Game video capture question...

[SilentGameTestR]

Not sure if this is the right section, but I do game recordings, as a hobby, not in a professional manner and I usually use Filmora for screen recording as I also use that software for editing the videos too.

Now, while I find that better than using Afterburner which saps more performance, I would like to record footage in another way because I will be getting an Ultrawide monitor soon and realised you cant use the PBP feature to record the other screen, so ill need an add-on.

Now this is obviously where capture cards come in to play which ive never used, but I was thinking, like many youtubers, some use a separate camera, however, my question is, could I use a webcam instead as that will be connected directly to the computer I want to record with?

I want to use the best option that doesnt require pc processing power or atleast the minimal amount.

 

[Rroff]

If I'm understanding you right - no webcams normally don't have the ability to capture/process a monitor output from the signal, and using them to record the monitor optically is obviously not a great solution.

OBS is one of the better options for display/game capture in software otherwise you want an external capture card ideally hooked up to another PC/laptop for recording though that can complicate audio capture a bit depending on the quality of the capture card - the cheap ones tend to have horrible audio quality.

 

[SilentGameTestR]

If I'm understanding you right - no webcams normally don't have the ability to capture/process a monitor output from the signal, and using them to record the monitor optically is obviously not a great solution.

OBS is one of the better options for display/game capture in software otherwise you want an external capture card ideally hooked up to another PC/laptop for recording though that can complicate audio capture a bit depending on the quality of the capture card - the cheap ones tend to have horrible audio quality.

Thanks for reply.

Yeah basically I was thinking of mounting a webcam, be it on a stand or see if there are any mounts you can attach to the screen that extends so I can point the webcam at the screen. I was only thinking a webcam as they are connected directly to the computer. While screen recording captures the sounds, its not always needed.

I watch a lot of Dawid does tech and Randomgaminghd who I believe both use a camera to record their monitors.

That's an option I wanted as it doesnt affect the pc performance at all, but even 2nd hand im probably not going to afford anything worthwhile which is why I thought of a webcam as an alternative.

 

[TrojanWhore]

Thanks for reply.

Yeah basically I was thinking of mounting a webcam, be it on a stand or see if there are any mounts you can attach to the screen that extends so I can point the webcam at the screen. I was only thinking a webcam as they are connected directly to the computer. While screen recording captures the sounds, its not always needed.

I watch a lot of Dawid does tech and Randomgaminghd who I believe both use a camera to record their monitors.

That's an option I wanted as it doesnt affect the pc performance at all, but even 2nd hand im probably not going to afford anything worthwhile which is why I thought of a webcam as an alternative.

The reason Dawid sometimes records using a camera is because he's benchmarking performance of the games (and often on VERY low end systems), so needs to absolutely eliminate the performance impact.

As Rroff said, OBS is almost definitely going to be the best solution here, in fact it'll probably impact performance less than processing a webcam input, for the same quality of output. (also the webcam would need to be between your face and the screen to capture a non-distorted image )

Almost any modern system should be able to handle recording using OBS just fine (and you can tweak the capture settings to minimise the performance needs).

So what are your system specs?

 

[SilentGameTestR]

The reason Dawid sometimes records using a camera is because he's benchmarking performance of the games (and often on VERY low end systems), so needs to absolutely eliminate the performance impact.

As Rroff said, OBS is almost definitely going to be the best solution here, in fact it'll probably impact performance less than processing a webcam input, for the same quality of output. (also the webcam would need to be between your face and the screen to capture a non-distorted image )

Almost any modern system should be able to handle recording using OBS just fine (and you can tweak the capture settings to minimise the performance needs).

So what are your system specs?

Thanks for reply.

Thats a fair point on his uses, but thats me also. Granted im not in a position where i can afford high end stuff, but i get more satisfaction from the under dog systems.

The system specs will vary, but given an ultrawide wont do what i thought without too many compromises and as such, i decided to purchase a 100hz 1440p 34" LG as the features of a gaming model will be wasted, i dont know what i will do now in regards to recording.

I havent used PBP yet nor played any games, but i think i will just stick to what i used to do which was record with Filmora then put all the unedited files on a usb drive to use with another computer for editing. My Ultrawide will be perfect for that.

If i do decide to go the capture route then the recording system will be my intel one with i5 12400F, 16gb(though i will go back to 32gb soon), various m.2 drives and a basic gpu i havent decided on yet. The system for my game tests will be for now a Ryzen based system starting with a 2200g working my way up to 5000 series, m.2 + 2.5 ssd, 8 or 16gb ram and various graphic cards. Specs depends on the games ill be running.

 

[TrojanWhore]

Thanks for reply....

Ah ok, I think I may have misunderstood the brief! If you're specifically making benchamark content then maybe worth avoiding encoding on the system you're gaming on.

Although plenty of people do benchmark on the same system, performance impact really is minimal as modern graphics cards (especially since Nvidia 3xxx series or around 6xxx series AMD, as well as anything Intel Arc based, do have pretty good hardware encoders that are entirely separate from the graphics pipeline).

Even some earlier cards were not too bad, or CPU encoding mostly gives better output quality - For my own video projects I use CPU, even with a good modern GPU as another option - having 16 cores certainly helps with that but I was doing it back when I was on 8 cores... in fact my first video was recorded on 4 cores 4 threads (2500k, GTX 1070 or maybe 780ti) and still doesn't look bad!

I had thought you just meant gameplay videos, in which case I'd definitely do it all on the same box, at least until you get to a point where you're making money from it!

Edit: P.S. What is PBP? Not heard of that

 

[SilentGameTestR]

Ah ok, I think I may have misunderstood the brief! If you're specifically making benchamark content then maybe worth avoiding encoding on the system you're gaming on.

Although plenty of people do benchmark on the same system, performance impact really is minimal as modern graphics cards (especially since Nvidia 3xxx series or around 6xxx series AMD, as well as anything Intel Arc based, do have pretty good hardware encoders that are entirely separate from the graphics pipeline).

Even some earlier cards were not too bad, or CPU encoding mostly gives better output quality - For my own video projects I use CPU, even with a good modern GPU as another option - having 16 cores certainly helps with that but I was doing it back when I was on 8 cores... in fact my first video was recorded on 4 cores 4 threads (2500k, GTX 1070 or maybe 780ti) and still doesn't look bad!

I had thought you just meant gameplay videos, in which case I'd definitely do it all on the same box, at least until you get to a point where you're making money from it!

Edit: P.S. What is PBP? Not heard of that

Yeah gameplay recordings only. Im not a youtuber or streamer and while i do have a youtube channel with some game videos from ages ago, its all a hobby for me than making money off it. Earnings would be a bonus not an intent.

I usually just record and the same device, i find it easier, but i used to use msi afterburner which definitely hampered performance and some times the xbox game bar. I cant remember if the game bar affects performance, but i can say ive noticed impacts using Filmora which also has the convenience of being the same software i edit with. For pc games that is and maybe the odd xbox game from the pc pass.

I did originally want a high end system to do it all, but i like to build and so i want to make use of them with sectors of this whole process.

good to know about those series of cards as i was looking at the entry level or mid range options as i dont need it entirely for games

 

[TrojanWhore]

I'd definitely try with OBS first, you can adjust the quality settings so it'd barely impact performance (I'm not sure how much Afterburner etc allows you to do that)

 

[Gray2233]

Not sure if this is the right section, but I do game recordings, as a hobby, not in a professional manner and I usually use Filmora for screen recording as I also use that software for editing the videos too.

Now, while I find that better than using Afterburner which saps more performance, I would like to record footage in another way because I will be getting an Ultrawide monitor soon and realised you cant use the PBP feature to record the other screen, so ill need an add-on.

Now this is obviously where capture cards come in to play which ive never used, but I was thinking, like many youtubers, some use a separate camera, however, my question is, could I use a webcam instead as that will be connected directly to the computer I want to record with?

I want to use the best option that doesnt require pc processing power or atleast the minimal amount.

What GPU/CPU/RAM do you have? I ask because I believe Nv at least has built in recording software that might be worth playing with. An odd option might be to live stream somewhere like twitch as I believe they handle the processing on their end(?), if shy just make the stream private and then download to post elsewhere if you're wanting to do youtube uploads or whatever. I'm pretty sure that regardless of resolution they'll only display at standard res, I'm not 100% on this but it's free to give it a shot.

A webcam wont do what you seem to want to do.