How to properly record videos of playing Elite in VR

Herbrand · Apr 23, 2018

Hi, I have an HTC Vive and an NVidia GPU, so I normally use Shadowplay to record my sessions; the window of Elite Dangerous on the screen, however, is not full resolution, and as such when I record I get something like this:

Which is annoying on several levels. Is there a way to record only the Elite window, without having to increase the monitor rendered portion to cover the entire area screen (as it sucks precious processing power)?

rootsrat · Apr 23, 2018

The on-screen mirror doesn't take up much resources of your PC. I have Vive and I don't notice any difference if I run the mirror at in 768 x 432 or 2560 x 1440.

If you really don't want to increase the resolution, try disabling "Desktop Capture" in Privacy options in Shadowplay, see if that will make it record the mirror only. Bear in mind it will keep the resolution of the window, so it will be a terrible quality. (You are not able to record the actual in-VR image, only the on-screen mirror).

Are you pressing "Start recording" bound key while Elite in VR is active?

Herbrand · Apr 23, 2018

rootsrat said:
The on-screen mirror doesn't take up much resources of your PC. I have Vive and I don't notice any difference if I run the mirror at in 768 x 432 or 2560 x 1440.

If you really don't want to increase the resolution, try disabling "Desktop Capture" in Privacy options in Shadowplay, see if that will make it record the mirror only. Bear in mind it will keep the resolution of the window, so it will be a terrible quality. (You are not able to record the actual in-VR image, only the on-screen mirror).

Are you pressing "Start recording" bound key while Elite in VR is active?

Hey thanks, I'll give it a shot. Since we are here, is there a way to conveniently and easily monitor dropped frames, so that I can gauge first-hand the (possible) difference in performances?

And yes, I bound a button of my joystick to start recording when I want - even in the middle of a fight if I want.

rootsrat · Apr 23, 2018

Herbrand said:
Hey thanks, I'll give it a shot. Since we are here, is there a way to conveniently and easily monitor dropped frames, so that I can gauge first-hand the (possible) difference in performances?

And yes, I bound a button of my joystick to start recording when I want - even in the middle of a fight if I want.

Not sure about the dropped frames, but I don't think you can display FPS directly in VR. Neither in-game (Ctrl+F) or Shadowplay won't be displayed in VR.

Herbrand · Apr 23, 2018

rootsrat said:
Not sure about the dropped frames, but I don't think you can display FPS directly in VR. Neither in-game (Ctrl+F) or Shadowplay won't be displayed in VR.

Actually if you see the screenshot above, the FPS is displayed on the monitor, but that value has nothing to do with the number of frames I'm getting in the HMD.

rootsrat · Apr 23, 2018

Herbrand said:
Actually if you see the screenshot above, the FPS is displayed on the monitor, but that value has nothing to do with the number of frames I'm getting in the HMD.

Oh? I always thought it's accurate, never bothered to actually check :O

TorTorden_VR · Apr 23, 2018

I recommend removing GeForce experience and setup OBS instead.
It can easily capture just a window like that from a VR mirror.

It is more complex to start with but in my opinion shadow play is far to simple.

=71st=RuSh · Apr 23, 2018

I use Free Screen Video Recorder, you can start the app and tell to capture only the game window. To record the sound, in the VR specs set to duplicate the sound to the monitor or the speakers

rootsrat · Apr 23, 2018

TorTorden said:
I recommend removing GeForce experience and setup OBS instead.
It can easily capture just a window like that from a VR mirror.

It is more complex to start with but in my opinion shadow play is far to simple.

Yes, OBS is very good as well. I actually use both, depending on game/goal.

Alec Turner · Apr 23, 2018

You could just change the screen resolution in graphics settings (which affects the on-screen window in VR) to be full size / full screen. Apart from anything else you'll get a higher resolution video.

Note: currently these settings get reset every time you start the game (even if you use drkaii's EDProfiler to set them).

Edit: doh! sorry ... just read the final sentence of the OP.

Pville_Piper · Apr 23, 2018

How much load does the OBS put on the GPU?

TorTorden_VR · Apr 23, 2018

Pville_Piper said:
How much load does the OBS put on the GPU?

About the same as shadowplay if you use Nvenc, you could use a more CPU intensive encoder if you wish. Depends as always on what quality and fps you capture at.
30fps @ 1080p is usually fine.
For streaming 720p is fine.

Pville_Piper · Apr 23, 2018

TorTorden said:
About the same as shadowplay if you use Nvenc, you could use a more CPU intensive encoder if you wish. Depends as always on what quality and fps you capture at.
30fps @ 1080p is usually fine.
For streaming 720p is fine.

Thanks.

GroG79 · Apr 18, 2020

It is proprietary.. What do you expect?

aXeL · Apr 19, 2020

Hi All, if I understand the ask correctly, with the May W10 update, all one has to do to record video from inside any VR app/game is to click the start button on the controller and press the video button. That's all, no ShadowPlay no OBS or plugins etc. Sounds great to me except:

1. This is for WMR and I don't know if Vive/Rift/Index etc. can use WMR. Although, probably daft if they couldn't because it's part of Windows.

2. It only records up to 5 mins and I've no idea why.

People using the insider preview can test it. The advantage of the WMR over all the others is that it is able record any WMR embedded windows e.g. I have web browsers or films open in my sessions and none of the other tools have the option to show them since they only show the mirror view.