How I go about recording video game footage (Patreon)

Something I take very seriously at GMTK, is capturing high quality footage of games. I want my videos to be top quality and consistent, and I want to show off games in the best possible light.

But that’s harder than it sounds, and there are lots of considerations to think about. 

Modern Day Games

Kirby Star Allies, captured from Nintendo Switch

These are pretty easy. All modern consoles have HDMI out (which is very easy to capture high quality footage from), and it’s easy to get footage from a PC. 

If a game is available on PC, I’m almost certainly going to play it and capture it on there. Pretty much every PC game can be played in 1080p resolution, at a silky smooth 60 frames per second - while the console version might only manage 30 frames per second. I play at the highest quality I can run on my (rather new) PC, but performance tops image quality. I don’t want stuttering, hiccuping video clips. 

Some games are, of course, only available on console. So games like Bloodborne and Uncharted will have to be shown at 30 frames per second. A few console exclusives will run at 60fps: especially Nintendo games.

In terms of hardware, I use an Elgato HD 60. This little box takes an HMDI input and sends it to my Mac to be captured. You can see what that looks like in the header image for this post. I don't record directly on PC with a program like FRAPS because this can take away processing power from the game, and also I want the footage on my Mac for editing anyway, so I might as well record on there!

Remakes and Remasters

When games get remade and remastered, it can be tricky to know which version of a game to show.

The Last of Us Remastered, captured from PS4

In the case of something like The Last of Us, I think it’s a no-brainer to show the PS4 remaster. It is practically identical to the PS3 version, just with a higher resolution and frame-rate. It’s essentially like upgrading your computer, and being able to crank up the settings to Ultra High.

Other remasters are a bit more tricky because they can change the way the game works. I used the Zelda remakes on Wii U for Boss Keys because they’re widescreen and HD - but there are changes from the GameCube originals! Wind Waker HD has fast sailing, for example, and Twilight Princess HD cuts out some tedious bug hunting bits. So I had to do lots of research to make sure the dungeons weren’t changed between release.

Resident Evil Remake, captured from PC

And then there’s stuff like the Resident Evil remake, the Shadow of the Colossus remake, and the Yakuza Kiwami games, which use entirely new assets and can have substantial changes to gameplay. Is it suitable to show Kiwami 2 when I’m talking about Yakuza 2?

The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection, captured from PS3

Ultimately, it’s a case-by-case thing. If I’m very specifically analysing these games, I’ll probably use the original or the PS3 remaster. But if I make an off-hand remark about Shadow of the Colossus in a video about boss fights, I might use the PS4 remake just because it looks sharper. And if the remaster really diverges from the original - like Metroid 1 and Zero Mission - I’ll just consider them two separate games and talk about them separately.

Emulators

I use emulators to capture footage of pretty much everything up to and including the PS1 / N64 generation. 

Super Metroid, captured from SNES Emulator

Especially when it comes to pixel art games, like the Super Nintendo, an emulator is just a (near) perfect recreation of the original game - but I can blow the pixels up to fill a 1080p screen. It’s like putting an HDMI port onto a Mega Drive.

Metal Gear Solid, captured from PS1 emulator

PS1 and N64 are a bit more complicated because they’re 3D, but I think they still look accurate to the original games. And they can look excellent. I think the Metal Gear Solid footage in my 1998 stealth video looks awesome.

The consoles after the PS1 start to get a bit more tricky. Emulators do exist for consoles like the GameCube, but it’s not as easy to make the games look right. 

Super Mario Sunshine, captured from GameCube emulator

You can make GameCube games look incredible, with hacked-in anti-aliasing, widescreen support, and 1080p resolution. But I don’t feel comfortable doing that because it’s not a version of the game that actually exists. Turn that off, though, and you still don’t get something that feels authentic. 

It feels like some fake remaster of the original - some too-sharp recreation that never existed. And I suppose you could say the same for the other consoles (Super Mario Bros’s pixels were never so sharp they could cut your skin. Link’s Awakening should be green and murky, not monochrome and pixel perfect), but I dunno. Just how I feel.

God Hand, captured from PS2 version on PS3

So I mostly capture these games from original hardware. GameCube games on a Wii with an HDMI out dongle. PS2 on a PS3 with backwards compatibility. Xbox games on an Xbox 360 or Xbox One. Unfortunately I don’t yet have a good way to get Dreamcast footage. 

There are ways to capture amazing footage from these consoles, using specialist hardware like the Framemeister. And I would love to have one - but considering how infrequently I cover these games, it’s not worth the cost right now. 

Handhelds

Metroid: Return of Samus, captured from Nintendo 3DS

Handheld consoles can be tricky to capture. For GameBoy and GBA, I just use emulators. For DS and 3DS, I luckily have a modded 3DS console with video out, which sends really high quality footage to my computer to be recorded.

Holedown, captured from iPhone

For iOS, I have a lighting-to-HDMI adapter. But I don’t have any way to record Vita games, currently. It hasn’t been something I’ve needed, luckily.

Widescreen and full screen

I make (almost)* all of my videos in widescreen. That’s a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is the default ratio of YouTube’s player and the aspect ratio of HD TVs and monitors. Luckily, most modern games are also widescreen, so they look awesome and completely fill up the screen.

Nuclear Throne, captured from PC

Unfortunately, most games released before 2005 (and some indie games) were fullscreen, or 4:3 aspect ratio. That means they’re almost square, and that leaves big black borders on the left and right when put on a widescreen video. 

There are plenty of options, such as putting on a border image, repeating the image but making it blurry, leaving it black, or - ugh, never ever do this, stretching the image to widescreen. You can also zoom in the footage and cut off the top and bottom to make it fill the screen.

Street Fighter II Turbo, captured from SNES emulator and resized to fit 16:9

I sometimes do that if I’m making an off-hand reference to an old game. But if I’m talking at length about an oldie, I’ll generally just leave them black.

*The Her Story episode is actually in 4:3 because the game is full screen. 

The game as remembered

Tomb Raider, captured from PS1 emulator

Sometimes, there are options to record a game in better quality. For example, probably the best version of Tomb Raider 1 was the (now-unlisted) iPhone version because it’s widescreen and higher resolution. But that’s not the game people remember and feels a bit like a false memory. In this case, I might just go for the PS1 version because it’s more faithful to the original experience.

I’ll sometimes purposely run old PC games at lower resolution to make it look more like the original. For example, no one was playing Doom at 1080p and in widescreen in 1993, so it can look a bit weird to do that now.

I kind of wish I played Thief in 4:3 and at a lower resolution for that stealth video, because it was weird to cut between chunky PS1 polygons and high res PC assets when talking about three games from the same year.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, captured from PC

At the same time, there is a joy in seeing slightly older games, like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, played at the highest possible quality and in widescreen, thanks to the PC port. So, it depends.

Unofficial improvements

Dark Souls, captured from PC

There are often fan-made hacks to make games look and run better. Widescreen camera hacks, framerate unlocks, and so on. I use these sparingly, and only to fix really ugly stuff. For example, I used a hack to make Dark Souls run in 60 fps. 

Other considerations

Halo 3: ODST from The Master Chief Collection, captured from Xbox One

It’s important to turn off notifications and pop-ups, because these can ruin footage. I don’t want to distract people with Steam friend pop-ups and Xbox achievements.

Overwatch with HUD removed, captured from PC

Sometimes I’ll use cheats, camera hack mods, and HUD/UI options to hide the game-y bits, if I want to capture more scenic stuff.

When I can’t get the footage 

In the rare instances that I can’t get the footage, it’s off to YouTube. This is for a few games where it wouldn’t make sense to buy a game for a few seconds of footage. Or when I need a clip from deep into a game and I don’t want to spend hours playing through it. Or other things.

I try to find really high quality footage that won’t look too out of place. It will always be more compressed than my stuff, but for small clips it’s fine.

I think that’s everything! There aren’t really set-in-stone rules for this because there are always outliers and exceptions. It mainly comes down to this: if I show a game for five seconds, I might cheat and use remasters, widescreen hacks, or zoom the footage in to make it look as nice as possible. If I talk about a game specifically, I’m more likely to use the original (or a close remaster) to ensure I’m analysing the original game.

But even that rule can be broken! It’s really a case-by-case thing!

Mark