Valve launches Steam Game Recording tool in beta

There are many solutions available for anyone who has asked themselves the question "how do I record what is happening on my screen?". Video recording is a recent addition to Windows' Snipping Tool, and Microsoft also includes a screen capture ability in the Xbox Game Bar app -- a versatile option that can be used to record more than just games.

Now there's a new contender from Valve. Currently available in beta, Steam Game Recording is a much-requested feature and one that has been implemented in an impressive way.

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Whether you're looking to record your gaming prowess to show off to others, or you just want to be able to skip back to check exactly how you messed things up after dying for the thousandth time, Steam Game Recording is highly capable.

Compatibility is pleasingly solid. You can record gameplay from any title in you Steam library, and the recording system can even record non-Steam titles providing the game allows the use of Steam Overlay.

You can opt for a fairly traditional record-on-demand option, stopping and starting as you like, or use background recording to give yourself the option of rewinding gameplay whenever you want. In a FAQ, Steam addresses concerns about game performance taking a hit:

Steam Game Recording has been designed with the goal of taking as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible. It takes advantage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to remove most of the performance cost of creating video recordings. When run on systems without those graphics cards, the systems CPU is used to create video recordings which may cause a noticeable performance impact on those systems.

While video recording is limited to games, it is possible to include audio from other sources, as steam explains:

When enabled by the user, Steam Game Recording will capture your gameplay footage of games played through the Steam Client. It will not capture video of your desktop or other programs. You can choose to include the audio from other programs, such as voice chat programs.

The recorder goes far beyond other options, giving users the chance to add markers (essentially bookmarks) to a recoding. Certain games can also create their own markers. Steam explains that such "timeline-enhanced games […] can proactively notify Steam when relevant events happen. These events are represented along the timeline with details specified by developers".

Full details of what Steam Game Recording has to offer, and information about getting involved in the beta, can be found here.