, correct? I see two mixers in the screenshot there, so I assume one is the on-board while the other is the Xonar (I see just one mixer here, but I have the on-board disabled).

Second, I am not too sure of what plugs into the mixer. Do my headphones? Do I run cables from my Xonar card up to the mixer? Can I do this with a USB microphone?

 

[RainMotorsports]

I intend to throw up a diagram some time and fix the whole thing.

Yes 2 sound cards, using onboard for my VOIP. They and anything else you want to hear (mp3 player for music?) go into the mixer up to 4 on this one. If the mixer is powered yes you can plug straight into the mixer. Unfortunately a passive mixer kills the signal pretty good so in my case an amp was needed, output to the amp and headphones into it. If you have a stereo/surround sound on your desk you can use that as the amp or just buy a powered mixer, linked one i think will do the job.

This is the Mixer I used - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...LITMix4_4_Channel_Passive_Splitter_Mixer.html
This is a matching headphone amp but at the price for the pair I would not do it - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/490691-REG/ART_HEADAMP4_HeadAmp4_Four_Channel_Stereo.html

This should do the job but check first. It has 2 inputs for the mixer and a built in amp. Normally used for vocalists needing to hear the track as well as their end of the recording - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/155418-REG/Rolls_PM50S_PM50s_Personal_Monitor.html If I am correct and you have analog headphones that should be all you need. I purposely did not buy a powered mixer because I was stupid. To use it you would put one sound card to mic in and one to monitor (doesnt matter which) and then hook the headphones to one of the jacks. The mic would plug into the USB port for you or the sound card for someone using analog and direct your VOIP to use which card and which mic.

The microphone is of no consequence as long as the listening speaker device is analog plug. Skype, Teamspeak, pretty sure Ventrillo all let you select what device to use as mic. I did use a USB mic (on another headset) to talk until the next morning when I went and got an extension for the 3.5mm.

 

[Rob Williams]

The microphone is of no consequence as long as the listening speaker device is analog plug.

I clued into that after I posted it, because that's just an input that others hear, not me. *smacks head*

I need to put a little thought into this, and see if it's something I need to do. I had a problem one time where I could hear friends talking, but you couldn't hear me talking, which had a weird result. That sounds like a different problem though (given the microphone is generally not meant to be heard by you at the time of recording).

Voice aside though, I listen to music a lot while gaming, so it'd be nice to be able to run the music through one audio card and the game through another, that way if I impromptu record, the music won't get in the way. Though with one current game I play (Lineage II), I don't really care if I hear the song at all, so it's not tough to dedicate the game to one audio card and listen to music on the other. Games like CoD though, this solution would be perfect.

 

[RainMotorsports]

Music can be done IF the application can select the sound card. While its not that hard to add the feature most dont have it.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

Have you experimented with a virtual soundcard at all? I'm not entirely sure it can do all of the above but they do have neat tricks up their sleeve. Typically, they can combine all audio sources into 1, use any media source as an input device (e.g. play music over skype or TS as a mic source), but I'm not sure if they can be used as a means of separating out various sources. Something like FRAPS will record all windows audio, which as you describe is not ideal, I'm just wondering if there is a way to set it up to only record a specific source... Think I need to experiment later.

In any case, a virtual card may allow you to output over a single device instead of using an external mixer and a second audio card. Just need to experiment to find out if possible.

 

[RainMotorsports]

Have you experimented with a virtual soundcard at all? I'm not entirely sure it can do all of the above but they do have neat tricks up their sleeve. Typically, they can combine all audio sources into 1, use any media source as an input device (e.g. play music over skype or TS as a mic source), but I'm not sure if they can be used as a means of separating out various sources. Something like FRAPS will record all windows audio, which as you describe is not ideal, I'm just wondering if there is a way to set it up to only record a specific source... Think I need to experiment later.

In any case, a virtual card may allow you to output over a single device instead of using an external mixer and a second audio card. Just need to experiment to find out if possible.

That's my theory on the only way to do it otherwise until windows allows individual stream access. The simplest way to do it is to have the virtual device as the default and the physical as the communications. Your recording the virtual because its default device, then copying the audio back onto the physical card. You cant use the physical card because we have to copy on to the card the headpones are plugged into.

I suspect there will be a bit of latency in the audio, talking pretty low but still. There is also the processing overhead for all of this so its not going to work on a lower power machine. But it is also a method that could work for a usb headset.