when i record with fraps it drops my frames from 385 to like 35 or less.. doesnt exactly make for a smooth movie. dunno what the problem is considering i have a monster pc. could anyone advise? cheers

Fraps records uncompressed .bmp images and then puts them into a .avi, still uncompressed. The huge fps drop is normal when using fraps because a lot of your system resources are going to something much more consuming than QW. However, that FPS drop shouldn't be a problem since you're only using it during demo playback, right? In case you are not, you want to get the .mvd demo from the server and then record during playback. Fraps sucks though, so I recommend you check out demo_capture instead. With demo_capture, you can specify a codec to encode the video during capture (for quick clips you plan to upload for someone to check out) or you can leave it at uncompressed (usually for bigger projects).

thanks for the reply.. if demo capture is the way to go ill use that. so if i want to record a full game in highest quality and then edit it later what command should i use?

demo_capture_fps 30 //Original FPS of demo divided by 1, 2 or 3. 30 is common fps of server mvds(?), although it is interpolated so it doesnt matter that much.
demo_capture_codec hfyu //You can use a lossless codec to save diskspace
demo_capture_mp3 0 //uncompressed sound
s_khz 44

<million graphics settings>

bind k demo_capture stop
<start demo playback>
demo_capture start 1230 myhqclip.avi

When Fraps is capturing, it sets the in-game framerate to match the capture rate. What is the point of running the game at 300fps when you're only capturing every 10th?