I recently made a new Youtube channel and I'm planning on recording a lot of my gameplay; What is the best free software out there, keeping in mind I will be recording a variety of different games. Is FRAPS really the way to go?

yes

In addition to FRAPS, what do people use to edit/create their vids after they have FRAPS'd it?

I messed around with Xsplit to stream some live Deus Ex gameplay to justin.tv/twitch.tv

Works pretty well.

I recently made a new Youtube channel and I'm planning on recording a lot of my gameplay; What is the best free software out there, keeping in mind I will be recording a variety of different games. Is FRAPS really the way to go?

I use xsplit.

But that's more for live streaming. Note though that xsplit records local recordings in h264 and FLV contained. Which means most programs throw a tanty (like virtual dub). I don't like adobe because it's expensive.

But with xsplit you can have more than one source at a time, fade through different combinations (I run 3 monitors, if i want to show box art+video game at the same time, CTRL+3 takes me to the setting where i'll have screen 1, and in the corner screen 2, which will be an image of the box art. Or if i want to show how to configure a controller for say like PCSX2 I can have it use the webcam of the controller in the corner while it records the settings menu in PCSX2.



damn singaporean with 28mbit upload

fraps

I made my first video using 'Camtasia Studio 7' ; A little confusing at first but i think it's really good, has all the fancy shit you need, though my recording were a bit laggy so I will have a play with the settings next time i record and try some of the software mentioned here, I have used fraps before and in all honesty i thought it was pretty average.

Same, that why I changed. Also, the fact that I run triple monitors and Fraps won't let me record small enough, I lag out if I try and use it. MSI Afterburner runs smooth for me while delivering great quality, and its free.
Last plug, promise.

did you even see my link?

Just downloaded overwolf, the quality is terrible, do not reccomend