Welcome back, in today’s video I’ll be showing you how to record your screen on a Windows 11 PC
or laptop. We have more than one method to try and you can choose which you want to follow, as
there are benefits with both. The two options are completely free, and they will have no watermark
on your screen. You will also be able to record in full resolution with at least one of the methods.
We do need to download some software for the second method, but the setup is fairly simple,
and I’ll guide you through the full process step by step. Remember to leave a like and
feel free to subscribe if the video helps, let’s get into the methods.
The first method is to use the built-in screen recording feature in Windows 11. The only issue
with this method is that it is designed to mainly record games and it probably won’t allow you to
record things on the desktop. This might be okay depending on the content you want to record.
If you want to be able to record everything that happens on your screen then this might not be the
best option so feel free to skip ahead to option two, which will be the main method. It might be
worth a try though so have a look and see what you think to the Windows 11 recording feature.
We’ll set it up first and the way to do that is to go to the main settings page. You can get there a
number of ways but we’ll be searching for it in the search bar. In the settings, choose gaming
from the options on the left side and then click on captures from the list. This is the page that
will allow you to change some of the settings for the recording, have a look through and feel
free to change whatever you want. First, I would recommend choosing the video recording quality.
To do this, change either or both of the video quality options which includes the framerate.
Remember that the highest quality and framerates may impact your games more, so it’s worth testing
out a few different choices. If you want to record audio with your gameplay, make sure this
is turned on. Click once on capture audio when recording a game to edit more audio settings.
These settings include the volume of both the game and your microphone, if you want that
included on the recording as well. Have a look at and customize the other settings in this section.
To now begin recording and to change some more settings, use the keyboard shortcut
of the Windows button and the G key at the same time. This will open the Xbox Game bar.
If they aren’t open already, you need to add the audio and capture widgets.
These should be the first two options on the bar at the top and you can click on them to add them.
The capture widget allows you to begin recording and also mute and unmute the mic.
The audio widget allows you to edit the volume of the sounds and also if you click on voice,
you can set the mic you want to record from. Click on the record icon and then you can test it out.
These settings or the recording status and timer won’t appear in your recording.
We’ll now move onto the second method which will require us to get some software.
The software is very popular and it’s what I use at the moment.
I’ll take you through the set-up step by step so you shouldn’t run into any problems.
The software is called OBS or Open Broadcaster Software. There are a few different variations
of OBS that may have more features, so feel free to have a look at them. The base package
is pretty much the same so you can follow this video for installing and setting up those.
If you wanted, it could be used for live streams too. Head to the link in the description to go to
the website we’re going to get it from. After following the link, you should see this page,
or it might look slightly different if you are watching this in the future. Click on the
Windows button and then choose a folder for the installer, the downloads folder should be fine.
Allow it to download, it shouldn’t take too long. Once it has completed, click on it to run it.
You now need to click on yes on the user account control screen. After this, the installer window
will open, first click next and click on next after looking through the license agreement.
You now need to choose a destination folder for the software to be installed into. The default one
should be fine, so you only really need to change it if you want it to be in a specific location.
Click install and allow the software to install fully, again it shouldn’t take too long. After
completing, you can click finish and keep the box checked to make the program start when you close
the window. When the software opens you might be able to use the setup wizard for recording
which should be fine, but I’ll be showing you the settings a little later to further customize it.
You should now see a preview of the screen. If you don’t see this, click on the plus icon in the
sources section and then select display capture, give it a name like monitor and click on OK.
Select your monitor in here and then click on OK again. You can follow this exact method
to add a different source, for example if you wanted to add an image overlay you can select
image when selecting the source type to add. You may need to resize your monitor screen or the
images you add in the preview window. The mixer section to the right of the sources is where you
can change the volume of your audio inputs. We’ll now go through the settings within the
software to make sure it is set up correctly for you. Open the settings by clicking on the settings
button in the bottom right of the screen and if you just want to record, then you only need to
focus on the video and audio tabs in the settings. Start with the audio tab and at the top you can
change the quality of the audio recorded. This is up to you but if you set it to 48 Kilohertz
that should be good. Below the quality you can choose the channels it will record;
you’ll probably want stereo but depending on your microphone and sounds you could possibly choose
the surround sound options. Below this is where you can select your audio sources. Adding them
here will add them to the mixer section of the dashboard. To record PC sound, select default
under desktop audio. We’ll now move onto the video tab so click on that from the options on the left.
In here, first change the resolutions at the top to whatever you want to record in. You might want
to make these match your monitor resolution. Under this, you can change the downscale filter. This
choice will depend on the hardware specifications of your PC. The lowest option on the list will be
the highest quality but it may cause your PC to not perform as well when recording.
Finally, below this you can set the framerate. You’ll likely want to set this to 30 or 60.
The more frames you record and the higher the resolution you choose the slower your PC will
run, so bear this in mind if you want to record demanding programs such as games.
Finally, we do need to quickly change some of the settings in the output tab. In here,
under the recording section, you will see the folder where your recordings will be stored.
You can also change the video file type in here too, this is up to you but you might want to
choose MP4. Remember to save your settings changes before exiting them by clicking on OK or apply.
Feel free to look through more of the settings, such as hotkeys to personalise your experience.
Currently, when you start recording from the dashboard, the only evidence that you
are recording is the icon in the taskbar however I have a quick tip to make this
not show up in the recording. When you want to record, open another desktop. To do this,
press the Windows key and tab key at the same time and then choose new desktop.
When you do this, you can record in one desktop and do whatever you want to record in the other,
so it won’t appear that you are recording. And so those are two good ways to record
your screen on a Windows 11 PC or laptop for free with no watermark. Click the card on screen now to
watch a video of mine showing you ten easy ways you can speed up your Windows PC. Those methods
should work on nearly all versions of Windows and might allow you to record in higher settings with
less impact on your PC performance. Help support the channel by visiting the store – the link is in
the description and at the end of the video. If you have any questions, then let me know in the
comments below and if you did find today’s video helpful remember to leave a like and feel free to
subscribe for more tips in the future. Be sure to stick around to see some of my other videos
that you might be interested in. Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in another video!