One way of creating a Free Rider video is to use CamStudio, a popular screen capture software package, and Cheat Engine, a program used to physically slow down a program. This used to be the only way to capture your Free Rider video, but now there is a more convenient alternative, ZD Soft.

Setting Up CamStudio

CamStudio is used to create a video showing just your track, or your track and the whole window. To set this program up:

• On the top toolbar, select "Region."
• From this popup window, select "Fixed Region" to open up the box shown in Figure 1.
• Click on the "Select" button and you should see your cursor change.
• Click and drag on the upper-left corner down to the bottom-right to determine the size of the recording window. If you see a box, you have completed this step sucessfully.
• Click "OK" to close the dialogue.
• Minimize CamStudio and move on to the Cheat Engine setup, below.

Setting Up the Cheat Engine

Cheat Engine is the component used to slow your browser (Internet Explorer shown here) down to half-speed, so you don't get choppy video. If you were to record now and minimize all of the windows except your browser, you will notice skipped frames in the video. This is where Cheat Engine comes in.

• Open up Cheat Engine, and click on the button in the top left corner. It should have a picture of a computer on it. You will want to find the executable process for your browser (in this example "iexplorer.exe".) and click on it once.
• Once it is highlighted, click "OK" to exit the dialogue.
• You should now see "[hex digits]-iexplorer.exe" under the title of the window. If not, repeat the previous step.
• Now, on the mid right side of the window, you should see two checkboxes. Click on the lower box that says "Enable Speedhack" and then you will see a "Speed" textbox appear.
• Enter the value ".5" into the box, and click "Set Speed". Your browser is now running at half-speed. You are now ready to record the track.

Recording the Track

To start the actual recording process:

• Minimize Cheat Engine and click on CamStudio in your taskbar so it becomes the active window.
• Click on the large, red circle and move your cursor onto the browser. You should now see a box the size of the one you made earlier.
• Align the box with the game and click to start recording.
• Click on Free Rider once again to activate and start play.
• When you are done recording, press the blue square in CamStudio.
• Enter a filename and save your video.
• Open Cheat Engine up one more time and set the speed back to "1.0" for regular play.
• You can now exit Cheat Engine and CamStudio.

Speeding Up the Video and Saving

The final step in the process is to accelerate the video to its "normal" speed. To do this:

• Open up "Windows Movie Maker" by choosing Start>All Programs>Accessories>Windows Movie Maker.
• Open up a new project, and press "Import Video" on the "Movie Tasks" sidebar.
• Navigate to your video, and click "import". Your movie will be imported to the "collection" in the middle of the screen.
• Drag the thumbnail onto the timeline below to add it to the movie.
• To speed up the video to the regular speed, click on "View Video Effects".
• Find "Speed Up, Double" and drag it onto the thumbnail of your video in the timeline.
• Click the play button to view your new video.
• To star the save, click on the "3. Finish Movie" button on the sidebar to expand a new menu.
• Click on the "Save to my Computer" button, and follow the wizard to publish your movie to an .avi file.