How To Use Nvidia Share aka ShadowPlay

ShadowPlay by Nvidia has been considered as one among the best applications for recording and broadcasting gameplay. Using ShadowPlay, you can capture priceless in-game moments and share them with your friends instantly. However, with the new GeForce Experience, there has been a complete overhaul of the application. The then ShadowPlay is now referred as, Nvidia Share, and here’s how to use it.

What Is Nvidia Share?

Previously, known as ShadowPlay, Nvidia Share is its spiritual successor, exhibiting a new and intuitive user interface (UI) with more dynamic features. It showcases the very same basic concept of ShadowPlay but with a faster, eye-catchy and efficient approach for streaming/recording. It serves as one among the core utilities of GeForce Experience which has become the central manager for GPU software at NVIDIA. It makes sure that drivers are updated, and that games run with the best settings.

In one of our previous tutorials, we explained how to use GeForce Experience to stream on Twitch and various social media platforms. This tutorial solely focuses on how to use it for recording, and related basic purposes.

What Are The Requirements For The New ShadowPlay?

To use Nvidia Share, your card should be a GeForce 600 series or higher, bearing the ‘GTX’ trademark. Make sure your GeForce Experience is up-to-date (if already installed, just update it from the app). You may refer the official site for the list of supported cards.

How To Record Gameplay Using NVIDIA Share?

Launch the game you want to record. Minimize it.
Access GeForce Experience. Make sure that ‘Sharing’ is enabled. In order to that, click the ‘Settings’ button in the upper right corner. In the ‘General’ section you shall easily find the ‘Share’ toggle status. Set it ‘on’.
After doing so, click on the triangulated ‘Share’ button, located in the upper right corner. You shall find the interface as shown below.

Note: Conversely, you can also launch the game from the application itself.

Before you start, you might need to modify the quality of your recording. Click on ‘Record’ followed by ‘Customize’, as shown above. You shall now be able to customize the resolution, FPS, and bitrate as per your requirements. Click ‘Save’ to finalize your record quality settings.
After successfully doing so, you can start recording your gameplay. Click Record>Start to initiate the process. If you are recording for the first time, you might get a popup asking you to turn on the privacy control. This is merely a setting to enable desktop capture. Click ‘Yes’ to continue. You shall get a notification that the process has initiated.
You shall see an icon, located in the bottom right of the screen, acting as the record status indicator. If the status is green it indicates that your gameplay is being recorded. Left to it shall be a mic icon, indicating that the device is being used, if you have enabled the use of the microphone. Head back to the game and record your necessary footage.
To stop and save the recording, press the hotkey, ‘Alt+F9’. To toggle back the recording status, press the hotkey again. This will only work if GeForce Experience is running in the background.
To access your recorded gameplay, you need to visit ‘C:\Users\Username\Videos’, which happens to be the default location for storage of recorded media.
To change the storage location head over to settings, on the Nvidia Share overlay. Navigate to ‘Recordings’. Provide your desired storage location, and hence you are done.

How To Upload Recorded Gameplay Directly?

If you don’t want to manually upload your recorded footage, then be happy, as Nvidia Share allows you to directly upload the recorded video from the ‘Share Overlay’ itself. Click on ‘Recording’ while the process is active. You shall see an additional option named, ‘Upload’. Hit it to share your gameplay on various social media platforms. You just need your account to be synced with Nvidia Share. You may further modify the footage length as per your needs, before uploading.

What Is Instant Replay?

The Instant Replay feature lets you automatically record up to last 20 mins of your gameplay, and save it on your disk. You don’t have to manually press the hotkeys twice to toggle the recording on/off. You can turn it ‘on’ from the Share Overlay, or by simply pressing ‘Alt+F10’, while in-game. You can even customize the record timing, as per your wish. To do so, access the ‘Share Overlay’. Click on ‘Instant Replay’ followed by ‘Customize’. You can set the record time dynamically within 20 minutes. You may also customize the quality of the recording by adjusting the bit-rate and the resolution.

How To Take Screenshots?

To take screenshots, you just need to press ‘Alt+F1’, while in-game. You can also take desktop screenshots if the GeForce application is running. To access the screenshots and recorded media, you need to hit ‘Gallery’ on the ‘Share Overlay’.

A screenshot that we took using Nvidia Share

How To Configure The Microphone?

To enable capturing your voice simultaneously, while recording gameplay, you need to enable the mic feature by accessing the Share overlay. By default, it’s on if your mic is plugged into the respective jack.

You can set it to ‘Push-to-talk’, ‘Always on’ or ‘Off’, as per your requirements. While in ‘Push-to-talk mode’, you need to hit ‘ ` ‘ to record your voice as well, while capturing gameplay.

To adjust the mic volume and boost, you can select customize after clicking the mic icon, on the overlay.

How To Configure The Hotkeys?

To configure the hotkeys, navigate to Settings->Keyboard Shortcuts. You can change all the key-bindings as per your requirements.

How To Display The FPS Counter?

The FPS Counter lets you know the number of frames used in each and every instance of the gameplay. To enable it, head to Settings->HUD Layout. The Heads-Up-Display (HUD) provides necessary visual information which highlights your status, while playing a game or using an application. It can be set to display at any corner of the screen. Select the one you would prefer.

You may further customize the HUD layout if you want to show the number of viewers watching your live stream. The streaming/recording status indicator can also be turned ‘on’ or ‘off’. You can also include the ‘Cam Feed’ in your recordings. The video below elucidates the process in a few simple steps.

How Does The New Shadowplay Affect Gaming Performance?

The all-new GeForce experience has been heavily optimized to deliver flawless performance while gaming. As per the claims of Nvidia, using the Share feature you can flawlessly record/stream on 4K @60 FPS and can expect up to a 10% performance loss.

Do you have any further queries on how to use Shadowplay? Then let us know in the comments section below.

Amlan Panigrahi

Categories: General

Tags: NVIDIA