The best game recording software: what to look for

Picture quality: resolution, frame rate and bitrate

Three settings decide how a recording looks. Resolution is how many pixels each frame has. Frame rate is how many frames per second are kept. Bitrate is how much data the encoder may spend per second, and it is the one people overlook: a high resolution with too little bitrate looks blocky in fast motion, especially in games full of foliage, particles or quick camera turns.

Good recording software lets you set all three and gives you a sensible automatic choice. Clippy offers 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K or native resolution, 30, 60, 120 or 144 fps, and quality from Auto through Low to Ultra, or a custom bitrate from 3 to 100 Mbps. Auto is a reasonable starting point if you are not sure.

Encoders: why the graphics card should do the work

Encoding turns raw frames into a compact video, and it is the heaviest part of recording. A software encoder does it on the processor, which competes with the game for CPU time. A hardware encoder on the graphics card does it separately from the processor, which is why it is the usual choice for recording while playing.

Each graphics brand has its own hardware encoder: NVENC on NVIDIA, AMF on AMD and Quick Sync on Intel. Check that a recorder supports the one in your PC. Clippy uses all three, with a software fallback for systems that have none. The recorder also runs as a separate process from the game and from the Clippy window.

Capture method: the game window or the whole screen

Some recorders capture the whole monitor, others capture one window. Capturing the whole screen records everything on it, including chat pop-ups and notifications. Capturing the game's window records only the game.

Clippy records the game's window only, using Windows Graphics Capture, which is part of Windows 10 and 11. It does not inject anything into the game process. If you alt-tab out of an exclusive fullscreen game and back, the replay buffer survives. If you need to record your desktop instead, read screen recorders for PC games.

Audio tracks

A recording with one mixed audio track is fine until a friend shouts over your best moment or music plays that you cannot post. Separate tracks let you fix that afterwards by turning one source down or off.

On Windows 11, Clippy records the game, everything else (Discord, music) and your microphone as separate tracks, plus a mixed track. On Windows 10 the game and other sound share one track, and the microphone is still separate. In the editor each track goes from 0 to 200% or muted, and you hear the change live. The details are in recording game audio and Discord separately.

What happens after you press record

A recorder you use every day should make the next step easy. Look for an editor that can trim without re-exporting a whole session, exports for the places you post, and files you can find again.

Clippy saves plain MP4 files on your disk, named after the game and the time, with an optional folder per game. The editor trims, marks chapters, changes speed, exports GIFs, and makes vertical 9:16 versions for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Automatic cleanup can remove clips older than a number of days or keep the folder under a size. See all features.

A quick checklist

• Supports the hardware encoder in your graphics card.
• Lets you set resolution, frame rate and bitrate, with a sensible automatic option.
• Shows the frame rate the game is really delivering, so you do not record frames that are not there. Clippy shows it in Settings while recording.
• Records game, voice chat and microphone as separate tracks.
• Saves plain video files you own.
• Starts by itself when a game starts, so you never miss a session.

Questions

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