The Xbox App for Windows 10 Is Awesome, Even If You Don’t Have an Xbox
Windows 10 has brought a ton of great new features . One of the best features is the new Xbox app. Even if you don’t have an Xbox, everyone will find this app useful. You can use it to record games, create clips from any application, and even stream console games.
Record almost any application or game using the game bar
Record gameplay has become so popular that in our day it is built almost every console . Adding a game recorder to Windows 10 was a natural next step for Microsoft. But here’s the interesting part: you can record more than just games . The Xbox app can record almost any running app. While some applications may exclude themselves, most do not. This means that the Xbox app is not only a great game recorder, but also a great screen capture tool.
If you’ve ever signed in to the Xbox app, the Game DVR feature should be ready to go. If not, launch the app and log in. Once launched, follow these steps to record your game or app:
- Press Win + G to open the game bar.
- If you see a window asking if this application is a game, select the Yes, this is a game check box.
- Click the red circle to start recording.
- When you’re done, press Win + G again and click the red circle to end recording.
You can also press Win + Alt + R to start and stop recording if you’ve already told the Xbox app that a particular app is a game. When you finish recording, you will receive a notification in the Notification Center (Win + A). You can click this notification to go straight to the Game DVR section of the Xbox app and find your clips. Here you can trim clips and navigate to the folder where the files are located.
It is unclear which applications can and cannot be recorded. For example, Game Bar will not record Skype for Desktop. However, the Xbox app can record itself . Regardless of whether the app is a game, you can try using a game DVR to record clips of it.
Use Record to save the last 30 seconds (or more) of your game.
Unless you’re a YouTube star, you probably don’t want to record everything you do in case something interesting happens. However, there are times when you are doing something totally cool and no one was around to see it. Like Xbox users, Windows 10 users can now use the Record This feature to save the last 30 seconds (you can increase the limit by default) of everything they play.
Record It works by constantly recording what you play, but only keeping the last thirty seconds. At any time, you can open the game bar and click “Record” (or press Win + Alt + G) to save this video forever. This allows you to retroactively decide to start recording after something interesting happens.
To set it up, follow these steps:
- In the Xbox app, click Settings in the left sidebar.
- Click the Game DVR tab.
- Turn on the switch in the “Burn” section.
- Optional: Next to “Record Last:” you can click the drop-down list to adjust the recording buffer from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
- Open the game or app you want to record.
- Press Win + G to open the game bar.
- Click “Yes, this is a game” if he asks.
As in the previous section, after you have enabled Record and designated the application as a game, you do not need to complete most of these steps. You can open the Game Bar to activate Burn, or just press Win + Alt + G.
Stream your Xbox games to your PC from your console
This feature technically requires an Xbox One, but it’s awesome, so we’re including it. On Windows 10, Microsoft also lets you stream your Xbox One games to your PC. Your Xbox will do the bulk of the work of launching games and then send the video and audio to your computer where you can play them.
This can be useful for a number of reasons. First, it allows you to play console exclusives on PC. You can also keep playing games if someone else in your home uses the TV in the living room.
To start streaming games, you’ll need to set up your Xbox and PC. Here’s how to get started with your Xbox:
- Open Settings on your Xbox One.
- Select “Settings”.
- Turn on “Allow streaming games to other devices.”
- Under Smartglass Connections, turn on From Any SmartGlass Device or Only From Profiles Signed In On This Xbox.
After setting up your Xbox, you need to set up your computer. To do this, follow these steps:
- Make sure your PC and Xbox are on the same home network.
- Launch the Xbox app on your PC.
- In the left pane, click Connect.
- After the app searches for available Xbox, select yours from the list.
- Once connected, select your Xbox.
- Select Stream.
Once your Xbox is connected to your PC, you can play games from your Xbox One. To do this, select My Games on the left side of the Xbox app, select the game you want to play, and then click Play from Console.
As you play, you can plug in a headset and create or join groups as if you were on your console. You will also have a new section under Settings to adjust the streaming quality if your game is not playing smoothly on your computer.