How to Record Gameplay on Windows 10 [with Game DVR or Others]

With both of the video game sales and video player numbers continuously increasing in recent years, we have to admit that video game has become one of the mainstream entertainment forms. People love it because it can stimulate the minds of players, give them a sense of accomplishment, relax them and also give them a new way to learn skills and make friends. With the popularity of gaming, some game-related things are also a craze, such as electronic sports, game streaming, and game vlogging.

Here in this article, we will focus on the basic skill for Windows 10 users on the smash-hit (YouTube) gaming vlog: how to record gameplay on Windows 10. Also, you can record and save the great gaming moments to the local drive or share with friends/family in this way.

To begin with, you should have a basic knowledge on several types of game recording software for Windows 10:
● The built-in game recording feature of Windows 10 – Game DVR
● The game capture feature of high-end GPU’s free service – e.g. Nvidia Shadowplay, AMD Radeon ReLive (if your Win 10 is equipped with such qualified graphic cards.)
● The third-party game recording software for Windows 10 – top choices include OBS Studio, RecMaster, Bandicam and OBS.

How to Accomplish Windows 10 Game Recording with Game Bar

If you are an Xbox/One user, you must be familiar with the Xbox app and its screen capture feature Game Bar. To facilitate the screencasting operation of gamers or common users, Windows 10 has built this Xbox-modeled game bar into the system. Every time you want to do a game capture, you can press Win + G to open the control to go ahead. If there’s no response, check and turn it on under Start -> Settings -> Game Bar. In the same place, you are free to：
– check and set a shortcut for start/stop recording (Win + Alt +G by default), show Microphone on/off during recording (Win + Alt + R by default) and broadcast.
– enable background recording while playing game, set (up to 4 hours) maximum recording length, frame rate, video/audio quality and whether to capture the mouse cursor under the Captures window.

Absolutely, you are suggested to configure Game DVR before the game capture in case they make any difference on your crucial game campaign, like the quality and duration. In addition, similar to that of Xbox One, Game Bar/DVR also features keeping the last 30 seconds gameclip automatically.

Although Game bar literally means a tool for game recording, it’s also friendly to other “non-game games” like a desktop application and browser tab. If there’s no game launched, it will record a black screen video, no desktop or file explorer will be grabbed because it currently does not support they two things. In other words, if you would like to capture the full desktop with windowed gameplay, more than one game sources or realize other capture goals beyond the ability of Game DVR, or your Game bar is not working, you have to turn to the expert game recording software.

How to Do Windows 10 Game Recording with Easy Game Recording Software [Recommended]

Compared to Game Bar/DVR or free game capture tool provided by graphics cards like Shadowplay, an independent gameplay recorder may take you a little time to download and install. However, it works in a simpler way and gives you more control over the video and effect. Let’s have a glance at the workflow of one of the easiest Windows 10 game recorder – RecMaster.

RecMaster is a typical screen recorder for desktop, and game recording is one core mode of this versatile program. To start your Windows 10 game recording, you only need to do the steps: Choose Game Mode -> Set for recording -> Start and take annotation if necessary -> End the recording. Nothing else will divert your attention but the settings may take you seconds to decide if the default ones are what you want.

Settings on the Main Windows
1. Monitor: For multiple monitor users, the screen options are all listed here. You can choose either to capture. For multi-screen recording, you should switch to Custom Area mode to select the whole region and then record.
2. Video Formats: Three mainstream video formats are available to choose – MP4 (recommended), FLV and AVI.
3. Quality: Three quality levels stand by to meet different requirements. You must know that the higher quality, the larger file size.
4. Frame rate: Several fps options are available for you to choose. You can tweak it to 60fps if you will run a high-paced game. VFR and CFR are also selectable. You should know that VFR video is not compatible well with video editors.
5. Webcam: Turn it on if you plan to show your facecam overlay on the game screen.
6. System sound: You are allowed to capture the system sound at the same time during game recording.
7. Microphone: For those who are going to make voiceover or narration, please turn it on.
8. Task schedule: It’s a great tool to help you automate any game (streaming) recording at a fixed time.
9. Settings: You can click this icon to access to another panel for advanced settings like hotkeys, watermark, mouse cursor effect and auto-start.
10. Recording list: When you stop the recording, you can check, rename, edit and share it from this list.

Conclusion

After completing the two how-tos on Windows 10 game recording, you can choose either to record your gameplay on PC accordance with your actual need. The existing recording tool bundled with system or hardware is more convenient while the technical game recording software gives the user the possibility for more flexible, stable and creative work. If you are a PS4 user, please refer to this guide on how to record gameplay on PS4.

See Also: RecMaster vs. Game Bar