Have you been recording footage from a game but feel that it doesn’t look as good as it should? If you understand the factors that affect the quality of in-game video recordings, you may be able to identify what the problem is.
To be honest there are numerous factors that have a part to play in how footage recorded from a video game turns out, but the most important are:
- Video resolution
The resolution of the video affects how sharp and defined the video looks. It is worth noting that resolution cannot be higher than the game or display resolution, as that it the source material that is being recorded.
- Game frame rate
The frame rate of the game is the number of frames per second that it displays on your screen, and if that is low the game itself will stutter while the recording is ongoing. Needless to say that stuttering will be recorded, and the quality will be affected.
- Video frame rate
If the game doesn’t stutter while recording but the video appears to stutter afterwards it may be that the video frame rate is too low. Typically it is best to record at between 30 to 60 frames per second, otherwise the video won’t look smooth and fluid.
- Encoding bitrate
When you save and encode your video the bitrate that is used will affects its quality as well. If the bitrate is too low then artifacts may appear and the video quality will be poor. The optimum bitrate that you should use will vary depending on the resolution, frame rate, and type of format and codec that is used – but the typical encoding settings for YouTube would be a good guide.
- Game graphics
Because you’re going to be recording in-game footage, the quality of the game graphics has a part to play in how the video turns out. Unfortunately cranking the graphic settings up to full may not be ideal either – as it will affect the performance of your computer and it may not be able to cope with recording and running the game at the same time.
In short you need to balance out the graphics settings with the system resources available on your computer – and try to put it as high as possible without adversely affecting the recording.
Now that you know some of the factors that may be affecting the quality of in-game footage that you’ve recorded – can you identify the culprit? In many cases it is actually a combination of factors at work, and you will need to address them one by one.
All said and done running a game and recording at the same time is bound to tax your computer, so be sure to close all other programs and use a lightweight gameplay recorder such as Gecata by Movavi. The idea should be that you don’t want anything else demanding resources from your system – so you can devote them fully to running the game and recording the video.