- Steam’s Game Recording feature is out of beta and available to everyone
- It automatically records the last 120 minutes of gameplay
- The feature leverages the video encoding chops of AMD and Nvidia GPUs
The recent Steam Families update proved beneficial for many PC gamers, and Valve has taken another step in the right direction with Steam’s Game Recording functionality exiting beta, and now being available to all users.
This fresh innovation allows Steam gamers to have their gameplay recorded automatically with titles that support the platform’s overlay feature. As VideoCardz reports, when set to ‘Background Recording’ mode, it will capture the last 120 minutes of gameplay (temporarily, in case you need it). Or alternatively you can initiate a manual ‘On Demand Recording’ and start, then stop, the recording yourself.
Game Recording also allows game developers to hook up with the official API, so devs can implement the ability to add markers for specific events in a recording (like when a boss battle happens, for example) to help you better navigate the recorded footage and find what you want.
This could be a game-changer (literally) for many content creators, with the convenience of running both a game and the recording feature seamlessly together on Steam.
That said, it’s important to note that running Game Recording could meaningfully impact in-game performance (especially on handheld gaming PCs or weaker desktop configurations), but there are options for both lower quality recordings which could help soften any potential performance drops.
Game Recording will use the video encoding chops of your AMD or Nvidia GPU, if you have one, or rely on the CPU if your PC lacks graphics capabilities. In the latter case, that's likely to cause more in the way of performance hiccups, as you might imagine.
An eventual dream team of Steam streaming integration?
While Steam’s Game Recording is a notable enhancement for all users on the platform, Valve is yet to implement any streaming capabilities. OBS Studio and StreamLabs both feature manual recordings and streaming, which are ideal for social platforms like YouTube and Twitch.
Fortunately, Game Recording on Steam has different bitrates to choose from within its video settings (and also low and high presets) - if you were only using the aforementioned streaming platforms for manual recording, you can make the move to Steam without much worry. More broadly, this is a significant move in allowing the huge number of PC gamers using Steam to get easy access to game recording right there, directly within Valve’s platform, without having to install anything else.
If Valve can integrate streaming services on Steam and possibly improve streaming directly to friends, we could very well be looking at new competition in this particular facet of the gaming arena (up against Discord too).
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