How to Record PC Gameplay Series – Part 1

Whether you are aspiring to be the next YouTube star or just like recording your own gameplay, we’ll teach you how to record PC gameplay in this 5 part video recording series. We’ll show you everything you need and every step to take to begin recording your own game footage. The increase in popularity of streaming and YouTube content means we have better tools than we did a few years ago. This means that it is easy for total beginners to pick up, so you don’t need to worry if you are completely new to video recording. Today we’ll cover the equipment, software and preparations you need before you can begin recording.

Getting the Necessary Equipment

A good computer with decent hardware is enough for you to start recording videos. A long as you can run all your games at a steady 30 FPS (frames per second) or higher, you should be fine. 30 FPS is the standard for online videos including YouTube. If you want to stream and/or record console games as well you should consider buying a capture card such as the ones offered by AverMedia. They will take the workload of streaming off your CPU so it doesn’t affect your game performance when streaming resource intensive games.

If you are going to do voice-overs, you may want to invest in a decent microphone. If you are going to upload your videos to Youtube with voice-overs, keep in mind that viewers will not tolerate bad microphones. If you are going to record footage outside of the game itself, then you’ll obviously need a camera.

Using the Correct Software

There are a number of robust and popular desktop recording programs that you can use to record video game footage. Among the most popular are Xsplit, Fraps and OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). In this series we will be using OBS because it is free and quite flexible in terms of options and features. In the next installation of the series we will cover all the settings for OBS to actually start making videos.

If you are recording PC gameplay footage for your own videos you will most likely want to do your own edits and effects. Software such as Adobe’s After Effects and Sony’s Vegas will allow you to put together and compile everything.

How to Record PC Gameplay Using Your Computer

Close any applications apart from your recording software and launch your game. Once you’ve launched the game, set up your graphics options for the highest possible that your computer can run the game smoothly. Remember to aim for at least a stable 30 FPS in-game to avoid stuttering in your recordings.

Thanks for reading our video recording tutorial. We hope that you now have an idea on how to record PC gameplay, in the later parts of the series we will take you through the entire process of recording and then taking your recordings and putting them together into a well presented video.

Part 2