Question Recording gameplay

[IllusiveNJ]

Hi,
I am going to buy a gaming laptop and I had a question.
When I am recording my gameplay at 120 fps and sharing it with a friend, will he see the recording in 120 fps regardless of me having a 120 hertz display or not? Pls explain me.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[DXCHASE]

If you are using an overlay while playing, it will show up in the video. Nvidia Experience has a setting where you can turn one on. Another popular FPS display counter is FRAPS. You can also show a lot more info than the FPS if you want as well.

 

[Zloth]

The refresh rate of your display is independent of the frames per second, unless you link them up with the vsync setting. Games will happily "show" more frames than your monitor can draw and vice versa. For instance, if your display is at 120Hz but your game is playing at 60fps, then your screen will draw the same image twice, then the next image twice, and so on. If your display is 120Hz and the game is playing at 70fps, then the image changes while the screen is drawing, so the top part of the image is the "old" image while the bottom is the "new" image - which is what makes "screen tearing" happen. (Turning on vsync forces the game to play at 60fps, or 40fps, or some other rate that divides evenly - which fixes the tearing effect.)

If your video is recording at 120 frames per second while your game is playing at 60 frames per second, it will work in a similar way. Every second frame will look exactly like the previous frame, but it will still be playing at 120fps. (In other words, you'll just waste a bunch of disk space with pointless, repeated frames.) If you play at something between 60 and 120fps you'll get... something bad. I don't know if it would be stuttering or tearing, but either way it wouldn't be nice.

When recording a game with something like NVIDIA's Shadow Play, I think it records at a variable framerate. If the game is playing at 80fps, the video records at 80fps. If it slows down to 72fps, so does the recording. That makes it so the video encoder doesn't have to worry about the image repeating or changing in the mid-save. I could be wrong, though - you'll have to do some searching if it matters to you.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

That's an interesting question. Can you record a game running at 120fps that only shows as half on your 60Hz monitor, but then can your friend still see it as 120fps on his 120Hz monitor? Something I've never thought of, but I believe assuming you have the means to record a video at 120fps, that would be independent of whatever monitor you are outputting to.

 

[Brian Boru]

assuming you have the means to record a video at 120fps, that would be independent of whatever monitor you are outputting to

Definitely. But you'd have to convince the graphics card to output beyond attached screen's capability.

 

[Zloth]

The graphics cards will do that. They should have some sort of limiter, so they don't start overheating as they crank out 500fps+ on low end games, but 120 shouldn't be a problem.

What I don't know is why you would want to do that. If you're just watching somebody play, you don't need much more than 30. Higher framerates will help if you want to play back in slow motion, I suppose.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Definitely. But you'd have to convince the graphics card to output beyond attached screen's capability.

I think it would work. I game on a 4K TV that is only 60Hz. But sometimes on some older games, it's showing that it's running at well over 60fps. If you're not using vsync, it's just shooting frames at your screen, and the screen outputs those frames as fast as it can. When there is a difference, that's why you get some screen tearing.

 

[IllusiveNJ]

What I don't know is why you would want to do that. If you're just watching somebody play, you don't need much more than 30. Higher framerates will help if you want to play back in slow motion, I suppose.

Yeah I know 30 fps is enough but just wanted to ask so that I know about this and it does look cool.

 

[IllusiveNJ]

I believe assuming you have the means to record a video at 120fps, that would be independent of whatever monitor you are outputting to.

Ohh so you are saying that I just need to have the means to record at 120 fps. Thanks.

 

[IllusiveNJ]

The refresh rate of your display is independent of the frames per second, unless you link them up with the vsync setting. Games will happily "show" more frames than your monitor can draw and vice versa. For instance, if your display is at 120Hz but your game is playing at 60fps, then your screen will draw the same image twice, then the next image twice, and so on. If your display is 120Hz and the game is playing at 70fps, then the image changes while the screen is drawing, so the top part of the image is the "old" image while the bottom is the "new" image - which is what makes "screen tearing" happen. (Turning on vsync forces the game to play at 60fps, or 40fps, or some other rate that divides evenly - which fixes the tearing effect.)

If your video is recording at 120 frames per second while your game is playing at 60 frames per second, it will work in a similar way. Every second frame will look exactly like the previous frame, but it will still be playing at 120fps. (In other words, you'll just waste a bunch of disk space with pointless, repeated frames.) If you play at something between 60 and 120fps you'll get... something bad. I don't know if it would be stuttering or tearing, but either way it wouldn't be nice.

When recording a game with something like NVIDIA's Shadow Play, I think it records at a variable framerate. If the game is playing at 80fps, the video records at 80fps. If it slows down to 72fps, so does the recording. That makes it so the video encoder doesn't have to worry about the image repeating or changing in the mid-save. I could be wrong, though - you'll have to do some searching if it matters to you.

The refresh rate is independent. Got it. Okay now I understand how 'screen tearing' happens and how I can prevent it. Thanks.

 

[IllusiveNJ]

Hi,
I am going to buy a gaming laptop and I had a question.
When I am recording my gameplay at 120 fps and sharing it with a friend, will he see the recording in 120 fps regardless of me having a 120 hertz display or not? Pls explain me.

Thanks a lot everyone for helping me with this