What is Xbox Game Bar

Xbox Game Bar is a screen recording program designed by Microsoft, this game overlay can help us easily record gameplay on Windows PC. This program provides various widgets to support us to view other monitoring indicators such as FPS, CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. while recording. Since it’s built into Windows computers, Xbox Game Bar can sometimes serve as one of the great free solutions for recording on low-end PCs.

This program was originally designed to help game lovers record exciting moments like Pentakill and even allows you to end some background processes that affect the speed of the game with one click without exiting the game. Let’s take a closer look at this program.

Different Widgets of Xbox Game Bar

1. Capture Widget of Xbox Game Bar

The best thing Microsoft has done for users is to allow gamers to use the Xbox Game Bar on Windows 10 to easily record games. This is a built-in game overlay that also allows you to take screenshots of your best moments during gameplay. To open the program, activate it by pressing the Win+G keys on the keyboard at the same time. Once the game overlay appears, click the Capture widget to take a screen capture. During recording, you can click the camera button to take a screenshot.

2. Audio Widget of Xbox Game Bar

When you are using the Xbox Game Bar to record, the Audio widget will automatically display all audio channels, and you can adjust the volume of each audio channel through the slider. For game lovers, this is a very useful feature. Because the volume of media players and other applications can be adjusted directly in-game without switching to the desktop. This widget can also help you capture computer sound, or use the microphone to add voiceovers and adjust or mute at any time during recording.

3. Performance Widget of Xbox Game Bar

With the Performance widget, you can see how your computer is performing while playing games. After activating the Xbox Game Bar, it will collect the utilization of the main computer resources such as graphics card, RAM, processor, etc., and display it for you in percentages and graphs. Then, you can clearly see other programs that affect the running of your game. For users who want to check the quality of the game, this widget will show you the FPS. You can adjust the quality of the game by observing the FPS, so as to ensure that the game runs smoothly.

4. Resources Widget of Xbox Game Bar

Gamers know that certain background programs can slow down your computer and cause game stuttering. Therefore, we will improve the performance of the computer by closing or stopping these processes. Normally, we need to quit the game to be able to close these processes, but the Xbox Game Bar makes up for that. The Resources widget will display the CPU, GPU, RMA, and Disk utilization percentages of each background program, so you can see at a glance the background processes that are slowing down the game. What’s more worth mentioning is that this game overlay allows you to end the background process with one click without exiting the game.

5. Spotify Widget of Xbox Game Bar

While you’re playing a game, you can control and play music from Spotify. All you need to do is open the Xbox Game Bar while playing a game, then sign in to Spotify to enable this feature. This widget helps game lovers to play and switch music without closing or minimizing the game.

Shortcut Keys of Xbox Game Bar

During the recording of gameplay, it can be cumbersome to control the recording with mouse clicks. The Xbox Game Bar provides its users with hotkey combinations for quick actions, some shortcuts are listed below for reference, and you can even customize the shortcuts.

Win+G: Open Xbox Game Bar

Win+Alt+PrtSc: Take a Screenshot

Win+Alt+G: Record last 30 seconds

Win+Alt+R: Start/stop recording

Win+Alt+M: Microphone on/off

The Best Alternative of Xbox Game Bar

The Xbox Game Bar is an excellent screen recording program, but its gaming features don’t work with the Windows desktop and File Explorer. RecForth is a free screen recorder that can help you capture the entire screen as well as customize the recording area on Windows 10. For gamers, RecForth can help you record gameplay at 120FPS. For YouTubers, RecForth can help you make picture-in-picture effects by recording your screen through Webcam to help you attract more audiences on YouTube.

Key Features

• Free without any hidden charges
• Add voice comments using a microphone
• Customize video resolution and FPS
• Highlight pointer and set click effect
• There is no limit to the recording time

How to use RecForth in simple steps

Step 1. For your safety, please download RecForth directly from the Microsoft Store. This software is free and without any ads, please download it with confidence. After the download is complete, wait a few minutes for it to install on your computer. 

Step 2. Click to enter the main interface of the software and select the recording mode you want. Perform recording configuration in the toolbar at the bottom, or enter the Setting page to set other parameters. 

Step 3. Click the Record button to start recording After completing the configuration, you can pause or continue recording at any time during the recording process. To end the recording, click the Stop button or press F1 on the keyboard.

Final Words

Here is a warp-up. From the above content, we have a more comprehensive understanding of the Xbox Game Bar. After being familiar with the various widgets of this program, it will help you capture the gameplay more professionally, and will also bring a better experience to game users. If you want to capture Windows desktop and file explorer, download RecForth and give it a try, it can help you record anything you want.