Fixing Black Screen or Stuck Frame When Recording Games

If you're seeing a black screen or a single frozen frame when trying to record gameplay with Medal, there could be multiple causes—from Windows version quirks to GPU settings or conflicting overlays. This article covers a variety of fixes depending on the scenario.

Table of Contents

• Possible Conflicting Software
• Capture Settings
• DXGI Issues & Windows 24H2 Notes
• Changing GPU Settings
• Screenshot Border Permissions

Possible Conflicting Software

Some overlays and recorders may interfere with Medal’s hook, resulting in black screens or only a single captured frame. Please close any of the following before recording:

• Crossover
• HudSight
• CrossHairV2 / CrossHair X
• Faceit Anti-Cheat
• Razer Cortex
• NVIDIA Shadowplay
• GIF Your Game / Gifyourgame
• OBS
• AMD Relive
• XSplit
• Discord
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (Enable Microsoft Hooking)
• MSI Afterburner (Turn off 'Show in On-Screen Display')

Capture Settings

1. Advanced Window Capture

   • Enable Advanced Window Capture under Settings > Advanced > Advanced | Recording. This is especially helpful for games like Rust, FiveM, and CS2.
     Learn more about Advanced Window Capture

2. Force Window Capture

   • Toggle Force Window Capture under the same Recording settings. This works only for Windowed or Borderless games (not Exclusive Fullscreen).

This fix only works for games running in Windowed or Borderless modes. It does not work with Exclusive Fullscreen.

Full Screen Optimizations

• Full Screen Optimization(FSO): If Borderless mode doesn't fix the issue, try to enable/disable FSO. Right-click your game’s executable > Properties > Compatibility > Toggle "Disable fullscreen optimizations" and test both enabled/disabled states.

Minecraft Clip Issues(and other OpenGL games)

Known issue on Windows 11 version 24H2 or higher that can cause Frozen clips, black screen clips, black clips, stuck on a frame, stuck one 1 frame, stuck on loading screen.

Potential fixes:

• Advanced Window Capture: In Medal Settings > Advanced > Advanced Window Capture. *Note, this may have side effects including; not working in 'exclusive fullscreen mode', adding a yellow border around your game, making your mouse cursor invisible.
• Change GPU Settings: Adjusting GPU rendering methods may help—but proceed with caution. These settings may fix DXGI capture but could lead to flickering or degraded performance in some cases.
  • Nvidia Users
    1. Open NVIDIA Control Panel
    2. Go to Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings
    3. Scroll to Vulkan/OpenGL present method
    4. Set to: Prefer layered on DXGI Swapchain
  • AMD Users
    1. Open AMD Software and navigate to the game under the Gaming tab
    2. Choose Global Gaming Experience or per-game
    3. Ensure OpenGL Triple Buffering is Enabled

Flickering Clips?

Screenshot Border Permissions (Windows)

Flickering clips may be resolved by turning off screenshot border settings.

1. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Screenshot borders
2. Turn off the top two toggles
3. Restart Medal

Still Having Issues?

If the issue continues, please send us your Medal Logs and consider Repairing Medal.