Well, my first test of Fraps was a flop.
I don’t know if the problem is with Fraps, with Steam, or with the electrical connection between the keyboard and the chair, but there was a problem regardless.

Now, the first couple of videos (or the first one video, thus far) serve only to play around with the system, to become familiar with it. For this reason, I was willing to start with something that near everybody’s done: starting out in Morrowind.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to create a video that I’d simply discard when I was done; I wanted to produce something that had some merit, that I could justify uploading to YouTube, even if it was as a “first try.”

The plan was as follows:
Record my voice for any commentary via the built-in Windows sound recorder (so as to keep it out of the video if I prefer… while still having the commentary available if I chose to add it)
Record gameplay video via FRAPS.
Combine the two if desired, editing via another program (Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere come to mind)
Upload to YouTube.

Except… I’m stuck at the second item. Fraps doesn’t seem keen on recording my gameplay.
Oh, the game’s audio comes in well enough. The normal functions of my computer, before the game actually loads, come in well enough. But once the game loads…..

Well, let’s just say that I produced a half hour of this one frame:

Minus the playback buttons, obviously; I simply grabbed this screenshot from the video player afterwards.

I have a computer science degree, and it’s more than a little annoying that I can’t figure this out. 😦
I don’t suppose anyone with more experience in Fraps, Steam, or both could answer this question?

Meantime, I’ll keep looking.

*Update*

The solution is found, courtesy of one of my deviantArt friends.
As it turns out, the fact that I’d started Fraps prior to loading the game was interfering. I’d suspected that might be the case, and was planning on changing that the next time I tried it, but it does help to have a second opinion prior to trying it myself.

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