If you’re a gamer, you understand how vital it is to record your gameplay to share your experiences with friends, create gaming content for social media, or analyze your gameplay to improve your skills. When you start recording, though, you may notice a considerable dip in FPS, which might have a detrimental impact on your game experience.
I will cover all essential tips and strategies for recording your games without compromising FPS. Thus, whether you’re a veteran or a beginner, keep reading to learn how to record your gaming smoothly and efficiently.
Recording vs. Streaming in Regards to Fps Drop
Recording and streaming are basically the same things regarding performance. Streaming simply records and streams the footage on an internet platform of your choice simultaneously.
Streaming has more minimum requirements, but you are not using the highest possible resolution anyway. 99% of streaming is done at 1080p with 50-60 fps, and that’s not that difficult to handle for most hardware.
If you wanted to record at the same 1080p 60 fps, the impact on fps would be the same. However, recording gameplay for later usage is sometimes done at higher resolutions and more than 60 fps. That can significantly reduce the fps at which you can play the game.
It’s essential to remember that there are different recording levels before going into further discussion. Therefore, you need to adjust your expectations to the extent of your recording needs.
Best Hardware Options to Record Gameplay
Video game streaming and recording have undergone significant changes, particularly in terms of the hardware used. As a result, there are many more viable options today than 10 years ago.
One of the most significant hardware changes has been the development of dedicated streaming and recording hardware. Companies like Elgato, AVerMedia, and Blackmagic have produced capture cards that allow gamers to capture high-quality gameplay footage without sacrificing performance.
Another critical development has been the rise of powerful graphics cards designed specifically for gaming and content creation. These cards, such as Nvidia’s GeForce RTX series, feature dedicated hardware encoders that allow for efficient video compression, reducing the strain on the CPU or the rendering part of the GPU during recording or streaming.
Overall, the hardware used for game streaming and recording has come a long way over the years.
However, even the choice of software has become more critical than ever, especially when combined with the dedicated hardware encoders on newer graphics cards mentioned above.
Let’s discuss each option in detail.
Recording Gameplay With CPU Integrated Graphics
For most people, using CPU-integrated graphics to record instead of GPU will be easy because many of you probably have integrated CPU graphics without using them.
In short, using CPU graphics minimizes the performance drop in your gameplay because the GPU is free to use 100% of its capability to render video game graphics.
However, there is still a tiny fps drop because the CPU has to divert some of its resources to record the game footage, and games require CPU processing power to run as well.
There is an issue that barely anyone is talking about, and that’s how CPU-intensive games have much bigger fps drops when recording the gameplay with CPU-integrated graphics.
At the same time, games that don’t put too much strain on your CPU run well with this kind of recording setup.
Games like Europa Universalis IV are impossible to record with a CPU after you have played for several hours due to millions of calculations piling up for the CPU to sort through. Unless you have a high-end CPU and high-speed RAM to ease the load.
Again, it’s essential to know what your recording or streaming goals are and base the needs on that.
You might end up needing only a slightly more expensive CPU with integrated graphics, and you are good to go, or you might need to upgrade half of your setup based on the game and recording needs.
Recording Gameplay With NVENC
Nvenc is a dedicated GPU circuit that operates independently. It does not require processing resources from the regular GPU unless you enable look-ahead or psycho-visual tuning, in which case it requires a small amount of regular GPU resources. In terms of resource use, it is “free” to utilize. This is the primary advantage of Nvenc over AMD VCE (AMD GPUs) and Quicksync (Intel GPUs).
Therefore Nvenc architecture is excellent for recording or streaming gameplay without affecting the performance of rendering and CPU while playing the game. The easiest way to use it is to configure it with OBS screen recording software.
You should experience no fps drop with Nvenc whatsoever.
However, I would say Nvenc is not yet perfected, as it still gets outperformed by some recording and streaming setups we will discuss later.
There are discrepancies in the performance and quality of Nvenc. “Performance” refers to the maximum number of frames per second that may be encoded for a given resolution.
Some of the older Nvenc circuits, for example, aren’t powerful enough to encode 4k at 60 frames per second, but all newer ones are.
Each Nvidia chip generation has a new and enhanced Nvenc.
Nvenc on the Pascal processor has roughly the same quality as “x264 very fast”. In contrast, Nvenc on the Turing device has approximately the same quality as x264 medium to slow.
On the Ampere chip, Nvenc has almost the same quality as x264 slow.
GTX 10xx uses the Pascal chip.
GTX 1650 uses the Turing GPU cores but the Pascal Nvenc.
GTX 1650 SUPER uses the Turing chip.
GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 SUPER are both using the Turing chip.
RTX 2xxx uses the Turing chip.
RTX 3xxx uses the Ampere chip.
RTX 4xxx uses Ada Lovelace chip.
Nvenc experiences some issues compressing certain things during gameplay. For example, explosions and similar things in gameplay can often stutter or lose pixels.
In addition, there is only a single Nvenc chip available per graphic card, and it’s sometimes used for VR, meaning you can’t use it to record VR gameplay simultaneously.
Recording Gameplay With Another PC and A Capture Card
Many pros believe that using another PC to record is the best option. Essentially, you would connect your PC to another PC with a video capture card in between. That card would save the video to the storage of the second PC.
In my own experience, it is by far the best way in terms of performance and the lack of issues constantly wasting your time.
If you get a capture card that can support the necessary resolution and equip the second PC with a fast processor and plenty of storage, there are no FPS losses. This is because, instead of having your gaming PC conduct both rendering and screen capture, the job is now split between two PCs: the gaming PC renders the footage, while the second PC captures and records it.
The second PC can be really basic and cheap since you won’t do any difficult tasks on it other than running a few simple programs like OBS and a web browser.
The obvious drawback is the increased cost, which can range from $500 to $1000 with the capture card included. However, all the specs should be average, except for decent SSD storage.
The setup is a bit more challenging to implement at first, but that’s a topic for a whole new web post. You can always look it up yourself, as there are plenty of thorough guides on youtube.
If you have a spare laptop with decent SSD storage, as I do, you can use that and only invest in a capture card. You save a lot, especially if you have a single monitor, and with a second PC, you would need to invest in that as well.
I find it even better as it’s easier to move around and edit videos from another location.
Best Capture Cards
It’s not so easy saying which capture card is the best, mainly because I don’t think anyone used more than a few, which makes it hard to stay objective while covering every capture card on the market.
However, I’d be happy to mention the ones I used.
First, it’s essential to understand the distinction between external and internal capture cards. External capture cards connect to your computer via USB or Thunderbolt. In contrast, internal capture cards are installed directly into your computer’s PCIe slot.
I found external capture cards to be more convenient because they can be easily disconnected and used with different computers. In contrast, internal capture cards tend to offer better performance because they are not limited by the bandwidth of external connections.
With that in mind, here are some of the reliable and high-performing capture cards I had the opportunity of using.
External Capture Cards:
Elgato Game Capture HD60 S+: This is one of the most popular and well-regarded external capture cards on the market. It supports up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second and features low-latency passthrough, so you can play games with minimal delay while still capturing high-quality footage. It’s also compatible with a wide range of capture software, including OBS, Streamlabs, and XSplit.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus: This is another great option for an external capture card. It supports up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second and also features a low-latency passthrough. It’s also relatively affordable compared to some other options on the market.
Internal Capture Cards:
Elgato Game Capture 4K60 Pro: This is the card to get if you’re looking for the absolute best in capture card performance. It supports up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second and offers ultra-low latency thanks to its PCIe connection. It also features HDR passthrough, so you can capture high-dynamic-range footage for a more cinematic look.
AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K: This is another great option for an internal capture card, offering similar capabilities to the Elgato Game Capture 4K60 Pro. It supports up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second and features low-latency passthrough. It’s also relatively affordable compared to some other high-end internal capture cards.
Ultimately, the best capture card for you will depend on your specific needs and budget. But any of the cards I’ve mentioned here would be a great place to start.
Conclusion
As we can see, there are several options to choose from. However, only an additional pc with a capture card in between is actually reliable for high-end performance. Other options work great only with less demanding games.
If you are serious about a Twitch or Youtube career, I would recommend investing a bit more money to create a proper reliable setup.