Low Framerate (FPS), lag, or Choppy Clips

Low framerate, laggy clips, or choppy clips happen when your computer doesn't have enough resources to record while you're gaming. Games are very resource intensive and sometimes they don't leave enough room for us to record alongside them.

There are a number of ways we can work around this though!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Reduce the clip quality
• Change Encoder option
• Check your System Resources
• Game Settings
• Disable Automatic Event Detection (Auto Clipping)
• Run Medal with Administrator permissions
• Update Graphics Drivers
• Turn off any recorders
• Turn off Windows Game Mode
• Turn off GPU Scheduling
• Repair
• Advanced Diagnostic

Reduce the clip quality

The higher these settings are, the more system resources Medal needs in order to capture clips. You can fine tune these settings one at a time to find the perfect balance between quality and clip performance.

Change Encoder option

The video encoding option controls where the video processing takes place on your computer. It can either be your GPU or CPU. It is usually recommended to be recording on your GPU because it can handle higher quality clips. But sometimes a game can use all of the GPU leaving not enough resources left over leading to choppy clips. If this is the case, using the CPU can be better if it is not being used to it's full capacity. To check how much CPU and GPU is being used, you can look into task manager. 

To change your encoder settings, navigate to Settings > Clips  & Recording.

Check your System Resources

You may want to check Task Manager for any programs that are using your system's resources. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc, click on 'More details' if you haven't before, and look for any programs that have a high percentage (You can click on CPU/Memory/GPU to arrange them by % amount).

If you find software that is using a high % of your system resources, click on the program and then click 'End Task' on the bottom right hand corner. (If you are unsure of how to use Task Manager, skip this step and follow the next step)

• Check your Windows Start Bar and System Tray for any programs you are not using. These could be using your systems resources. Applications like Google Chrome use a lot of system resources which can cause choppy clips.

Game Settings

Lower your games graphic settings. Higher demanding games like GTA V, Fallout 4, Battlefield 5 etc, require a lot of resources. Turning down your graphics settings in game may help with reducing choppy videos.

If you have downloaded any mods for your game, they could be using a lot of resources. Shutting down game mods may help improve clip performance.

Check to see if you have VSync off. Turning off VSync is designed to use 100% of the systems GPU, which won't leave much room for recording, especially on lower end machines. It's not impossible to record with VSync off, but if you're running in to resource issues, having VSync on or lowering your FPS cap in-game is a good way to make sure Medal gets the resources it needs. 

Disable Automatic Event Detection (Auto Clipping)

Auto Clipping is currently an experimental feature that requires more resources while enabled. Disabling this option may improve clip performance. You can find this setting under Settings > Game Detection.

Run Medal with Administrator permissions

Running Medal on Administrator mode will allow Medal to use more GPU resources for smoother clips. You can follow this guide to set Medal to always run as Admin.

Update Graphics Drivers

For Nvidia, load up 'Nvidia GeForce Experience', click on the Drivers tab and click 'Check For Updates'.

For AMD, open up the 'AMD Radeon' software, and click 'Updates'.

Turn off any recorders

• Microsoft's Game DVR is turned on by default. This could cause some serious lag. Here is a guide to turning it off - How to disable Microsoft Game DVR
• Check to make sure you don't have any other downloaded recorder running. (Nvidia ShadowPlay, AMD Relive, OBS etc.)

Turn off Windows Game Mode

We also have an option in Medal that disables Game Mode. You can learn more about the option and what Game Mode is here: What is Windows Game Mode

If you want a permanent solution to turning off Game Mode, follow the steps below:

• Open your Start Bar and search for Game Mode Settings. A new pop up window will appear. 

• Make sure Game Mode is disabled by clicking on the toggle button.

Turn off GPU Scheduling

If you currently have Windows version 2004 (OS Build 19041) or higher, Microsoft added an option called Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling. This new option helps boost GPU performance while in-game at the cost of other programs performance.

To disable GPU Scheduling:

• Open you Start Bar and search for Graphics Settings

• Make sure Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is disabled

Repair

Some files that Medal uses may have become corrupted or missing during installation or an update.

Click here to learn how to repair Medal

Advanced Diagnostic

These suggestions are for those with custom PC builds with SLI/Crossfire builds and over-clocks.

• If you're using an SLI/Crossfire build, it has been known to cause choppy clips. Disabling SLI/Crossfire may prevent lost frames.
• If you have over-clocked your system, this could potentially cause choppy clips. Try tuning down your clocks a bit.

For personal troubleshooting, we recommend trying things like disabling any program you think may interfere. The more system resources that Medal has available to it, the smoother the clip may end up.

If you're still unable to figure out why your videos are choppy, please to let us know by sending us a ticket.