The Fragile Dragons

Have you ever wanted to record your adventures through Tyria to share on youtube? Felt the need to show others the funny or amazing things you've seen in gif form? I've been interested in this for awhile now and thought I'd do some research into the best way to do this!

Enter MSI Afterburner. What is it? Primarily it's an overclocking program for your video card. So you might want to be careful if you download this. You probably don't want this to start up with your computer! Read more about overclocking here.

If you have problems with low frame rates then you should try to open this program only when you think you'll be using it and close it afterwards. I didn't experience a difference in frame rate when using it but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. When you have MSI open it will overlay Guild Wars 2 with its current frame rate.

You can set a hotkey to use to start recording while in Guild Wars 2. As long as the program is open it will start to record. To stop recording use the same key.

It was very easy to set this up and fiddle around with the settings in order to get the video just right. The following are the settings that I used:

MSI Afterburner > Settings


MSI On-Screen Display Server


Here's an example video I recorded to give you an idea about the quality (no audio - I have it set this way both in-game and in MSI):




Here's an animated gif I made in Adobe Photoshop 32-bit using the footage:



How to (Using Photoshop CS5):
File > Import > Video Frames to Layers > (Select File) > *Selected Range Only *Make Frame Animation *Hold shift & click at end of desired sequence > OK > Edit file as necessary > Save For Web & Devices > Save


Download MSI Afterburner | Watch a Video Tutorial

Have another program you prefer? Don't hesitate to share your experiences in the comments.