Nvidia Shadowplay: How to Record your PC Gaming with High Quality

NVIDIA ShadowPlay is one of the screen recording functions of the NVIDIA GeForce Experience.

The feature allows you to record your games and upload them anywhere. In addition, it includes an overlay that you can use to screen record and other tools for broadcasting.
The NVIDIA ShadowPlay, also known as the NVIDIA Share, can only work if you have registered to use the GeForce Experience. Though the registration procedure is tiring, it’s still something you have to do if you want to enjoy the full functionality of the NVIDIA ShadowPlay.

One limitation of recording your gameplay with ShadowPlay is that it decreases your game performance. It’s around 5% for some games and up to 10% for more demanding games.
So, if you are a casual gamer or your PC runs fast, this may not be a problem. But if you are competitive, you might want to reconsider this option.

Regardless, it’s best to disable ShadowPlay when you’re not using it.

How to Use NVIDIA ShadowPlay

Before you can use ShadowPlay, you have to enable it within the GeForce Experience.

The app will tell you if your system is up to the task or not and will lead you to the page in the picture above. Setup takes less than five minutes and most of the time the defaults are just fine.

Firstly, you’d need to download and install the NVIDIA GeForce Experience application.

In addition to ShadowPlay, this application offers NVIDIA graphics driver updates, one-click game settings optimization, and game streaming from your PC.

After installing, here’s how to set up your NVIDIA ShadowPlay

• Allow the GeForce Experience to update itself and any drivers.
• Navigate to the cog Settings icon in the top right of the main window.
• Scroll to In-Game Overlay under Features. Look for checkmarks by the list of your hardware. This tells you if you’re capable of running ShadowPlay or not.
• Scroll up to In-Game Overlay at the top and toggle it to on.
• Select Settings in the same section. This will bring up the UI, where you can make changes.
• If you want to modify recording quality, Select Video Capture.
• If you also want to modify the sound, Select Audio.
• Select Recordings to modify where your files are kept.
• Select HUD to change the layout of the ShadowPlay UI.

After making changes, it is important you select “Save” to keep them. Additionally, you may want to set up hotkeys to turn recording on and off to save time, or you can use the mouse and the UI. 

How to Record GamePlay With NVIDIA ShadowPlay

ShadowPlay is the easiest way to record and share high-quality gameplay videos, screenshots, and live streams with your friends.

You can create a 15-second GIF from your favorite ShadowPlay video and upload it to any social media channel of your choice with a single click.

You can control the NVIDIA ShadowPlay from the NVIDIA GeForce Experience overlay. Here’s how to do so.

• Firstly, open the overlay by pressing Alt+Z. If you don’t see anything, open the “GeForce Experience” application from your Start menu. Click the green “Share” button to the left of the settings button on the toolbar to open the overlay.
• Secondly, to activate the Instant Replay mode, where ShadowPlay will automatically record all your gameplay in the background, click the “Instant Replay” icon and click “Turn On.”
• If you want to record, click the  “Record” button and click “Start” or press Alt+F9. Your NVIDIA ShadowPlay will start recording until you stop.
• To stop recording, press Alt+F9 again or open the overlay, click the “Record” button, and click “Stop and Save.”

Some games let you do more with NVIDIA ShadowPlay and will have the facility or Highlights, For example, PUBG has a setting within Video Capture that will capture kills and save them as a Highlight file. 

Every time you get a kill in PUBG, you will see a notification on the screen that says ‘Single kill saved’. This will save that kill as a video file in the same folder as your other recordings.

Some other games have similar settings where you can capture highlights of kills or extraordinary moments in the game for you to enjoy and later upload on your social media.

After recording, you can watch your gameplay again by selecting the video from within the NVIDIA ShadowPlay UI or straight from the folder they are stored in. 

In addition, you can perform basic editing from within ShadowPlay or use a video editor, as the videos are saved as MP4.

How To Customize Your NVIDIA ShadowPlay

To do other things asides from recording, follow the steps below

• To choose whether or not a video from your webcam or audio from your microphone is included in the recording, click the microphone and camera buttons on the right side of the overlay.
• If you’d like to customize your ShadowPlay settings, click the “Instant Replay” or “Record” buttons in the overlay and select “Settings.” You can choose quality, length, FPS, bitrate, and resolution options.
• To change the keyboard shortcuts the overlay uses—from the Alt+Z shortcut that opens it to the Alt+F9 and Alt+F10 shortcuts for recording—click the “Settings” icon on the right side of the overlay and select “Keyboard Shortcuts.

You can use the settings menu to carry out other settings as you wish.

How to Check if Your PC Supports ShadowPlay

To check if your PC supports ShadowPlay, visit the NVIDIA website to see a list of NVIDIA graphics hardware that supports ShadowPlay. But if you have NVIDIA hardware, you can just check your PC.

Here’s how to check if your PC supports ShadowPlay

• Open the “GeForce Experience” application from your Start menu.
• Under the “My Rig” application, click the “ShadowPlay” tab and check if your PC meets all the requirements.
• If it does, ShadowPlay will show you “Ready.” If it doesn’t, you’d see the reason.

How to Record OpenGL Games (and Your Entire Windows Desktop)

Not all games support the NVIDIA ShadowPlay by default. ShadowPlay only directly supports games that use Direct3D and not OpenGL.

Although most games use Direct3D, there are still a few options that use OpenGL instead. For example, Minecraft uses OpenGL.

To record OpenGL games that don’t work with ShadowPlay, go to NVIDIA GeForce Experience > Preferences > ShadowPlay and activate the “Allow Desktop Capture” option.

ShadowPlay will now be able to record your Windows desktop, including any OpenGL games running in a window on your desktop.

However, the Automatic background “Shadow” recording and the FPS counter don’t work in this mode. But you can still start and stop manual recordings using the hotkeys.

Bottom Line

If you want to record your gameplay to get maximum results, using NVIDIA ShadowPlay can be a very good option.

However, this works if your PC has an NVIDIA graphics card.

ShadowPlay is easy to set up, stores files like MP4, and lets you share your videos directly online or edit them before uploading.

However, if you want to use the NVIDIA ShadowPlay, you are good to go. Besides, there are really no downsides to using it.

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