How To Capture/Record Your Gameplay On Any PC Easily With or Without Screen Recorder

I'm going to show you how to record your gameplay in two methods.First method needs a third party screen recorder but the second method does not need a third party screen recorder.But the second method will only work on nvidia devices.

1. Using Fraps
2. Using nVidia Shadow Play

Using Fraps

This is the easiest method to record your gameplays.You need to buy a full version of Fraps to record large lenghts,the free version will only record your gameplays for like ten seconds.So buy a full version.Visit this link.

Once you've installed Fraps open it.

Here you can see some normal settings.Now switch to Movies TAB.

Now change the movie save path if you want.Assign a Video Capture Hot key by your preference.If you want very quality smooth videos Set FPS rate to about 50 or 60 under Video Capture settings.You need a very large amount of disk space for 50 and 60fps movies.Full-Size means your original screen resolution and half size means half of your original screen resolution.In sound capture settings please use settings as in the picture.You don't want to configure any external audio inputs as you're recording your gameplay.But you can always choose between Stereo and Multichannel.

Its better to turn on FPS overlay in FPS TAB.It helps you to know whether the recording has started.

Don't worry it won't be recorded in your movies.

 

Before recording gameplay

• Make sure you have a dual core processor.Most of the latest CPUs have 2 cores so I think this will be a huge problem here.
• You need a very large disk space to record gameplays with Fraps.Fraps can't compress videos while recording,So the file size was about 3GB for 10 mins at 1024 by 768 @ 29.97fps.So at least 25GB disk space is required.
• If you have a quard-core processor or a processor that is way above the system requirements of the game try 'Force lossless RGB capture' in Movies TAB.
• If you only have minimum system requirements for the game its better to lower the graphics quality and resolution a little bit so you can get a smooth recording of your gameplay.Please read Kompuer Tip's GPU overclock guide to overclock your GPU for faster capturing.

Let's get started

Minimize Fraps first.Now open your game.As you turned on FPS overlay you should see it at on of the corners of the screen in Yellow.

  

Now Press the Hotkey you assigned for video capture.The FPS(framerate) overlay color will turn into red.Once you've completed recording all the gameplay you wanted press the Hotkey again to stop the recording of the gameplay.

 

And then you'll have your high quality gameplays captured to your hard disk.Now there's a big problem.The file sizes are HUGE! Let's find a solution for that!

Compressing Gameplays

Look at the picture below.

Yo can see the file size is 2.95GB for 4 min and 27sec.You need to compress this before uploading to Youtube or whatever the online video sharing service you use.To do so you can use a video compressing software, most likely a video converter.You can use VLC media player too.And for advanced compressing use Adobe After Effects.It will ultra compress your gameplays, trust me!

Well using after effects is a little bit advaced.You have to create a composition equal to the video's resolution and add the video.Then you have to pre render it using an encoder like h.264.Then render it.
For users who don't have after effects you can use Format Factory.This software can convert any multimedia file format into any format.And its a freeware!You can download Format Factory from this link.

I don't explain using Format Factory step by step here as it has a very simple user interface.This is what you have to do.Drag and drop your screen recordings to Format Factory Window.It will ask for a Format.Choose MP4 or MKV ( my preference) and click setting.

Do not change any setting except for the Bitrate.

 

Change Bitrate to about 2400KB/s for 1024 by 768 @ 29.97 fps.You need to increase this depending on the resolution and Frame rate you used to record your gameplays.Note that Format Factory really shows bits per rate not byte per rate.(not KB/s its Kbps).I've listed some recommended bitrates for video resolutions.I found these on Google Live Encoder settings. 

• Resolution
• 1920x1080

• Video Bitrates
• Maximum 6000 Kbps
• Recommended 4500 Kbps
• Minimum 3000 Kbps

• Resolution
• 1280x720

• Video Bitrates
• Maximum 4000 Kbps
• Recommended 2500 Kbps
• Minimum 1500 Kbps

Actually minimum and maximum rates doesn't apply to us.You can exceed them.But going below recommended  bitrate will give you a very low quality video and exceeding maximum bitrate will just waste your space.Once converted you will get your game play recordings at decent file sizes.Using after effects will be faster if you have a fast graphics card as after effects use GPU rendering.

Please read 'Komputer Tips' GPU Overclock Guide For Beginners | Get The Most Out Of Your Graphics Card' for smoother game playback and gameplay capturing.

Using  nVidia Shadow Play

This can be only done with nvidia GPUs.You need a GTX 600 series or higher GPU and 4GB RAM,Intel Core 2 Duo or above CPU.The you have to download and install nvidia Geforce Experience.I am not going to walk you through it as I don't have a nvidia GPU.But I'm sure with the knowledge you acquired from above you can easily configure it.

NOTE:SOME GPU MANUFACTURES INCLUDE SHADOW PLAY FEATURE TO RECORD YOUR GAMEPLAY. (MSI)