HOW TO RECORD A GAMEPLAY AS A VIDEO FILE
Image Source - rocketdock H ave you ever noticed how do they do it? No, you can’t deny that you did not watched any. If ...
![]() |
Image Source - rocketdock |
Have you ever noticed how do they do it? No, you can’t
deny that you did not watched any. If you love playing games then you must have
watched gameplays over YouTube or through other ways. You are waiting for long
time for the most anticipated games and finally you can’t hold yourself until
the release and watch a demo gameplay over the internet. Sometimes you have
trouble playing a game and to beat that you just look for the walkthroughs.
Isn’t it. Yes, I got you. It was easy by the way. Today I am going to tell you
how to record gameplays.
Recording gameplays is not same
as recording a normal computer screen. It is different. Different due to
Microsoft DirectX. This is a collection
of interfaces (mainly application programming interface). It hosts the tasks
related to multimedia especially games. Just like you need software to play
videos on your computer, you need DirectX to play games. It creates the gaming
interface to show us what is where. The big ‘X’ in the word DirectX works like
an unknown variable. Actually DirectX is a package of DirectDraw, Direct3D,
DirectMusic, DirectPlay etc. Each are specialized in different fields of
multimedia. When you try to record your gameplay with a normal screen capture
software it will be ended getting a black screen. Because those software are
not capable of capturing DirectX simulations. But as always there is a solution
to this problem. There is a software called FRAPS that can record gameplay.
FRAPS Screenshot
This is a very easy to use
software. You can record gameplay as movie and add commentary if you wish, take
screenshots and even benchmark your pc against particular games. Now what in
seven hell is benchmarking. It is the measurement of your PC’s performance in a
game.it tells how good your computer is performing in a game. The result of
benchmarking for a particular PC differs from game to game. Benchmarking
measures the minimum, maximum and average frame per second (FPS) of the
gameplay. Here the average FPS is not the usual (minimum+ maximum)/2. Average
FPS is the Fps that stays for the maximum time. It may even take the minimum or
maximum FPS value. In some games benchmarking option is provided in the main
menu. But FRAPS lets you benchmark every game whether the option is given or
not.
But there are problems with
FRAPS. How can you record gameplays if you are playing on Xbox360 or Play
Station or Nintendo Wii U or on any other gaming consoles? FRAPS is not a help
here. Other than that being a real time video capture media it requires CPU
resources to get going. As it requires CPU cycles there is a performance drop
in your game. It increases the loading time and even decreases the average FPS
of the gameplay. If there is not any dedicated video card then the performance
drop is significant. This can be reduced if you buy a beastly powerful CPU
which can cost 60000 rupees (buy 1 more pc instead. It will be a better option).
How you record gameplay then in low cost and form every gaming console? Go
hardware instead. No, I am not talking about VCRs and DV Cams. You need a
device called PCIe capture device. This works just like a graphics card or
sound card. You have to install the device in the PCI express slot of the
motherboard. The devices are generally PCIe x1 type. So it will work with all
type of motherboards having a PCIe slot on it.
Roxio Game Capture HD Pro, Elgato
Game Capture HD, Hauppauge HD Personal Video Recorder these are some gape
recorders. But these are dedicated to Xbox 360 and Play Stations only. It
cannot capture PC gameplay.
Blackmagic Intensity Pro,
Avermedia Live Gamer HD these are some of the capture devices popular in the
market. My personal Favourite is Avermedia’s one. It looks good and easy to
use.
Image Source - amazon |
Blackmagic Intensity pro
![]() |
Image Source - ebay |
Avermedia Live Gamer HD
How will you use it to record
gameplay with it? It is simple. To show you I am taking Avermedia as a
reference product.
There are 2 HDMI ports on
Avermedia Live Gamer HD. 1 is HDMI in another is HDMI out. There are 2 analogue
audio ports (in and out). Connect your HDMI out of the console or pc to the
HDMI in of the device through a HDMI cable (provided in the box). In the same
way connect your audio out cable to the Audio in of the device to pass analogue
audio. You can use HDMI cable to pass both the video and audio signals. HDMI
has the capability. Use the HDMI out of the device to connect the device to a
display to see what is recording. You can use the Audio out to connect
speakers. The device has inbuilt H264 Encoder to encode in real time. That why
it hardly takes any CPU cycle to encode. In case of pc game you can use the
same pc (where you are playing the game) or a different pc to record. The wired
round device in the picture is a USB dedicated recording switch. Press the
switch whenever you want to start, pause, resume or stop the recording.
I
hope you enjoyed the article. If you have any query please comment. I will be
appreciated.