The term Fraps was derived from the industry term Frames Per Second. Fraps is a third part application that is used for capturing screenshots, video’s and also benchmarking games. This application is utilized in Direct X applications and also in OpenGl applications. The main reason this application is used widely is for measuring a computer’s performance with any given game and also for recording games. Fraps is also used in making Machinima films. Fraps allows gamers to record games without causing a great impact on the performance of games. Fraps allows you to capture some of those epic moments that cannot be described in words. If you are an avid gamer, you will need some concrete proof for that awesome kill streak or that epic vehicle stunt. Benchmarking using fraps helps you tune your PC and your graphics so that you get the best of your machine and game alike.

Demo version of game has a watermark logo on top of the video and the recording time is also limited to 30 seconds per session. Any still image captures are captured in Bitmap (BMP) format. If you get the paid version you get unlimited recording time and can take screenshots in a multitude of formats like PNG, TGA, and JPEG file formats to name a few. One problem is that the recorded files are kept in pretty large file formats and they are recorded in AVI format. In order to reduce the file size it is recommended to get a decent video converter to compress the files for better sharing and managing purposes. The developer claims that this software can capture at 100 fps at a screen resolution set at 1152X864, this is possible with single core CPU’s and 2560X1600 on a dual core processor. This is a tall order and big words but it all comes down to your graphics card limits.

Make sure that you have the latest drivers installed, enough space on your HDD for all those heavy files and ample RAM. Any application’s function strictly depends on your computer’s hardware. With the multitude of recording options and ability to take snapshots in multiple formats, Machinima artists and regular gamers have a number of options in front of them and can show off their talents for bragging rights. Fraps displays a FPS meter at the desired corner of your computer screen, the color of the numbers go red when you are recording and green when not recording. The numbers do not show up on the final recorded product. Although Fraps is only compatible on windows operating system, there is no news if the application will be available on other operating systems. It is important to note that the user is running programs that involve Direct X and OpenGL.

At the risk of sounding like one of those TV infomercials, there is more that this application offers for its loyal gamers. Gamers are a demanding bunch of people, they want the whole package or they do not want any of it at all. This application has voice chat so that you and your mates can communicate while in game and that way you do not have to install a third party application or worry if your game supports voice chat, and tune it till you can get through to your mates. You can take screenshots to post on forums for bragging rights, you can also record videos and here is something new, you can actually “broadcast” your game play to fellow gamers and on the web but there is a small catch; X-fire will only allow you to record, broadcast video that it is compatible with and with the present gaming world, it supports most titles.

There was an SDK that was released, the purpose was to give gamers the freedom to expose game data to X-fire, but the gamer can only take screenshots with games that are not compatible. X-fire also allows gamers to form clans and guilds by inviting and adding their mates and fellow gamers. There is also a feature that allows you to browse the internet. All these features are available provided you launch the game through X-fire. As of recently X-fire supports 1,520 games and adding, of multiple genre’s. It’s not like X-fire just wants to get its application out there for gamers to enjoy, X-fire likes to stay connected with gamers. X-fire hosts a different event once every month, the purpose is to get gamers engaged with developers and producers of X-fire by holding chat sessions, debates on games and applications, tournaments between clans and guilds and the ever so popular Machinima contests.

Step1
First goto your favourite search engine, then to a quick search for “RocketDock”. Click the first link.

Step2
It should take to to the RocketDock website, then navigate to the download section.

Step3
Click the “Download RocketDock!” to automatically download the newest release of The software. After the
download is complete run the setup to install it onto your computer (you may need to restart your computer).

step4
once its installed onto your computer goto the desktop icon (or your programs menu) and run Rocket doc. You
can get started by dragging icons from your desktop on top of the RocketDock to add them to the menu, to select something you want to run/open all you do is hover over the icon on RockeDock so it bubbles up (zooms in) and click it, also to delete an icon from the RocketDock jut drag it off and let go and is will automatically delete itself to the recycle bin.

Step5
Now we will briefly go over the Docks settings, you can select the language you want to view it in, you can
check some boxes to either make it run when your computer boots up (Run at Startup), have the settings for the
Rocket dock just apply to your Profile/User on the computer you are using, select when you minimise a window
whether it should go to the dock or the taskbar. When you minimise a window to the Dock you can see it shrink
like on vista. Tells you weather that program is running (shows on the icon) open an application while its
still running, and lock the items so they cant be deleted.

Step6
The Next Dock Settings is for the icons, weather it should have high quality images for the icons (good for
fast PC’s, choose lower quality if you have a old PC). Change the opacity/ transparency of the Dock and the
icons, choose how big the icons are when zoomed in, how the dock reacts to the user hovering over an icon, how
much it zooms, how many icons across the Dock zoom in to make it smoother. And how fast/slow it zooms.

Step7
If you have more than one monitor You can choose which one to use it on, where in the screen the Dock should
be placed, weather its onto of all windows or behind active windows, choose weather you want it centred or
not and set how close it is to the edge of the screen.

Step8
Here you can choose the Theme (they can be downloaded from the RocketDock website) the opacity of the theme,
weather it tells you what the icon is or not. Change the font/colour/shadow of the text, and the opacity of
the text.

Step9
Here is the last setting choose what happens to the icon when you click it, if its animated or just stays
still. autohide the Dock after a certain amount of time so its out of the way and make it pop up when a mouse
is next to it for a certain time.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and hope it was useful to you, please rate it and comment thanks.

Here I am going to tell you all about this amazing free software which in my opinion is the best of its type around.

The vlc media player made by videolan.org is a awesome video player, it can play almost any video file. including MKV and it can play DVD’S with no problem. Also you can stream video to other computers, but to do this you will need a large amount of bandwidth to be able to host/stream the video. One feature I like about this is it uses Direct X to make the video file you are playing, display as your Desktop background. This is a nice feature they have added to the program.

Also there are many other options while you are watching a video to make the experiance better for you the viewer, You can change the Original aspect ratio from the default to any one of these settings; 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, 2.21:1 and 5:4. A nice feature that isn’t normally available on most other lightweight media players is the subtitle track mode. This lets you run a seperate subtitles file on a movie/video that may be in another language.

The audio options are very limited, you can add different audio tracks to it like the subtitles, so if the film is in a different language or it had bad sound quality you can import and listen to a separate audio while watching a different video file. Also you can rotate the video in the advanced settings along with changing the colour to black and white or changing the hue if the video has got to much of one colour.

there are many many more settings that makes vlc in my opinion the best video player on the web. and the best thing it its FREE!

Vlc has had over 261,099,601 downloads!

Download link: Windows

Download link:Mac OS X (for 10.5 and 10.6)

In this article I’m going to briefly explain about different photo-editing software’s it will explain what they do and what they are bast suited for. Mostly on LiquidTutorials we use Photoshop CS3 because we feel this is the best allround photo-editing software available at the minute. we Shall star toff with the cheapest first of all…

GIMP -

GIMP is a FREE photo-editing software, many people that are first starting out Editing images use this simply because it it one of the best Free products out there, but we feel its not as powerful as Photoshop and has less tools and options available. But has a user friendly interface, and can be used by anyone This is defiantly worth a try.

Photoshop Elements is basically a cut down version of the professional Photoshop series, Adobe have created this as the low cost alternative to Photoshop. it is around £50 ($80) but it can be cheaper if you get a older version of Photoshop elements, the newest addition to the Elements Family is Photoshop Elements 7. You can also try it from adobe for Free for 30 days. Elements is mainly for touching up photos because it has allot of tools and features missing from the original Photoshop, but we also think this is Really the next step up and we think its wise to invest your money in this product if your a photographer or learning Photoshop.

Photoshop -

Photoshop made by Adobe is a great Product and has been fine tuned over the years to deliver the best performance and tools to create the perfect image. The Professional versions retail at around £539 ($657), as with the Elements you can get cheaper the older version the product is, There are also Student versions available for around £200 ($300) this can be a very good money saving alternative to paying the full price. This has a wider range and best range of tools at your fingertips. this is also available for the 30 days Free trial From adobe. with this you can not only edit photos but you can use textures and experience the full force of what Photoshop has to offer. This software has so much packed into it you wont believe what some people can do using it.

I hope this Article has been some use to you in helping you chose the correct product. (these are only a Few of the best around, there are many others available.

We have links at the bottem of the sidebar, which are links to buy photoshop elements 7 and photoshop CS4 extended Student edition (we like this one because if your a student you dont want to spend an extra £300 on Cs4!) its safe and easy to do.

Thanks for reading this article.