Afterburner overlay not showing in Steam recording (but sometimes it does???)

[Mark Kaine]

Kinda similar issue to this

 

 

Except the overlay is working perfectly fine it just not showing in Steam recordings , but sometimes it randomly shows up...? I tried disabling/enabling, alt-tabbing (that seemed to randomly work but usually it does not)

 

What's funny I have currently 2 games installed, Street Fighter 6 and Monster Hunter Wild, both running on the same engine (REengine) and the overlay shows up without fail in Street Fighter recordings but not in Monster Hunter...so maybe it's a game issue BUT the overlay shows in other recording software (which I don't wanna use cause the performance impact is too big) 

I'm just wondering if it could be a specific Afterburner setting or Steam (but I don't really see anything in Steam related to 3rd party overlays) ?

[Eigenvektor]

My guess would be it depends on where the overlay injects itself into the image and at what point of the graphics pipeline Steam (or the engine?) grabs the image to record it.

 

If the data is recorded before the overlay modifies the final output, that would explain it.

[OddOod]

Have you fiddled with display settings? Like Windowed/Borderless/Fullscreen?

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

If the data is recorded before the overlay modifies the final output, that would explain it.

Yeah, it's just weird how it randomly works...

I mean there are some rendering settings in Riva Tuner, not tried all of them because they usually don't work or are laggy.

 

1 hour ago, OddOod said:

Have you fiddled with display settings? Like Windowed/Borderless/Fullscreen?

Yeah, it doesn't do anything... Last time it worked all I did was alt tab, change the color of the overlay and then it recorded it... But that doesn't usually work either.

 

 

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Yeah, it's just weird how it randomly works...

Might be engine or even developer dependent, as you said. Maybe they can specify at what point Steam grabs the image for recording, so they have some control over its performance impact.

[OddOod]

17 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Might be engine or even developer dependent, as you said. Maybe they can specify at what point Steam grabs the image for recording, so they have some control over its performance impact.

In that case I'd recommend just using OBS instead of Steam Recording

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, OddOod said:

In that case I'd recommend just using OBS instead of Steam Recording

OBS has several drawbacks though... Mainly it's not meant for game recording, it's meant for streaming mostly, it's pretty archaic/basic (not even an overlay to show if it's recording or not) quality is questionable,it randomly "drops" frames, or lowers quality otherwise. The "replay" feature works rudimentary only at best (basically barely at all and certainly not the timeframe you set)

Resource hog, you basically have to use QCP if you want decent'ish quality... And most editing software hates whatever OBS outputs,often making it nigh impossible to edit...

 

Yes, OBS "works" but it's really undesirable to use, you're probably better off with PowerPoint for game recording (which I don't have tho )

 

 

[OddOod]

On 4/10/2025 at 3:18 PM, Mark Kaine said:

OBS has several drawbacks though... Mainly it's not meant for game recording, it's meant for streaming mostly, it's pretty archaic/basic (not even an overlay to show if it's recording or not) quality is questionable,it randomly "drops" frames, or lowers quality otherwise. The "replay" feature works rudimentary only at best (basically barely at all and certainly not the timeframe you set)

Resource hog, you basically have to use QCP if you want decent'ish quality... And most editing software hates whatever OBS outputs,often making it nigh impossible to edit...

 

Yes, OBS "works" but it's really undesirable to use, you're probably better off with PowerPoint for game recording (which I don't have tho )

If you're dropping frames, you need to change encoding settings or use a dedicated GPU for encoding. 
My OBS spits out MP4s which I've never had an issue with for any software
I'm really not sure where you're coming from for a lot of this...