Elgato 4K60 S+ vs. OBS Studio vs. Nvidia ShadowPlay [Read Description]
Did I Make a Mistake Buying the Elgato 4K Capture Card? It's been over 4 months since I've purchased the Elgato 4K60 S+, one of the strongest game capture cards on the market. But during those months, I also decided to commit into building a powerful gaming PC. For those unaware, PC gaming doesn't require a capture card if you want to record 4K gameplay. You can also record 4K footage if you download OBS Studio or even using your Nvidia graphics card recording system. Bottom line is, I figured out way too late that Elgato's capture cards aren't really meant for PC gaming, but more for console gaming. If you watch the video really closely, you can see the comparison and witness how dull the colors are and the lower bitrate it produces. I don't know why this is the case, but I do know that when I use my Elgato card on my PS5, the footage looks perfect even though PC has better graphics. The moment I realized my Elgato clips for PC games looked worse than it should was when I recorded games with super high graphics. This makes me assume that the capture card just can't handle recording games with maxed out graphics settings compared to just using your own PC hardware to do the job. Regarding the other recording options, OBS and Nvidia look about the same, but OBS drops frames and create stutters because of having the whole application open. At the end of the day, I believe Nvidia ShadowPlay is the best way to record 4K footage of video games right now. The fact that it records using your own graphics card just makes it sound more reliable than capture cards that rely on too many cables that could get interfered. OBS is also more of a streaming software, that's why it's probably not a good idea to record 4K footage on an application with too many things going on at once. If you're on PC and want to record your games at 4K resolution and 60fps, as long as you have a strong Nvidia graphics card then don't bother buying an Elgato capture card. If you're on console, then I recommend the capture card IF you actually plan on using it a lot. Its $400 price tag is way too expensive, but its PS5 footage looks amazing.
Did I Make a Mistake Buying the Elgato 4K Capture Card? It's been over 4 months since I've purchased the Elgato 4K60 S+, one of the strongest game capture cards on the market. But during those months, I also decided to commit into building a powerful gaming PC. For those unaware, PC gaming doesn't require a capture card if you want to record 4K gameplay. You can also record 4K footage if you download OBS Studio or even using your Nvidia graphics card recording system. Bottom line is, I figured out way too late that Elgato's capture cards aren't really meant for PC gaming, but more for console gaming. If you watch the video really closely, you can see the comparison and witness how dull the colors are and the lower bitrate it produces. I don't know why this is the case, but I do know that when I use my Elgato card on my PS5, the footage looks perfect even though PC has better graphics. The moment I realized my Elgato clips for PC games looked worse than it should was when I recorded games with super high graphics. This makes me assume that the capture card just can't handle recording games with maxed out graphics settings compared to just using your own PC hardware to do the job. Regarding the other recording options, OBS and Nvidia look about the same, but OBS drops frames and create stutters because of having the whole application open. At the end of the day, I believe Nvidia ShadowPlay is the best way to record 4K footage of video games right now. The fact that it records using your own graphics card just makes it sound more reliable than capture cards that rely on too many cables that could get interfered. OBS is also more of a streaming software, that's why it's probably not a good idea to record 4K footage on an application with too many things going on at once. If you're on PC and want to record your games at 4K resolution and 60fps, as long as you have a strong Nvidia graphics card then don't bother buying an Elgato capture card. If you're on console, then I recommend the capture card IF you actually plan on using it a lot. Its $400 price tag is way too expensive, but its PS5 footage looks amazing.