How to Record Low-end PC for Gameplay or Other Activities

Recording low-end PC is easy. But you may come across some unexpected recording issues like laggy and stuttering recording or wonder what’s the best low-spec friendly screen recorder…

Making screencasts is a great way to share skills and ideas, and connect with the viewers. Also, it helps people maintain some crucial moments displayed on the rectangle monitor. But when it comes to screen recording low-end PC, many users may have questions like:

– Is my years-old home computer competent for taking screen video capture
– My laptop, with limited 2GB RAM and Intel HD Graphics 4XXX, has pretty poor performance but I want to shoot screen actions for work, is there any easy and lightweight screen recording software for low-end PC?
– Using OBS to record my slow computer, it lags from time to time, how to get rid of this problem?
…

To make things clear to all users in doubt, let’s get to the bottom of these kinds of matters one by one in the following part.

Part 1: Record Low-end PC – It’s Viable!

High-end PC or low-end PC, you, the owner of it, can start up recording with the help of a screen capture tool. Among the wide variety of screen recorders for PC, lightweight and low-PC friendly ones like RecMaster, Dxtory, and Bandicam work better than other general pieces. Hence, we will use the easiest RecMaster to record my bargain or outdated Lenovo PC as a demonstration. Please download it free here and finish the setup to get things prepared.

Step 1 – Launch and Select a Recording Mode

RecMaster has a super intuitive interface, which makes the screencasting a snap even if you don’t have any knowledge or training in how to use such software.

On the main UI, multiple capture modes are sitting in a row. From left to right, they are Full Screen, Game Mode (available for Windows only),  Custom Area, and Other Modes. In the Other Modes dropdown list, you have Program Window, Follow Cursor, Webcam, and Audio Only. Simply choose the one according to your need.

Step 2 – Check and Do Settings

By default, RecMaster gives parameter settings for all common machines. You can test whether the recording runs normally on your poor PC by starting and ending the capture. If it’s OK, let it be. If the recording process is not smooth, properly lower the frame rate or quality level to guarantee a lag-free capture.

Other options that RecMaster gives for customized recording include file format, monitor source (for multi-screen condition), VFR/CFR frame rate type, webcam overlay (for picture-in-picture video), system sound and microphone, recording time (for scheduled task), watermark, and mouse cursor effect. You can achieve many visual effects and enable automatic capture by adjusting these settings.

If you are a frequent hotkey user, it’s also possible to take advantage of the existing hotkeys or alter them to what you get used to.

Step 3 – Record the On-screen Movement

Click the red REC button or type Alt + 1 to commence the recording. For the first time, you will be informed with the hotkeys and enjoy a 3-second countdown so that you have enough time to open the target app or streaming video you will grab and save. During the process, if you are making a tutorial, online course, or training material, the annotation tool located on the floating bar can be evoked to make highlights, explanations, and similar to make your content easier to understand.

Once you have finished the video capture, click the stop button or press Alt+2 to give it to an end. Then the video will be saved and listed in the Recording list immediately. This list window also enables you to check, rename, edit, and share video recordings online right away.

Instruction on how to record low-end PC with RecMaster is over. Since have no idea how low-end your computer is, below some tips and tricks are given in case you still have any capture problems.

Part 2: Record Low-end PC, FAQs You May Want to Know

☛ What’s the best screen recording software for low-end PC?

Since recording screen video is source-intensive due to video processing, and the real computer configurations and recording contents vary, it’s hard to conclude which one or one is “best” for all. Maybe your PC is not so bad and you are only willing to capture easy videos like PPT presentation with audio, then most common recorders could be the best to complete the mission without pressure. However, if you’d like to record hardware-intensive things on the so-so machine like (high-paced) PC games and multiple-app-centered operations, they themselves may have running issues, for instance, lag performance, not to mention doing a further screen capture.

Anyway, we still have some nominations, like previously-mentioned RecMaster, Dxtory, and Bandicam, plus new names like Nvidia Share, Fraps, Game Bar (for Windows 10 only), OBS, FBX (for game capture), and MSI. (See also: 2020 Best Game Recording Software for Windows)

☛ Why there’re still laggy, fps drop, and audio drift alike problems when using these best tools?

No one program could guarantee a 100% high-quality and fluent screen recording on low-end PC. That’s because low end is the root cause. As long as you don’t upgrade the hardware, you can only improve your situation by means of some knacks.

See Also: How to Screen Record with No Lag, How to Record Gameplay Without FPS Drop

☛ Tips & Tricks on recording low-end PC

For one game or another, it’s all the slowdown of graphic cards that leads to a periodic lack of responsiveness. To boost efficiency, you can improve PC performance with proper system settings or dedicated system booster tools, such as enabling Game Mode under Windows 10 during game capture, changing the battery power settings to maximum performance, and utilizing a third-party PC optimizer.

Reducing capture data or say file size is also an alternative way. You can decrease video quality-related parameters like resolution/fps/bitrate, and make the most of the GPU encoding if your PC and capture software are qualified to do so. For example, Bandicam, one of the best screen recorders for Windows, offers presets for low-end PCs, which works in the same way by defining video size to half, fps to 15, codec to Motion JPEG, and quality to 80…

Final Words

At some point, you must realize that nothing can really help if your low-end PC is not competent for the capture task. Therefore, if this post doesn’t help you record low-end PC smoothly at all, please level up your hardware or switch to another higher-end PC to finish your capture.