Game Capture Hardware

[#1]

My son keeps telling me about these random moments in the games he’s playing on various devices, both on and off line. So doing a bit of searching I see you can get a device called a Game Capture device that’s put inline with the HDMI and feeds to your PC to record.

As a surprise I was thinking of getting him one of these but excuse my stupidity, according to the bumph it appears not to support recording from the PC itself, or it that assumed? I know he'd need that option as he plays GTA5 on his.

[#2]

Hi Mook,

What system does he play on?

it appears not to support recording from the PC itself, or it that assumed? I know he'd need that option as he plays GTA5 on his.

If it's the PC as I seem to read from this bit, then depending on the graphics card you can use Shadowplay which comes bundled with the GeForce drivers. There are other pieces of software too that do similar and can be used with AMD graphics cards too (DXtory, D3D etc)

[#3]

My grandson uses one of those Elgato Game Capture devices connected between his PS4 and his TV in the HDMI line.

It has a feed to a USB port on his laptop where the captured video is stored and where he edits it ready for upload to youtube.

[#4]

Hi @Chris, not to sure what you mean, but if you mean hardware then he bought one of these from the US so I'm assuming he could use this device via the laptop HDMI port and use that for the recording input. But he also has an Xbox One and a PS4 which is why I was thinking a hardware solution would be best as it can be connected inline to the monitor and have the input switched using his HDMI switch(er).

[#5]

PC Specs do play into this a fair bit, in some cases it may be better getting an external capture device(Hauppage HD PVR, BlackMagic Intensity Pro, Avermedia Live Gamer etc) if the PC isn't the fastest as you will experience some FPS drop whilst recording/streaming.

As pointed out before, some nVidia GPU's support shadowplay, this is a streaming and recording platform built into the GPU drivers and gives a very minimal performance hit too which is great, it can also be setup to record the last X of gameplay so you don't have to constantly record, you can just record after you do something awesome.

One piece of software I personally swear by is OBS(Open Broadcaster Software), it is used for livestreaming by some of the biggest streamers however its recording functionality is amazing with little to no FPS loss in game.

Other options include Fraps, DXTory and xSplit

EDIT: saw your latest post, if you want external i would look at AverMedia or Hauppage as they are known to be reliable and widely compatible, Avermedia has devices that can record on their own memory so only need the HDMI passthrough then can plug into PC when he wants to copy things off it

[#6]

That's exactly how I assumed this would work @Strat for all devices including a PC.

[#7]

The video being fed to the Laptop is slightly out of sync with what appears on the TV but that's not a problem.

[#8]

@Darkfire - Avermedia sounds good to me as with the item in the OP he'd need to have his PC / Laptop on when recording on the Xbox or PC. I'll go and do some searching, unless you have a personal recommendation?

[#9]

@Anonymous

The AverMedia Live Gamer Portable devices are what you are after, the newer one(version 2) is more expensive but more future proofed  

[#10]

Cheers @Darkfire, that looks a better buy than the original from the OP and with it being price comparable and having the ability to record without a PC screams logical to me.