Game recorder with no FPS drop

Updated 5 November 2026

No game recorder is completely free: capturing and encoding video always uses some of your PC. What you can do is keep that cost small enough that you do not feel it. The biggest factors are encoding on the graphics card, keeping the recorder out of the game's way, and choosing settings that match what your game really delivers.

Why recording costs frames

Recording a game means three jobs on top of playing it. Each frame has to be copied from the game, converted and encoded into video, and then stored. Every one of those takes time on the graphics card, the processor or memory, and anything the game was using for itself is now shared.

When a game already pushes your PC to its limit, that sharing shows up as a lower or less steady frame rate. When the PC has headroom, the recorder fits into it and you notice little or nothing. That is why two people with the same recorder can report very different results.

Encode on the graphics card

Encoding is the heaviest part. Doing it in software on the processor competes directly with the game. Modern graphics cards include a hardware video encoder that works separately from the parts that draw the game, which is why recording with it costs far less.

Make sure your recorder uses the encoder your card has. Clippy uses NVENC on NVIDIA, AMF on AMD and Quick Sync on Intel, and only falls back to software when none of them is available.

Keep the recorder out of the game

How a recorder gets the picture matters too. Clippy records the game's window through Windows Graphics Capture, which is part of Windows 10 and 11, and does not inject anything into the game process. The recorder runs as its own process, separate from the game and from the Clippy window, so the app's interface is not doing work inside your game.

Capturing only the game's window also means the recorder is not handling the rest of your desktop.

Choose a sensible bitrate and frame rate

Higher settings mean more work. Recording at 4K and 144 fps with a very high bitrate asks far more of the encoder and memory than 1080p at 60 fps. Pick the lowest settings that still look good to you, rather than the highest on the list.

The most common waste is a recording frame rate above what the game delivers. If the game runs below your recording frame rate, the extra frames are repeats that cost bitrate and memory and add nothing. Clippy shows the frame rate the game is really delivering in Settings while it records, so you can set the recording to match. Its frame rate options are 30, 60, 120 and 144 fps.

How to measure the cost on your own PC

Benchmarks from someone else's PC tell you little about yours. A simple test does:

Pick a repeatable scene in your game, such as a training map or a fixed spot in a busy area.
Turn on the game's own frame rate counter and note the frame rate there with recording off.
Turn recording on and return to the same scene. Note the frame rate again.
If the difference is more than you can accept, lower the recording resolution or frame rate one step and test again.

Settings in Clippy for the lowest impact

Set the frame rate to match what Settings shows the game delivering, not above it.
Record at 1080p or 1440p unless you really need 4K or native.
Use Auto quality, or a custom bitrate you have tested, rather than Ultra by default.
Keep the replay length to what you actually use. The default is one minute, and Settings shows how much memory each length takes.
Leave optional extras off if you do not need them. The input overlay and streamer mode are off by default.

Questions

Is there a game recorder with zero FPS drop?

No recorder is completely free, because capturing and encoding always use some of your PC. Encoding on the graphics card and sensible settings keep the drop small.

Why does my game stutter when I record?

Usually the recorder is encoding on the processor, or the settings ask for more than the PC has spare. Switch to a hardware encoder and lower resolution, frame rate or bitrate one step at a time.

Does recording at a lower frame rate help performance?

It reduces the work the encoder does. It also helps to never record above the frame rate your game actually reaches, which Clippy shows in Settings while recording.

Does Clippy work on AMD and Intel graphics?

Yes. Clippy encodes with AMF on AMD and Quick Sync on Intel, as well as NVENC on NVIDIA.