7

This one was inspired by the question Windows Software to constantly record the last X minutes of audio entering the microphone?

I am working in QA (quality assurance) and it happens now and then that it's unclear which steps have led to a failure. When I found a failure, I'm trying to reproduce it and once reproduced, I either have simple steps to write down in prose text or I'm recording the screen session with Camtasia Studio or CamStudio.

However, sometimes I'm not able to recall exactly what I did, so I am looking for a software that

  • constantly records my Windows Desktop
  • has multi-monitoring support
  • keeps the last n minutes in memory (I'd need ~5 minutes at least)
  • keeps the recording in memory only (no disk activity)
  • on a trigger (hotkey or similar) saves the screenshots to disk

Ideally, the recording would be configurable to save computer power, e.g.

  • take a screenshot whenever the mouse was clicked
  • otherwise take a screenshot every .5 seconds (and not as fast as possible)

It does not necessarily need to

  • compress the data to save RAM
  • save as an AVI file or similar. Plain PNGs is fine. I can use FFmpeg or whatever to make it a video
  • capture DirectX, Flash and other stuff. Just normal 2D desktop is enough

A short check on memory usage gives: ~3 fps * 2 monitors * Full HD resolution * 3 byte/pixel * 5 minutes = 10 GB of RAM. Something in that range is acceptable.

I know about NVidia Shadowplay but it won't work for me (and I'm not sure whether it would be in-memory only).

Improve this question
1
  • Could use a RAMDisk to make Shadowplay write to RAM ;)
    – SEJPM
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 12:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

I had pretty much the same requirements. Have a software who can run on not that powerful of a system and record last X minutes of my activity and save on hotkey pressed.

After searching a lot I found a great free opensource solution which does much more than the recording of last X minutes which I can recommend - OBS Studio.

It has a feature called Replay Buffer (Menu File / Settings / Output) which constantly records the selected screen, application, display and much more and saves it on a press of a hotkey. Once activated, you get another button called "Start Replay Buffer". The replay buffer is limited to a maximum of 6 hours (entered as 21600 seconds) and 8 GB of RAM (entered as 8192 MB).

New button for starting the replay buffer

OBS also allows you to record anything you'd like and also allows you to directly stream, but I am not using these options.

Improve this answer
1
  • I tried out OBS Studio based on this recommendation. It’s working great. It has a limit of 6 hours or 8GB of RAM usage. I tested it last night. My dual 1440p monitors at 10 FPS uses about 4GB of RAM to fill the 6 hour buffer. One thing that’s odd is that it can record my full 5120x1440 desktop but when it saves it out, I have to downscale it a bit. It threw an error when I tried to set the output to the same resolution. Could be something with my setup though. Other than that its working really great!
    – happy_camper1010
    Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 19:38
1

Looking for the same thing I came across this: My Screen Recorder Pro. http://www.deskshare.com/video-screen-capture.aspx

So far it seems to be what I need. Similar to shadow play but recording desktop activity of last X minutes. Not sure if it has multi monitor support though.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.