Best gaming recording/streaming program

JL94x4 · 7 May 2015 at 22:22

So I'm just wondering what is the best software to record/stream games to twitch/youtube that doesn't cause major FPS drops and is lighweight compared to the competition, i know of a few which i'll list with what i think is their positive side of their use..

Nvidia Shadow Play - Well, its Nvidia so theoretically should work well with nvidia cards?

OBS - Free open source, with mods allowing for streaming/recording overlays

Xsplit - Paid software but does more or less the same as OBS with a wider range of capture card support

Is that all thats available?

MrMarvelous · 7 May 2015 at 22:39

I use DXTory and there's barley any performance hit and the quality is immense. Not as smiple to use as say FRAPS as you have to configure it a little bit but FRAPS is a childs toy compared to DXTory.

no_name_needed · 8 May 2015 at 09:57

To record I love bandicam...the compression and quality is outstanding

Raumarik · 8 May 2015 at 10:52

If you have an Nvidia card that supports it Shadowplay is easily the most elegant and hassle free solution

Fraps - horrible quality, compression etc.
Bandicam - Quality simply isn't as good as others.
DXTory - can be fiddly but works very well.
OBS - One of my favourites, incredibly flexible.
Mirillis - Very easy to set up, expensive but quality is outstanding.
Shadowplay - can record previous 5-20 mins of footage or continuously with bugger all effort so doesn't eat up space and quality is good.
Raptr - Meh, was highly hit and miss on my 7950, quality was nice when it worked.
Xplit - never touched it.

ADT · 8 May 2015 at 10:55

You can use steam streaming even with a non-steam game. Tried it the other day and it wasn't that bad

Ch3m1c4L · 8 May 2015 at 12:09

Dxtory/aver media capture card for the game capture and xsplit to then create the "scenes" and actually stream it, is what i use/like, having tried a lot of different ones.

chrisjdw · 8 May 2015 at 14:12

Ch3m1c4L said:
Dxtory/aver media capture card for the game capture and xsplit to then create the "scenes" and actually stream it, is what i use/like, having tried a lot of different ones.

For console recording and streaming i use an elgato game capture hd, for streaming on the console i use the elgato and xsplit broadcaster, and for streaming and recording on the pc i use just xsplit broadcaster.
Highly recommend it, its brilliant.

Sighn · 8 May 2015 at 21:11

Halfmad said:
If you have an Nvidia card that supports it Shadowplay is easily the most elegant and hassle free solution

Fraps - horrible quality, compression etc.
Bandicam - Quality simply isn't as good as others.
DXTory - can be fiddly but works very well.
OBS - One of my favourites, incredibly flexible.
Mirillis - Very easy to set up, expensive but quality is outstanding.
Shadowplay - can record previous 5-20 mins of footage or continuously with bugger all effort so doesn't eat up space and quality is good.
Raptr - Meh, was highly hit and miss on my 7950, quality was nice when it worked.
Xplit - never touched it.

OBS is definitely great. The advantages of Shadowplay can be applied to OBS because OBS can be configured to use the same hardware capturer/encoder. OBS can also buffer recordings like Shadowplay does. These advantages can also be applied to MSI Afterburner.

Nothing wrong with Fraps' quality though. It leaps boundaries over Shadowplay which often artefacts if camera movement is erratic. The only problem is that Fraps requires fast HDD writing speed. Space isn't so much of a problem because Fraps also allows buffered recording (years before Shadowplay was even created).

Shadowplay's main advantage is that it's essentially resource-free which is why it's my recorder of choice (within OBS's settings).

JL94x4 · 9 May 2015 at 23:14

How would you configure Shadowplay in OBS?

Thanks

Sighn · 12 May 2015 at 00:30

Replay Buffer Length in Broadcast settings. Mode will need to be set to File Output Only.
In Encoder settings you need to select Nvidia NVENC instead of x264. Use CBR and Enable CBR Padding to ensure better quality recordings.

djxput · 12 May 2015 at 09:54

Halfmad said:
If you have an Nvidia card that supports it Shadowplay is easily the most elegant and hassle free solution

Fraps - horrible quality, compression etc.
Bandicam - Quality simply isn't as good as others.
DXTory - can be fiddly but works very well.
OBS - One of my favourites, incredibly flexible.
Mirillis - Very easy to set up, expensive but quality is outstanding.
Shadowplay - can record previous 5-20 mins of footage or continuously with bugger all effort so doesn't eat up space and quality is good.
Raptr - Meh, was highly hit and miss on my 7950, quality was nice when it worked.
Xplit - never touched it.

Ive tried many in the past like this guy - Mirillis was the best IMO, dxtory was decent also.

Ive got a nividia card now so can use shadowplay although havnt set it up yet.

Uncle_Gravy · 12 May 2015 at 12:47

I stream on Twitch and upload onto youtube, and I personally use OBS for both, OBS is such a versatile program and its free.

I have two presets made one for 720p streaming and other for high quality 1080p local recording.

If you have a decent quad core CPU then OBS is the choice really.

But if your system is lacking and has a mid/high range Nvidia card you can use Shadow play which has your basic forms for streaming and recording functionality and again its free, I used to use shadow play for its basic function, its simple one touch and go, and you can have an FPS counter which is always nice.