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Introduction

Replays are supported for a large part. Racer v0.8.40+ also adds some better exporting options, although things are quite beta. It uses DirectShow filters to export AVI files using a more custom encoder codec.

Setting up replays to be recorded

This is defined in racer.ini, under the replay tree. For example, replay.enable must be 1 for replays to be even stored in memory.

Playing back replays

You can go into replay mode using F2. There, you can save the replay (the red button), which will store the replay in data/replays.

Exporting replays to video / AVI files

When replaying a replay (either directly in-game or later using the menu's Replay option), you can choose to record it to images or an AVI file. The latter can go through DirectShow or the older Video for Windows (Video for Windows is quite ancient by now; DirectShow is the option to go for if possible; better codecs for one). A bit of setup is required:

• Set replay.video.type to 2 to use DirectShow while encoding.
• Set the codec to use in replay.video.codec. This gets a bit hairy; if you try to record a replay, Racer will log the available Video Compressor to QLOG for your 'convenience'. Try to record a video, then check QLOG for this list and use one of the shown video compressors in the replay.video.codec field.
• In the replay controls, click the movie clipboard icon and select a framerate and a filename.
• At the end, your Racer directory will contain the AVI file that you entered with the results.
• Audio and video were separately written in replay_TEMP.avi and replay_TEMP.wav if you need them. You'll need some kind of video editor to combine the two again, such as Adobe Premiere.

Exporting H.264 encoded video (the format as used by BluRay, MPEG-4 etc)

Now to do this you get into the dark and underground universe that seems to be eternally growing inside the computer video world. Conceptually, the idea is simple; use an encoder that is H.264-capable, set that in replay.video.codec and you're done. Try this:

• Get ffdshow from http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/ . Although that last update for this release seems to have been done in May, 2006, the alternative, ffdshow-tryout, has dropped a lot of encoders. It seems they did this because a lot of those filters were buggy, and there was no incentive anymore by anyone to fix it. A shame. The tryout fork has dropped x264 encoding unfortunately (which seems to be still be supported by a close relative - ffmpeg). Note that x264 is from the makers of VLC.
• Select this video compressor codec by setting replay.video.codec to "ffdshow video encoder" (without the quotes).
• Selecting H.264 can be done from inside the DirectShow SDK Filter Graph Editor. In the Filter Graph Editor, add filter 'ffdshow video encoder', right-click it, select 'Filter Properties...' and select 'H.264' and fourcc 'H264'. Set a higher bitrate (5Mb/s), don't turn on 'Don't save settings to registry' and Apply. This seems to set default ffdshow settings for all apps.
  

Things I've learned is that most DirectShow apparently like to work with YUV data instead of RGB. Converting from YUV to RGB is possible with MSYUV, and RGB to YUV with the 'YUV Transform' filter at http://www.gdcl.co.uk/downloads.htm (register the DLL in that zip file with 'regsvr32 yuvxfm.dll'). The original Racer OpenGL export filter was made to output RGB data; perhaps one day it will do YUV as well.

You can use the DirectShow SDK Filter Graph Editor if you're technically savvy to try them out in a realtime environment. Not easy though. The Racer DirectShow filter is under 'DirectShow filters' and named 'OpenGL'. If it doesn't appear, try running 'regsvr32 openglfilter.ax' from your Racer directory.

Alternative H.264 encoding options

Here are some options I tried in my quest to get H.264 output:

• Get a commercial encoder (in DirectShow) from MainConcept. They seems to have them.
• Use x264vfw (libx264 embedded in a DirectShow filter for VFW (Video For Windows) - see http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/files/latest/download?source=files
  I had trouble generating files with this due to one of the filters seemingly working in realtime (presumably x264vfw) - the end result was choppy as in the replay that was playing. It seemed to be recording this live instead of recording as data became available.
• The H264 Cuda filter, see http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/421869/H-264-CUDA-Encoder-DirectShow-Filter-in-Csharp . This was written in C# and uses nVidia's nvcuvenc.dll to encode H264 fast. I'd say it therefore only works on nVidia, not AMD graphics cards.

(last updated August 5, 2013 )