OBS Studio is a popular open-source solution for recording you gameplay, and more specifically, for blasting it out to the world. OBS Studio can broadcast your game streams to platforms like Twitch and YouTube, and OBS is also used for creating screencasts. It’s a powerful program, but it’s probably overkill for anyone who just wants a quick and easy game capture solution.

Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best game capture software. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

OBS Studio packs a lot of features and settings, and if you’re willing to put in the time to learn it, this program offers amazing flexibility for power users. To ease the learning curve, OBS Studio includes a wizard to help you optimize your setup for streaming or recording video when you first fire up the program.

OBS works best if you have a multiscreen setup where you can observe OBS on one display and play your game on the other, though that’s not a requirement. Unlike the other apps, OBS doesn’t throw up an in-game overlay. Instead, it just does its work in the background. You’ll also have to tell OBS to start recording or streaming once your game is running or just before you fire it up.

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Unless you’re willing to put in some time to learn this software or have needs beyond simple game recording—professional Twitch streamers swear by OBS and its deep, configurable power—OBS Studio probably isn’t for you.

It also lacks some of the handy features that other programs such as Plays and Nvidia’s GeForce Experience enable by default. Namely, hitting a hotkey to hold onto the last few seconds or minutes of gameplay to record an amazing moment for posterity. You can set this up on OBS, but it requires some configuration and isn’t an out-of-the-box solution. When you do set it up, though, the feature is highly customizable in a way that other software can’t match.

There are some situations where OBS is ideal over other solutions. If your plan is to record your gameplay and then create a YouTube playthrough tutorial, for example, then OBS Studio is a great option.

You can also add any number of items to your stream or recording, including a picture-in-picture webcam shot, personalized watermarks, and more.

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To get started with OBS Studio you first create what is called a “Scene” that houses all your recording sources. Then you add the sources such as a game, your webcam, microphone, and watermark. If you want to see how this works in greater detail, check out our tutorial on how to get started with Twitch streaming.

Once you’ve specified everything for recording, you click the Start Recording button, fire up your game, and then when you’re done click Stop Recording. Before running your first official recording you’ll want to confirm that OBS is configured properly and working before relying on it for a full gaming session.

OBS Studio’s Settings offer an absolute ton of configurations, but the key ones you’ll want to pay attention to are under Settings > Output > Recording. Here you can specify the video encoder to use, the recording format, and recording quality.

By default, OBS will choose hardware encoding, but that setting can get a little finicky. For the most reliable results beginners should use one of the software (x264) options instead.

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Fraps is one of the most iconic third-party tools for PC gamers, building its reputation on the back of free and easy benchmarking capabilities that can measure the performance of almost any game. It’s also an easy way to display a frame rate counter in the corner of your screen to keep a casual eye on second-to-second in-game performance. Fraps can also capture video of your gaming sessions, but unlike the other tools mentioned in our gameplay capture software roundup, you have to pay for access to the program’s full video recording capabilities.

Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best game capture software. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

At this writing, a lifetime license for Fraps cost $37. That’s a fair price for a piece of software that’s useful and very easy to use. The problem? You can find several free game capture tools, so paying a premium is a pretty hard sell. The only reason to pay for Fraps, really, is because you like the program and want to support its continuing development.

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When you first open up Fraps you see there isn’t much to the program. It’s a small window with four tabs: General, FPS, Movies, and Screenshots.

Each one is pretty self-explanatory. Under General you can set Fraps to start-up at launch, or disable its “always on top” status that is enabled by default.

One other option that’s nice is General > Minimize to system tray only. Many recording and benchmarking programs minimize to the system tray when you hit the “X” in the upper right corner. Fraps, however, takes the old school approach and actually exits the program when you close the window. So to keep it running while in-game, you have to minimize the window. This setting lets you keep Fraps running without having to see it in the taskbar. To open Fraps from the system tray, right-click the icon and select Settings.

The FPS tab holds Fraps’ benchmarking tools. The framerate counter always appears in-game when Fraps is running. If you’d like to record a benchmark while in-game, simply hit F11, but first, tweak the benchmarking settings to your liking under FPS > Benchmark Settings.

Moving on to the main focus of this review, the Movies tab is where Fraps records your gameplay. If you use the free version, some options are available to you and some aren’t. The loop buffer length, a setting that lets you hit the hotkey to record the last “X” seconds of gameplay, is disabled. You can, however, set the maximum frame rate during recording, and decide whether you want a full- or half-size recording. You can also adjust the sound capture settings, record your microphone, hide or not hide the mouse cursor, lock the framerate while recording, and use lossless RGB capture.

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When capturing video with the free version of Fraps, your clips are limited to 30 seconds, and they’ll have a Fraps watermark on them, as seen above. 

Videos are saved at 30fps by default, but you can change that to 60fps or 50fps presets, or set a custom limit. To start recording, click F9 while in-game and then hit the same button to turn it off—free users could also just let the 30 second time limit run out.

By default, videos are saved to C:FrapsMovies.

Performance

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Windows 10 includes a native gameplay recording feature called Game Bar that performs quite well at times and is relatively easy to use. It’s not without its problems, however, and sometimes it’s more of a pain to use than many third-party options.

Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best game capture software. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

To get started, open the Windows 10’s Settings app and navigate to Gaming > Game bar. At the top of the settings screen, click the slider labeled “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game bar” to On. If you use a game controller on your PC, also check the box labeled “Open Game bar using this button on a controller.”

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Next, go to Settings > Gaming > Game DVR, where there’s an option to automatically start recording a game in the background. This feature lets you grab 30 second clips by pressing a button on the Game Bar while in-game, or by hitting the keyboard shortcut Windows key + Alt + G.

Xbox console users with Kinect will know this as the “Record that” feature that they’re able to use via voice command. On PC, however, we’re still stuck hitting keys and shortcuts like a bunch of suckers. The maximum recording time when Game DVR just runs is up to 2 hours by default, but you can also set it for 30 minutes, one hour, or four hours.

In the Game DVR settings you’ll also see options for recording your mic during gameplay, and below that you can choose to capture video at 30 or 60 frames per second.

Below Game DVR in the Settings app’s left rail there’s also a Broadcasting menu item. Here you can adjust all the options for sending your stream out onto Microsoft’s game streaming platform, Mixer. Unfortunately, the Windows 10 Game Bar doesn’t tie into more popular services such as Twitch and YouTube.

Once you’re in game, to manually record a game clip, simultaneously press the Windows key + G to call up the Game Bar or click the Xbox key on a controller. Once the Game Bar appears, hit the record button, and you’re good to go. Or you can hit the “Record that” button to the left of the record button to grab the last 30 seconds when background recording is active.

No for the bad part: Sometimes calling up the Game Bar just plain doesn’t work. When the Game Bar fails to appear it’s usually because the game doesn’t recognize the keyboard shortcut or the controller button press.

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There are a few quick fixes for this. If you play the game in windowed mode the Game Bar should appear when called; however, the minute you go back to full screen the Game Bar will either stop recording or disappear from the screen.

If windowed mode isn’t your thing, the alternative is to use the keyboard shortcut Windows key + Alt + G to record the last 30 seconds of gameplay, or hit Windows key + Alt + R to just start recording. These work even if you can’t see the Game Bar onscreen.

Game Bar “confirms” that it’s recording by blinking the screen, similar to what happens when you take a screenshot in Windows 10 using Windows key + PrtScn. But the Game Bar blink is more subtle and easily missed. It also doesn’t show you an overlay during recording to indicate that it’s working, so you kind of have to take it on faith. That isn’t great.

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Once you’re out of the game, you can view your videos by either going to Videos > Captures, or inside the Windows 10 Xbox app where you can upload them to Xbox Live.

Performance

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Running the Metro: Last Light benchmark on our budget testing rig, Game Bar did really well. The recording session took our benchmark from an average 58.33 frames per second down to 54.33 fps. That was in fullscreen, with no certainty that the Windows 10 Game Bar was recording until after the benchmark was finished.

Performance was also good in The Division, where again the Game Bar didn’t show up in fullscreen. Without Game Bar running the average was 56.3 frames per second, and an average of 54.9 fps with recording active. 

Finally, just to see if Game Bar could continue this performance streak, we turned to the benchmark tool in 2016’s Hitman. Without Game Bar running, the budget rig scored 39.43 fps, with recording running (and again no Game Bar in fullscreen) the average performance dropped slightly to 37.74 fps, a difference of less than two frames per second. 

Game Bar’s performance was excellent overall, and the hit to performance should be nominal for already taxed resources on budget gaming machines. 

Conclusion

The Game Bar will get the job done, mostly, but not knowing whether it’s working or not in a given game means it’s a little riskier than third-party tools. It’s also limited to Windows 10 PCs, which leaves out anyone still holding on to Windows 7 or 8.1. The fact that it’s only good for Mixer streaming and not Twitch or YouTube is also a minus for anyone looking to get into game broadcasting.

Overall, Game Bar’s performance is fantastic, the interface is very simple, and it has the basic features you need. But those times when you can’t see the Windows 10 Game Bar means you never really know if you’re recording until the gaming session is over. That is not great since Nvidia’s ShadowPlay, Plays, and many other tools reliably show up as expected.

Lowe’s will shut down its Iris by Lowe’s Home Automation platform on March 31, according to an email sent to subscribers on Thursday. As part of the shutdown process, customers will no longer be charged for service after January 31, and they’ll be compensated for purchased devices that operate only work on the Iris by Lowe’s platform.

The announcement follows Lowe’s unsuccessful 2018 effort to sell off Iris as part of a restructuring effort led by new CEO Marvin Ellison. Lowe’s plans to continue selling smart home products in its stores, however, and in select locations through a partnership with B8ta, which operates store-within-a-store showrooms.

Lowe’s first smart home system debuted in 2012, and the company replaced that platform with a second-generation hub three years later. Iris by Lowe’s was always hobbled, however, by the nature of its being a somewhat closed ecosystem in a world where DIY smart home owners want to mix and match components from different vendors. While Iris had all the devices you’d want—including security cameras, sensors, smoke detectors, and more—Lowe’s made it too difficult to add products that Lowe’s didn’t sanction.

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Many of those devices were built using the same technologies that power other smart home platforms, but they were tweaked in ways to render them proprietary. Lowe’s made promises about expanding support for third-party smart home products, but dragged its feet for much too long. Here are just a few examples: It took Lowe’s until late 2017 to support Philips Hue smart light bulbs and Nest’s third-generation thermostat, and it didn’t support Lutron’s Caséta line of smart lighting controls until 2018.

The good news: Consumers who invested heavily in the Iris by Lowe’s ecosystem will be eligible for compensation. According to an email sent to subscribers, Lowe’s has established a process to help them migrate to another smart home platform. The email specifically mentions SmartThings as “a comparable platform to Iris, and to ease the transition, SmartThings’ support team is ready to assist you with the migration process.”

If you’ve purchased any Iris product within the last 90 days, but didn’t connect it to the Iris hub, you can return the product to Lowe’s for a full refund. If you’ve already added it to your Iris hub, or if you purchased an Iris device more than 90 days ago, you can either log in to your Iris system to find instructions, or point your browser to http://home.irisbylowes.com/redemption by March 31, 2019. But the email hints that Iris by Lowe’s users will be compensated only for Iris products that are not compatible with other smart home platforms: “Some devices incompatible with other smart home platforms are eligible for redemption.”

“Redemption” will come in the form of a prepaid Visa card, according to the email. We have reached out to Lowe’s for additional information and will update this story when we receive it.

AMD’s Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition is a rocking piece of software for AMD graphics card owners. It lets users tweak their gameplay experience by adjusting game and display settings, including the ability to overclock your GPU in certain games and not others. It’s a neat piece of desktop software that can also record gameplay with a feature called ReLive.

Note: This review is part of our roundup of the best game capture software. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

The central starting point is on the desktop with Radeon Software, but to record while in-game, access the Radeon Overlay by hitting Alt + R, or just start recording by hitting Ctrl + Shift + R.

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Contained within the Radeon Overlay are a number of other features, including in-game live performance monitoring that displays a veritable smorgasbord of data for hardware freaks. It also contains a switch for Radeon Chill (AMD’s super-smart power saving and cooling software), as well as controls for frame rates and color. The Radeon Overlay is available on the Windows desktop as well as in-game.

Going back to ReLive, the feature can record gameplay for posterity, stream it to the world, or grab a screenshot. ReLive streaming integrates with Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Microsoft’s Mixer, as well as Stage Ten and Sina Weibo. That’s quite a wide range of online streaming platforms to access and should cover the needs of most people.

By default, ReLive records at the in-game resolution with a maximum 60 frames per second. That’s adjustable, however, as is the encoding (AVC or HEVC). For anyone who doesn’t want to do a straight-up recording all the time, ReLive includes an instant replay feature that, by default, will save the last minute of gameplay when you press a hotkey. This setting is customizable up to a full 20 minutes of gameplay, though I’d suggest five minutes or less is ideal for most games. Instant Replay is easily one of the best features of any recording software since it lets gamers save a key move, goof, or bug after the fact.

ReLive also doubles as a video capture tool for the desktop to create how-to tutorials  or just to show something off. ReLive will fail to run, however, if a browser is displaying protected content such as a Netflix stream. Even if the tab is open but not visible, ReLive will refuse to work. 

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To stop recording, hit Ctrl + Shift + R again. Recordings are then accessible in the videos folder in Windows or via Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition under the Connect tab. Within the desktop software users can play, share, and even trim down videos for minor edits.

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ReLive is very simple to use and only requires that users turn it on within Radeon Software under the ReLive tab. For those who want to tweak the settings, however, there are a few things of note. Under ReLive > Recording, as I previously mentioned, the recording frame rate as well as the encoding type are adjustable. On top of that users can set the maximum recording bitrate, and the audio bitrate.

There are also settings to separate the microphone track from the rest of the recording–not to mention turning on and off the microphone for recording in the first place. Under ReLive > Overlay users can also activate the webcam settings for streaming and recording.

Performance

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The smallest performance drop was in the more modern Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, a game that this eGPU system was already struggling to make playable with the non-recording frame rate hitting 29fps, a point below our definition of acceptable console-level performance.