Video gamers like researching new games, and if you want to help your fellow gaming enthusiasts, why not make a quick tutorial video with actual game footage? With video game recording software, you can easily create a quality video combined with your audio analysis. It's an easy process of recording and uploading the video to YouTube or a personal blog site. We have ranked, researched and evaluated the best video game recorder software to help you start making professional-looking video game playbacks.
The focus of this software is to record video from games, but every program can also capture specific regions from your computer desktop. Using video game recorder software, you can create a variety of videos, ranging from walkthroughs, tutorials, video reviews or just video evidence that you conquered a certain level. For the best video game recorder software picks, check out Fraps, Dxtory and Action. You can also read related articles on video game recorder software for more information.
We have analyzed the recording and production tools that help give a program the highest quality recording features. With this type of software, it's not necessarily best to have the most features. What good is a surplus of features if a program is difficult to use and the recording still shows significant lag time? Each of the following categories affects a program's overall ranking in our review.
Recording Tools
Recording tools are the key for video game capture software. The tools that we evaluated during our testing period all include real-time audio and video game capture. Running an additional application will slow down most computers, some more significantly than others. During our testing process we took into account the memory used by each application and the effect it had on gaming. We also looked at the simplicity of the recording tools, such as if there is a hotkey to easily start and stop capture. Recording tools also includes the sources each application will record from and the file format that each application saves the game footage in.
Production Tools
In order to take full advantage of a product's features, you have to be able to use it; this is why we provide each product with a ranking for ease of use. We test the file format in each product. Typically, a video needs to be able to convert to AVI to be compatible with an editing program or direct online sharing. A good video game capturing software application also includes the ability to record audio from several microphones or inputs to give the audio recording excel.
Help & Support
The ranking for help and support is based on each manufacturer's customer and technical support. We take into account the number of ways you can contact the manufacturer and how easy they are to get in touch with. We also take into account the resources that they have available through their website and through the software itself. Resources include tutorials, manuals, updates, FAQs and so on.
The best video game recorder software lets you record your gameplay in real time and organize each file so editing later can be an easy process. If you record games frequently, it's important to have the best program that keeps the process simple and has the highest recording frame rate.
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| Rank | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 |
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10-9 Excellent
8-6 Good 5-4 Average 3-2 Poor 1-0 Bad
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Fraps | Dxtory | Action | D3DGear | WM Capture | ZD Soft Screen Recorder | liteCam | ACA Capture Pro | Sonne Screen Video Capture | Snagit |
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Lowest Price |
$37.00 |
$45.94 |
$29.95 |
$32.95 |
$39.95 |
$39.00 |
$34.00 |
$39.95 |
$17.99 |
$44.95 |
| Ratings | 9.75 | 9.53 | 9.48 | 8.75 | 8.10 | 7.83 | 7.48 | 7.08 | 6.10 | 5.95 |
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| Recording Tools | ||||||||||
| Maximum FPS | 100 | 100 | 60 | 60 | 50 | 50 | 60 | 50 | 60 | 30 |
| Interface Design (%) | 100 | 90 | 95 | 90 | 70 | 85 | 85 | 80 | 65 | 60 |
| Minimum Lag (%) | 100 | 95 | 95 | 90 | 80 | 75 | 75 | 70 | 80 | 70 |
| Real Time Recording | ||||||||||
| Records Streaming Audio | ||||||||||
| Records Desktop Sources | ||||||||||
| Hotkey Recording | ||||||||||
| Records Online Sources | ||||||||||
| Microphone Recording | ||||||||||
| Image Capture | ||||||||||
| Mouse Cursor Capture | ||||||||||
| Production Tools | ||||||||||
| Ease of Use (%) | 95 | 90 | 90 | 85 | 70 | 80 | 75 | 80 | 70 | 70 |
| Saved File FPS Lag | None | None | None | None | None | Medium | None | None | Slight | Medium |
| Save Video as WMV | ||||||||||
| Save Video as AVI | ||||||||||
| Save Video as MP4 | ||||||||||
| Live Stream | ||||||||||
| YouTube Conversion | ||||||||||
| Multi-Channel Audio Recording | ||||||||||
| No Time Limit Recordings | ||||||||||
| Custom Resolutions | ||||||||||
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