Medal vs. ShadowPlay: Which Should You Use to Record Gaming Clips?

When deciding on the best tool for capturing and sharing gaming moments, Medal and ShadowPlay are two popular options. Here's a breakdown of their features so you can decide which is best for you.

Clip Every Game?

Medal: Medal supports every game even if it doesn't detect it officially; you can still record and clip it! You can also submit unsupported games so Medal knows to add them to the app.

ShadowPlay: Limited to NVIDIA-supported games. While ShadowPlay works well for NVIDIA-supported titles, it doesn't cover every game.

Any GPU?

Medal: Works with any GPU. Whether you have an NVIDIA, AMD, or integrated GPU, Medal ensures compatibility across hardware types.

ShadowPlay: Exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs. ShadowPlay is limited to NVIDIA users, leaving mobile, AMD, and other GPU users out of the loop.

Clip Editing?

Medal: Medal includes a built-in editor for trimming, cutting, and adding video/audio/text effects to your clips. This feature makes it easy to polish and share moments without needing external tools.

ShadowPlay: No built-in editing capabilities, so you will need to use third-party video editing and uploading software to make any adjustments to your recordings.

Mobile?

Medal: Medal provides a mobile app and a mobile recorder, so you can record, manage, comment, and share clips on the go. This convenience is ideal for those who want to share highlights directly to social platforms like TikTok or Discord.

ShadowPlay: No mobile app. Users are limited to managing their content on a desktop.

Performance?

Medal: Medal is optimized to ensure clipping or recording doesn't interfere with your gaming experience. It's lightweight and shouldn't cause noticeable frame drops with the right settings.

ShadowPlay: Also offers great performance, as it's directly integrated with NVIDIA hardware. However, its exclusive nature limits its audience to NVIDIA-only.

Link Sharing and Social Sharing?

Medal: Generates a link and allows direct sharing to platforms like Discord for instant clip sharing.

ShadowPlay: No built-in sharing; clips must be manually uploaded to a platform in order to share.

Friends?

Medal: An optional social experience where you can follow friends, see their clips, and browse clips and users from your favorite games.

ShadowPlay: Focuses solely on capturing and saving content for NVIDIA users

Cloud Storage?

Medal: Unlimited cloud storage for Premium users, enabling library access across devices

ShadowPlay: No cloud storage options; all recordings are saved locally.

We may be a bit biased, but many of these differences are quite important. Hope you found this helpful (づ￣ ³￣)づ