Another big upgrade for Steam desktop and Steam Deck fans, with Game Recording now in Beta allowing you to easily clip your favourite moments with no external apps needed. Valve said this system is Steam Deck Verified and fully functional there too!
This will work across two modes:
- Background Recording - always active when in-game, with you being able to set the limits on it.
- On Demand - recording from when you tap a key.
That's not all. It's an entire system for developers to hook into for their games as well. When you're recording, you get a special timeline that appears. Developers can hook into this, to show event markers on this. Overall, it sounds pretty awesome.
It even makes sharing the clips relatively simple too with you being able to send it to different devices, like from a Steam Deck to desktop PC.
What we're getting is only the start, since this is in Beta. Valve said to expect more "upcoming features, including individualized game settings (coming soon)". And with this, they've also redesigned the Screenshots interface in Steam to include Recordings now too.
Here's a quick clip I recorded directly via Steam on my Kubuntu Linux desktop (game is Rack and Slay):
Direct Link
As you can see, all fine! That was on the default 12Mbps High setting.
The export function at least on Kubuntu seems broken, as it tries to open a file instead of saving the file. So for now you can make a temporary share link instead, and download it from that. Update 27/06/24: this is solved in a new update.
And a clip recorded from my Steam Deck LCD 512GB, which I then used the built-in feature to send it to my desktop and upload (game is Brotato):
Direct Link
This was again on the default of 12Mbps High setting.
From the brief test there across the two systems, it's really useful and works very nicely. This is a feature many have been asking for and Valve delivered. Even editing the clips directly on a Steam Deck is stupidly easy to do. I'm seriously impressed by this.
Pictured - me editing the Brotato video clip included above, directly on Steam Deck.
See more on the Game Recordings Beta page. And the Beta Changelog.
Additionally, on Steam Deck in the Beta update, Valve noted "Client and OS beta settings been updated to include a new "Preview" build of SteamOS when available for testing".
Finally there's a new Steamworks SDK update to go with it.
Valve are once again clearly showing why they earn my monies.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Viesta2015 Jun 26
Yes, finally! Thanks, Gabe! So many times I wished I had some background recording after witnessing a weird or funny moment in the game, but not enough to warrant setting up constant recording with OBS or some other tools that came and went in the meanwhile. Hopefully this one will work nicely with wayland (it must).
This seems like such a perfect moderation/bug reporting tool...
hengecobdig Jun 26
I hope there is an option to have the cached data in RAM if plenty to spare to not wear down and degrade the SSD too fast and only with the hotkey pressed the clip will be written to disk.+1 to this. With that said, you could set up the recording directory to be in a tmpfs.
robotman5real Jun 26
EDIT: Running Steam from the commandline does allow the Steam Overlay to function again. But the Game Recording Timeline has issues interacting with the UI (depending on the display it is on, only certain sections can be interacted with). Both of these issues have already been reported upstream at ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux.
Last edited by sonic2kk on 26 June 2024 at 9:27 pm UTC
gradyvuckovic Jun 26
I've been saying for YEARS that they need to add this! It makes too much sense, they already had all the pieces in the software, like video capture, video encoding, taking screenshots, overlay etc. It was such a small leap to make, to go from that to video recording.
It's going to make recording stuff from games so much easier.
Philadelphus Jun 26
).Also, Valve, this shows you know how to record video with sound on Linux, so you have no excuse for Steam's game streaming feature only working on Windows anymore!
Also, it seems to only be able to capture full desktop audio atm, so my recordings all have random snippets of shows in the background. There's a space for changing the audio device but it won't let me change it atm.
Overall, seems promising, and has a nice interface, but its still a beta. I look forward to what it becomes.
Valve are once again clearly showing why they earn my monies.I like that they actually invest their cut into features - and ones that I actually use, at that.
Last edited by Pengling on 27 June 2024 at 4:36 am UTC
it tries to open a file instead of saving the file.
Sounds like they have fixed that:
(Linux) Fixed export clip dialog not allowing saving.
Vortex_Acherontic Jun 27
Last edited by Vortex_Acherontic on 27 June 2024 at 6:47 am UTC
How do they handle the sound? Can you say which audio source they record or is it the main audio sink (on the desktop)?
I would like to record game audio without me and my friends talking trash on mumble... :)
Arehandoro Jun 27
theannoyingfruit Jun 27
Unfortunately this is not usable on the Linux Desktop, at least on Arch with Plasma 6.1, as the Steam Overlay does not work.I'm assuming maybe this is game specific. I tried it with cs2 on arch with plasma 6.1 and it works fine. My gripe is that it has no options for recording of audio devices. It is greyed out and says system audio.
EDIT: Running Steam from the commandline does allow the Steam Overlay to function again. But the Game Recording Timeline has issues interacting with the UI (depending on the display it is on, only certain sections can be interacted with). Both of these issues have already been reported upstream at ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux.
officernice Jun 27
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