Fraps has FPS limitations. I evetually went to a dedicated system to record the output from the video card. You could make one from another system using a frame capture card like an ATI 550 - which would produce excellent results, I instead opted for a hacked Tivo series 1 (A couple buttons on the remote - and you're already recording). You soldier an ethernet cable to the mainboard, and then install a telnet client, so you can get to a BASH script, install and start a server if need be. The Tivo is a simple Linux box with a capture card is all. Then you just start your server which will pull the .ty stream off the Tivo to your mainbox, then mux it into an MPEG-2 stream from the ty stream (it is already an MPEG-2 - just that it needs to be put into a proper format that can be read).
The ATI x1900 XTX will output 1024x768 over the S-VHS out on the board, so the Tivo is the perfect device to pick that up as it is a dedicated platform in a small package. The S/VHS spec calls for 480x480, so that will be your true capture size, but don't think for a second that will be too small. Then you simply scale it for 4:3 aspect ratio which is 640x480, then crop the black borders, which leaves you with an excellent looking 572x432 resolution video. The only problem is, file size. Figure for decent looking MPEG-2 video that you should account for 1 GB per 30 minutes of capture, and for decent MPEG-4 video, account for about 2/3rds that. MPEG-2 uses more I frames so it will always be the better looking of the 2, but MPEG-4 looks excellent in much less space - just remember that any errors in the I frame will continue on for a very long time as it bounces between P and B frames before ever getting back to an I frame.
-S
PS. I forgot to mention - the Tivo series 2 is locked down. You can't hack it like a series 1. No problem though - you can find series 1's all over the place on Ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.com/Philips-Series-1...QQcmdZViewItem - This one ends in less than a day and only has a $0.99 price tag so far.