NVIDIA ShadowPlay vs Segra

NVIDIA ShadowPlay is a free Windows companion app for PC gamers and creators, combining driver updates, game and application optimization, and recording tools in an in-game overlay. Manual recording supports up to 8K HDR at 30 fps or 4K HDR at 120 fps; NVIDIA describes the performance impact as minimal. Automatic Highlights captures key moments, and overlay metrics include FPS, GPU and CPU utilization, FPS 1% Low, and system latency. GeForce RTX 40-series GPU owners can record with AV1 encoding. The app also includes a GPU control center for graphics settings and tuning, Freestyle filters for supported games, and ways to discover and launch selected NVIDIA apps. Requirements include Windows 10 or 11, a GeForce RTX 20, 30, 40, or 50 Series GPU, driver 551.52 or later, 2 GB of system memory, and 600 MB of disk space. Signing in is optional; NVIDIA says login enables users to redeem GPU bundles and rewards.

Segra records PC gameplay in the background so players can save moments, edit clips, and upload them to share. A hotkey bookmarks moments for later. In supported games, it can detect kills, assists, and deaths, then combine kills into a highlight video; automatic clipping is available for selected games. Segra says it can record any game that runs on a PC, at up to 4K and 144 FPS. It offers multiple recording modes and GPU encoding. The project README lists H.264, HEVC, and AV1 encoding, support for multiple audio devices and separate audio tracks, and microphone noise suppression. Segra is free and open source under GPLv2. Its Free plan is free. Windows builds are listed for Windows 10/11 (x64), with a minimum requirement of Windows 10 64-bit version 1903 or newer. Linux support is early alpha, and the README warns that it may fail to start or have missing or broken features.