Have you ever had a moment where you wish you could go back in time and capture something
on your screen or from a game when you forgot to hit record?
Elgato’s original Game Capture HD software for their capture cards and Nvidia GeForce
Experience can both let you do that, but now OBS can, too!
I’ve previously covered OBS’s Replay Buffer functionality, but it has improved since then
and there’s now a better way to go about it.
We’ll be covering that in today’s tutorial, right after this.
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We’re going to make this simple, but this tutorial will assume you already have existing
recording settings set up and are in the “Advanced” Output Mode in your Output settings on OBS
Studio.
If you’re already lost or confused, or don’t have recording settings set up yet - check
out the playlist link to my OBS Master Class, which will better get you started on the right
path.
The Replay Buffer has moved and now works in Advanced Output Mode, which means you can
use your high quality recording configuration to save clips after the fact, instead of just
constantly recording.
Using the replay buffer is my favorite way to do game captures.
Open your Settings in OBS Studio.
Click Output.
If you’re in Advanced Output Mode, click over to the Replay Buffer tab.
If you use Simple Output Mode, refer to my previous tutorial linked in the video description.
Check “Enable Replay Buffer.”
Now you have two numbers to play with to determine how the Replay Buffer will work.
In MOST cases, you can just change the “Maximum Replay Time” in seconds to however long
you want, and the second number will adjust for you.
Obviously there’s 60 seconds in one minute, so you can work out the math there.
For most users, one to two minutes is probably best for this, but you can go higher.
You can see here mine is set to an absurd 3500 seconds, which is a little more than
58 minutes - but that’s not how much is actually saved.
The Replay Buffer works by recording your stream to RAM as if it was recording to disk,
and just queueing up enough to save a set amount of time to disk when you tell it to.
OBS Studio can use a maximum of 8 gigabytes of RAM for the replay buffer, which is what
I have allocated here.
You see, I record using the CQP rate control method in the Nvenc encoder, set to a lossless
recording.
So it doesn’t have a manual bitrate to determine how much RAM it needs.
This 8GB of RAM allocation usually equates to about a minute or a minute and a half of
recording, which is fine for me.
Obviously don’t set more memory allocation than you have.
I’d say 50% or less of your total RAM should be used here.
I have 64GB of RAM, so I’m safe.
But again, for most people using CBR or VBR recording, you don’t even have to touch
the Maximum Memory field, it can usually calculate that for you.
Hit Apply, but don’t close Settings.
Now you need to go down to Hotkeys and assign a hotkey for “Save Replay” - as there
is no dedicated button for it.
You can also add a hotkey for Starting and Stopping the Replay buffer in general, but
I usually just use the UI button for that.
I have my “Save Replay” hotkey set to ALT + F3.
I don’t usually hit that key combination myself, I simply map ALT + F3 to a button
on one of my Elgato Stream Decks and have it save in one button - but you can set it
to whatever combination you won’t accidentally hit that you like.
Hit apply and be good to go.
Now this will save you if you forget to hit start recording too, or it might if you remember
to hit Start Replay Buffer.
You have to turn this on and off every time you use OBS, or it doesn’t work, so keep
that in mind.
Also, if you hit the hotkey to Save Replay Buffer multiple times in a row, it will record
mostly duplicate data, only adding the new data since your last press.
This works a bit differently than something like Nvidia Shadowplay where it only saves
video after your last save.
BUT multiple audio tracks DO work with Replay Buffer now, so that’s a huge plus!
Honestly my big complaint is that there’s no indicator that the Replay Buffer has been
saved.
With the Stream Deck keys being a little soft, sometimes I’m not certain if I hit it all
the way and wind up saving a clip twice to be sure, which is just a minor annoyance.
But now you’re off to the replay races!
Like I said, this is the way that I record some clips for my capture card reviews and
etc. and it’s far more convenient than recording long sessions and having to scrub through
them later to find interesting bits.
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I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and I’ll see you next time.