Steam Game Recording is here: Here's everything you need to know about recording on Steam

Game Recording has been a beta Steam feature for some time, but it’s now released to all users.

As the name suggests, this feature is an alternative to external software that allows you to record or clip your screen.

The most popular way of sharing gaming clips is screen recording, but it has a problem - there’s a high chance you won’t be able to record ALL of your gameplay. It’s just not feasible. This means there’s a high chance you won’t be able to have recordings of some epic moments.

This problem was solved by replay features of apps like Nvidia GeForce Experience (Shadowplay) and Steelseries GG (Moments.) However, these come with their own problems as well. They tend to reduce the performance of your games, especially if you don’t have powerful specs. Steelseries GG’s Moments might mess up the contrast ratio of your clip, while Shadowplay makes your game lag.

This is where Steam’s new Game Recording feature comes in. Game Recording was a beta feature for some time, but now, everyone can access it. Using the feature allows you to do three things:

Record your gameplays
Keep a certain period (customizable) in temporary memory so you can replay them and record if you want
Clip your gameplay on the go

Now that we’ve covered what Game Recording is let’s take a look at the most important question everyone asks: how do you turn the feature on?

How to turn on Game Recording on Steam

The first thing that comes to mind when you want to turn on or use the Game Recording feature is to check out the Steam settings.

Some people say that in order to see the settings for the Game Recording feature, you’d have to select the Steam Beta Update option of the Client Beta Participation preference on the Interface section - since the Game Recording feature is released to all users, that’s no longer necessary.

To see the settings for the Game Recording Feature and turn it on, let’s click on the Steam button at the top left of your screen and then select the Settings option from the context menu.

Once you open the Steam Settings, let’s click on the Game Recording button to navigate to the Game Recording settings.

Steam settings window with highlight to the Game Recording section

In the Game Recording section of Steam Settings, you’ll see three options. Let’s break them down:

Recording Off - This is the default setting and as its name suggests, it means the feature is off.
Record in Background - This setting will allow Steam to start recording whenever you open a game. By default, it’s going to capture the last 120 minutes of your gameplay temporarily so you can replay the gameplay or record the parts you want.
Record Manually - This setting will make Steam start recording your game after you press the recording shortcut, which is SHIFT + F11 by default.

Since the Record in Background option involves all the functionalities and settings of the Record Manually option, let’s select it to proceed.

Game Recording section of Steam settings

Shortcut keys to record games on Steam

Depending on which recording mode you’ve selected in the previous step, your shortcut keys and what they do are going to differ. If you’ve selected the Record in Background option, you’re going to see four different shortcut keys:

Start/stop saving a clip - The default shortcut is SHIFT + F11, which will start recording a clip and will stop once you use the same shortcut again.
Add a timeline marker - Timeline markers help you with editing your recordings after your gameplay is done. We’re going to take a more in-depth look at editing later down the article. The default shortcut is CTRL + F12.
Take a screenshot - This is the usual screenshot shortcut, which is F12 by default.
Save the last 10 seconds of gameplay as a clip - One of the greatest benefits of the Record in Background option is that since it records the last 120 minutes (can be customized) of your game as long as the game is open, you can use this shortcut to record the last 10 seconds of your gameplay. You can change the length of this by clicking on the second input field, which is 10 by default.

If you’ve selected the Record Manually option instead, you’re going to see three shortcuts. Since Steam isn’t automatically recording in the background, the Save the last 10 seconds of gameplay as a clip shortcut isn’t available here.

As you might’ve noticed, the only different shortcut here is the Start/stop recording. This is going to allow you to start a recording, and using the shortcut again is going to stop it.

Game Recording settings

There are a bunch of settings you can adjust to get the best gaming recordings you want. You can see them in the same section as the recording mode and the shortcut keys, the Game Recording section.

Again, the Record in Background recording mode will include all settings of Record Manually, so keep in mind that we’ve selected the Record in Background as the mode for this article.

The first two setting categories you’re going to see are the Game-Specific Settings and the Recordings Folder. Below the Game-Specific Settings section, you’re going to see the “All Games’” recording length and their quality.

You can click on the length, which is 120 minutes by default, and the quality, which is High by default, to change them.

Keep in mind that changing these settings will also change how much disk space Game Recordings are going to use. For example, 120 minutes with High quality uses 10.8 to 34.2 GB of disk space.

You can use the Add Game dropdown button below the All Games item to add a game-specific setting. For example, since most DotA 2 games end around the 45-50 minute mark, but you play other games that have longer game periods, 120 minutes of recording for DotA 2 might be overkill for you - so you can add a game-specific setting using the Add Game section.

Below that, you’re going to see the Recordings Folder section. This is where your recordings will be saved. You can change the location by clicking on the Change folder button on the right.

The Video Recording category has four settings that allow you to determine the video properties of your recordings:

Enable GPU hardware encoding - Enabling this setting will allow Steam to use your GPU to encode your recordings. In most cases, this will speed up the process.
Enable HEVC (H.265) video codec - Enabling this setting will allow Steam to use High Efficiency Video Coding (aka H.265 codec), which is a codec that compresses video files efficiently without compromising much on quality.
Maximum frame rate - This setting has two options: 60, which is the default, and 30. It determines the frame rate per second of your recordings.
Maximum video height - This setting has six options: No limit, which is the default, 2160px, 1440px, 1200px, 1080px, 720px, and 480px. If you want your recordings to be limited to a certain height, you can select one. If you aren’t using a monster monitor, which might cause unnecessarily big videos, you can safely leave this setting at No Limit.

The last setting category is the Audio Recording, which, as its name suggests, lets you control the audio properties of your recordings:

Record Microphone - Enabling this setting will include the audio that your microphone picks up in your recordings.
Force Microphone to Mono - Enabling this setting will ensure your microphone will be recorded as mono, meaning that you’re not going to face the issue of your audio playing only on one side of your headset.
Automatic Gain Control - Enabling this setting will adjust the microphone recording volume level so that when you’re raging about how you’re getting spawn-killed, your video audio isn’t going to mess up.
Record Audio from… - This setting has three options: Game Audio Only, which will record only the game’s audio and nothing else; All System Audio, which will capture every single audio that’s playing on your system (ideal if you want to record your Discord calls); and Game and Selected Programs, which will allow you to select which programs you want Steam to capture audio from (also ideal for recording Discord calls).

Once you’re done with a gaming session, you can access your recordings in the Post Game Summary or the Recordings and Screenshots section of the game in your library.

You can also see the recording live if you open up the Steam Community Overlay (SHIFT + TAB) while gaming. Let’s click on a recording to see how the editor looks and what you can do in it.

Deadlock's library page and Recordings and Screenshots section on Steam

The recording editor on Steam is very simple, there are five parts of it that you need to know:

These buttons are the Add Market to Current Playback, which will add a market to the point you’re in on the timeline; Full Screen, which will make the editor full screen; and Toggle Mute, which will allow you to control the volume of the video.
This is your timeline - you can control where you are in the video using this. If you’re playing a verified game like Counter Strike 2 or DotA 2, you’re going to see some important points here as markers.
These are your timeline control buttons, from left to right. They’re Nudge Back (1 frame), Jump Back (10 sec), Play/Pause, Jump Forward (10 sec), and Nudge Forward (1 frame.)
This is the Clip button, which allows you to select a portion of the recording and save or share it.

Let’s click on the Clip button at the bottom right of the editor to see how you can clip your recording and save or share it.

Once you click the Clip button, you’re going to see four things: your timeline will have a new yellow portion. That’s your clip - it’s not the whole recording, but a part of it. You can adjust its length by dragging its left or right bars.

Your clip’s length and time indicator will be displayed in yellow below your timeline control buttons.

You’re going to see four buttons between the timeline control buttons and the Cancel and Save / Share buttons:

Play from Clip Start - This button is going to rewind your video to the start of your clip
Start Clip at Current Playback - This button is going to set the current playback position as the start of your clip
End Clip at Current Playback - This button is going to set the current playback position as the end of your clip
Zoom In on Clip - This button is going to zoom the timeline into your clip

The last new thing you’re going to see is the Save / Share button at the bottom right of your editor. As its name suggests, this button allows you to save your clip on your Steam account/PC or share it with your friends.

When you click on the Save / Share button, you’re going to see a popup with a bunch of options. There, you can use the Save in Steam button to save the clip to your Steam account or use the Export Video File button to get your clip as a file on your computer.

You can also use the Copy to Clipboard or click one of your friends at the bottom of the popup to share your clip.