Monitors and Displays

Monitors and displays

ShadePlay guide › Your hardware

Which monitor ShadePlay records, what happens with several monitors, and how it copes with monitors that switch off, change mode or disappear.

One monitor is recorded

ShadePlay records one monitor at its full resolution: your primary (main) monitor by default. To record another one, pick it under Show advanced settings > Video > Monitor. If the monitor you picked isn't connected, ShadePlay records the primary monitor meanwhile and keeps your choice for when it is back; the list then shows it as <name> (not connected).

Things that change while recording

ShadePlay follows the display by itself:

• Alt-tab, fullscreen and borderless games, UAC prompts: they don't split your clips.
• Resolution or HDR changes (a game changing the resolution, Windows HDR switched on or off): ShadePlay starts a new recording session for the new picture. A clip holds one session, so a clip saved right after such a change is shorter or from before it.
• Monitors that appear and disappear, such as virtual monitors for VR headsets or streaming, and monitors plugged in or out: ShadePlay finds the recorded monitor again.

Monitor off, lock screen, sleep

These are calm standby states, not errors. The tray icon shows a blue-grey crescent (grey with pause bars while the PC goes to sleep), and the status says so:

Situation	Status
The monitor is switched off, asleep or unplugged	Waiting for a display – recording starts again by itself
The lock screen, the sign-in screen or a UAC prompt is up	Screen locked – recording goes on when you’re back
The PC goes to sleep	PC sleeping – recording goes on when it wakes up

With the monitor off or the screen locked, sound keeps recording while the picture waits. Nothing is restarted and no warning appears. The picture comes back by itself when the screen does.

What the picture includes

• Everything Windows shows on that monitor: games, the desktop, pop-ups, notifications and chat messages. Check a clip before you share it (Privacy).
• The mouse pointer, drawn in by ShadePlay (Windows' screen capture leaves it out). Switch it off with Record the mouse cursor (advanced, Video page) or Show cursor in the advanced tray menu.
• Protected video (DRM), for example from some streaming services, is blacked out by Windows before ShadePlay sees it, so it appears black in clips. ShadePlay keeps recording.

HDR monitors

With Windows HDR on, clips are HDR10 with your monitor's brightness range written into them. See HDR clips.

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Next: Performance and memory

See also: Is it recording? · Video settings · HDR clips