Screen recorder for PC games

Screen recorder or game recorder

A general screen recorder captures whatever is on your monitor: the desktop, a browser, a tutorial you are making, a game. It is the right tool when you need to show several programs or the desktop itself.

A game recorder is built around the game. It knows when a game starts, records that game, and usually offers instant replay so you can save a moment after it happens. Clippy is a game recorder. It records the game's window only, never the whole desktop.

Why recording only the game window helps

Recording only the game can sound like a limitation, but for gameplay it removes most of the things that ruin clips. It also means there is nothing to aim: you do not pick a region or a monitor before you start, because the recording is tied to the game itself.

• Discord messages, chat pop-ups and Windows notifications do not end up in the clip.
• Alt-tabbing to check something does not put your browser or other windows on the recording.
• Private things on your second monitor stay private.
• The recording follows the game's own window, using Windows Graphics Capture, which is part of Windows 10 and 11.

When you need the whole desktop

Some jobs really do need the full screen: a tutorial that moves between programs, a bug report showing your desktop, or a game that runs inside another app. For those, use any general screen recorder, or OBS Studio. OBS is free and very capable, and it is built for streaming and recording sessions. Its replay buffer needs setting up by hand, which matters less when you are recording a whole session anyway. Read Clippy vs OBS for how the two fit together.

Plenty of people keep both: a general recorder for the occasional desktop video, and a game recorder that runs on its own for gameplay.

Recording sessions versus saving moments

Screen recorders tend to work in sessions: press record, play, press stop, then hunt through a long file. That suits a full playthrough or a video you plan to edit heavily.

For highlights, instant replay is faster. Clippy keeps the last stretch of the game in memory, one minute by default, and pressing F8 saves it as an MP4. There is nothing to start or stop, because recording begins by itself when a game starts and ends when it closes. See instant replay on PC for how that works.

Setting up Clippy as your game recorder

Clippy is free. Setting it up as your game recorder takes a few minutes, most of it spent choosing settings.

1. Install Clippy from the download page on Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
2. Start a game. Clippy recognises it and begins recording the game's window.
3. Press F8 after a moment you want to keep. The clip is saved as an MP4 named after the game.
4. If Clippy misses a game, add it yourself. If it picks up a program that is not a game, tell it never to record that program.
5. Choose resolution (720p to 4K or native), frame rate (30 to 144 fps) and quality in Settings.

Questions

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