How to record 4k gameplay on 1080p monitor to downscale?

[Eviscerator95]

So, I want to be recording gameplay footage at 4k so that I can downscale it to 1080p, so that I can get a more sharper looking image rather than just recording at 1080p. Any ideas on what I should do? I want 1080p video and I want to play at 1080p but I want to somehow get like a virtual 4k video (if that makes sense) so that I can downscale to 1080p in editing.

 

[Ryan_78]

go to your game settings and turn it to 1080p. if not specified, go to game files and set there. If you want everything on 1080p, even desktop, then go to control panel and go to resolution and turn it down.

 

[Eviscerator95]

go to your game settings and turn it to 1080p. if not specified, go to game files and set there. If you want everything on 1080p, even desktop, then go to control panel and go to resolution and turn it down.

I mean I know how to play and record at 1080p. I want to record at 4k while playing at 1080p. I have been looking into new ways of getting better video quality and downscaling from 4k seems to give a lot sharper image.

 

[photonboy]

If you have an NVidia GPU, then you would learn how to use DSR (and the smoothness factor).

That will render at the chosen resolution, then be downscaled to your desktop resolution.

That does EXACTLY what you're asking for though of course your performance hit will be nearly IDENTICAL to running that same resolution natively. So you might get a lot of stutter or FPS drops if you can't keep up with the workload.

To be clear...
The video made isn't 4K. The game is rendered at 4K (or lower if you choose such as 2560x1440), but it is downscaled to 1920x1080 in the GPU, and sampled at 1920x1080 to be converted into the video. At least I'm 98% on that.

 

[Eviscerator95]

If you have an NVidia GPU, then you would learn how to use DSR (and the smoothness factor).

That will render at the chosen resolution, then be downscaled to your desktop resolution.

That does EXACTLY what you're asking for though of course your performance hit will be nearly IDENTICAL to running that same resolution natively. So you might get a lot of stutter or FPS drops if you can't keep up with the workload.

To be clear...
The video made isn't 4K. The game is rendered at 4K (or lower if you choose such as 2560x1440), but it is downscaled to 1920x1080 in the GPU, and sampled at 1920x1080 to be converted into the video. At least I'm 98% on that.

I have an Nvidia 980 Ti, and would it also record the improved graphics, like do game capture or whatever capture thew improved stuff? I just want my output videos to look better.

I also kinda would rather have 4k footage to downscale later rather than doing it before recording as after editing and compressing into mp4 it loses more quality so doing it during editing would kinda help it better in my opinion, at least I would think.

 

[ssddx]

wait.. you want to render the actual game at 1080 but record it at 4k? there would be no point to that as upscaling to 4k from 1080 then back down to 1080 would at best look worse than just recording at 1080 to begin with. scaling video up is going to result in distortion and quality loss generally. scaling down also can result in distortion and quality loss.

now, if you render the game at 4k and then downscale to 1080 it may look sharper but at the same time can end up looking grainy if you arent careful as well. it will also be a huge performance hit. something like what was mentioned above may certainly work well for you but again it sounds like a big performance hit.

i would likely just record at 1080 on higher grahpical settings with AA turned high.

 

[Eviscerator95]

wait.. you want to render the actual game at 1080 but record it at 4k? there would be no point to that as upscaling to 4k from 1080 then back down to 1080 would at best look worse than just recording at 1080 to begin with. scaling video up is going to result in distortion and quality loss generally. scaling down also can result in distortion and quality loss.

now, if you render the game at 4k and then downscale to 1080 it may look sharper but at the same time can end up looking grainy if you arent careful as well. it will also be a huge performance hit. something like what was mentioned above may certainly work well for you but again it sounds like a big performance hit.

i would likely just record at 1080 on higher grahpical settings with AA turned high.

yeah i dont know how to properly explain lol i just want optimal video quality