Quick sync or get a Capture Card?

[Blackburn]

I only record with my laptop that has GeForce 940M. Only x264 and Quick sync are available - no NVENC. I'm currently using Quick sync.

I was thinking: If I want to record a gameplay with 760p in 60 fps, should I go ahead and buy myself a Capture Card? Tried it with Quick sync, but, I'm having trouble when playing games. I'm only recording footages in 720p in 30 fps

 

[Harold]

If you're playing games on the laptop and using OBS on it, a capture card will NOT improve performance.

 

[qhobbes]

Can you have OBS run on the Intel graphics, run the game on the 940 in window mode and window capture the game? I have no idea if this will work or improve your game.

 

[koala]

The capture card takes over capturing footage from your screen instead of the internal game or display capture, but it doesn't take over the resource intensive task of encoding the video, so you are still left with Quicksync or x264 here.

Actually, the internal game capture is more light-weight than using a capture device. So if you try to improve performance, use game capture (or display capture, it's as light weight as game capture on Windows 8 and up) and no capture device. Use a capture device only for capturing external devices such as gaming consoles.