My name is EposVox and today I’ll be discussing some tips and tricks for improving your recording
and streaming performance in the Elgato Game Capture HD software.
I will have other tutorials on Elgato’s capture cards and a plethora of other technology
topics on my channel, so be sure to subscribe if you find this video helpful, and check
the YouTube card above or description below for a playlist with my other Elgato Gaming-related
videos.
While game recording and streaming is becoming more mainstream than it has ever been, not
everyone has a super powerful gaming or broadcasting-capable computer.
Elgato’s USB capture devices are designed to work with most computers - but if your
computer is struggling to keep up with the recording or streaming process, you will need
to make some compromises with the settings and features of the software.
Let’s take a look at some tips to get the most performance out of the Game Capture HD
software.
Let’s start with the basics.
Close anything that you don’t need open on your computer besides the Game Capture
HD software.
Heavy programs running in the background can heavily impact your recording or streaming
performance.
Bulky antivirus suites may need to be temporarily disabled while you’re recording or streaming,
as well.
Also, make sure your computer is up to date.
Check Windows (or Mac) updates, of course, but also make sure your graphics drivers are
up to date.
These can help quite a bit with recording performance.
If you have an AMD or Nvidia graphics card, both companies provide easy driver updating
tools and I will link both in the description below.
If you just have basic integrated graphics, or you’re not sure, you’ll need to look
to your computer’s manufacturer’s support page for update driver information.
These are all generally pretty basic installers that are easy to deal with.
If you have a dedicated graphics card in your computer, using it for the Elgato video encoding
and decoding could get drastically better performance on your machine.
To see if this is an option for you, click the settings gear in the very top right-hand
corner of the software and click the “Advanced” tab.
Here you have two drop-down menus and a slider.
For the “Decoder” and “Encoder” drop-downs, see if you can choose something other than
“Software.”
For example, I can choose my Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics card for the encoding and decoding
processes - which will perform much better than the “Software” mode that only uses
the CPU.
If you cannot choose something other than “Software” or this doesn’t entirely
fix your problem, you can use the slider to find a sweet spot between getting the best
performance out of the software and the highest quality recording.
This should be the first thing you knock down before we mess with other settings.
Elgato’s “Flashback Recording” and “Stream Command” tools are extremely powerful tools
to enhance your streaming and recording experience - but this also means they require a lot of
horsepower to use.
Disabling these can also improve performance on your computer.
To do so, click the settings gear in the top right of the software and uncheck “Enable
Flashback Recording” and/or “Enable Stream Command” and hit OK.
Depending on where the bottleneck is in your system, you may only need to disable one of
these, but definitely try disabling them.
One final way to help improve performance in the Elgato Game Capture HD software is
to lower the recording bit rate, the video resolution, and video frame rate of your recordings.
While on the “Capture” tab of the software, click the settings gear in the “Device”
box, below the name of your device.
Mine says “Game Capture HD60 Pro,” but yours may differ.
The settings here will be the same for everyone, however.
The “Profile” and “Quality” settings are what you will need to play with.
To lower resolution, change the drop-down menu from “HD 1080” to “HD 720” for
720p, or “Standard” for 480p.
If you want to switch to only recording 30 FPS gameplay and have one of the “HD”
profiles selected, simply uncheck “Allow 60 FPS.”
I recommend playing with resolution and bit rate first, however - as many slower machines
can handle 720p 60fps just fine, despite struggling with 1080p 60fps.
The “Quality” slider adjusts the recording bit rate, or bandwidth.
This is how much data is recording per second of footage.
The closer to “Good” you slide, the better performance you could see, but at the sacrifice
of image cleanness.
Play with these settings and find a sweet spot that works for you.
I hope this video has been helpful for you.
If it has, High Noon that Like button, get subscribed for more awesome tech videos, and
check out the description below.
There, I have a link to the playlist with all of my Elgato Gaming tutorials and reviews.
Check them out!
:) I also have product links to each Elgato card, if you’re looking to buy.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.