Nvidia GeForce Shadowplay

Pros

• Record up to 20 minutes of game footage
• Claim gameplay footage on demand

Cons

• Redundant due to integration

Shadowplay is a GeForce Experience add-on that adds video recording capabilities.

Gamers traditionally had two options for recording game footage. They could purchase dedicated video recording hardware, or they could use a program like FRAPS. The downside to FRAPS and the like was the overhead required. You often needed a powerful computer to compensate, and that was a problem considering that many games can push the latest computers to their limits.

Shadowplay, on the other hand, takes advantage of hardware and software integrated into an NVIDIA graphics card. The GTX 680 was the first NVIDIA card to support this. It’s a lot like having dedicated video recording hardware without the additional component. NVIDIA Shadowplay also leverages NVENC in order to encode in H.264, which is very efficient both in processing time and output size.

Gamers can use Shadowplay in one of two ways. The first way is to turn recording on and then off when finished, which is achieved through hotkeys. You can record up to 20 minutes at a time in this manner. The other way is to capture gameplay that’s just happened. If your NVIDIA video card supports it, it maintains a small buffer that you can claim on demand. This is extremely useful for recording gameplay that you couldn’t have prepared for as it happens.

The GeForce Experience is a suite of tools. It helps keep your drivers remain current, optimize games for your particular GPU, maintain your preferences and so forth. With the Shadowplay add-on installed, it also provides the capabilities discussed above. You’ll find it under the top-level tab labeled My Rig. The Shadowplay tab will be located beneath that alongside Overview, Game Optimization, Game Streaming, and LED Visualizer tabs.

The only issue with NVIDIA’s Shadowplay add-on is that you probably no longer need it. That’s because Shadowplay has been fully integrated into the GeForce Experience program. In other words, it’s automatically installed. Unless they’ve opted out, anyone who has a NVIDIA graphics card has probably gotten Shadowplay during a software update. This program could prove useful in a preserved environment; however, such as maintaining a GTX 680 or 780 as they were at launch.

Pros

• Record up to 20 minutes of game footage
• Claim gameplay footage on demand

Cons

• Redundant due to integration