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PlayClaw Giveaway
$29.95
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — PlayClaw

PlayClaw is a very useful tool for almost every game player and a "must-have" tool for hardcore gamers.
$29.95 EXPIRED
User rating: 509 75 comments

PlayClaw was available as a giveaway on February 21, 2009!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$24.96 / month
free today
Your all-in-one solution for home theater entertainment!

Take still and video snapshots of 3D games without sacrificing performance. PlayClaw operates completely in background and makes full use of your CPU’s multi-core abilities to record quality action videos of your 3D games without affecting the gameplay or reducing frame rate. Real-time chats could never been easier! The tool supports Teamspeak & Ventrilo overlays, displaying nicknames of who’s speaking right over the game.

System Requirements:

Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and x64 editions; DirectX 9 or DirectX 10; Administrator rights; It is recommended to use modern multicore processor with NVidia or ATI graphics card

Publisher:

PlayClaw

Homepage:

http://www.playclaw.com/en/index.php

File Size:

1.00 MB

Price:

$29.95

GIVEAWAY download basket

Developed by Electronic Arts
Developed by PopCap Games
Developed by Overwolf
Developed by BeamNG

Comments on PlayClaw

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Please add a comment explaining the reason behind your vote.
#75

God damnit... I found out about this site just a little too late to download D:

Reply   |   Comment by Skelux  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#74

@ # 77, Julian T. Ramey...

the program must be installed & activated during the 24 hour giveaway period...

if you ran the activation during the giveaway period, you may be able to fix the problem by following the instructions of # 38, ALF & # 15, Eddie...

i've only tried the program a bit, however, the .avi didn't play with VLC player for me...it did work with Windows Media Player............this is just my situation, so far...

please try the forums for help...good people there!...

good luck...

Reply   |   Comment by Violet4714  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#73

The program ran after installation. Does this mean I can never activate it? I ran the activation while out of the program and the program still says trial version. I tried this program on my Vista
computer and the thing just doesn't work! It saves a so called "avi"
file but nothing can run it. I tried about 4 different programs, no audio, no video, nothing......I sent email to GAOTD and haven't gotten a response yet...

Reply   |   Comment by Julian T. Ramey  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#72

Downloaded just fine on my 64 Bit Windows XP Pro...but doesn't record anything (yet) from Batlefield 1942 still gotta try other games,but i have my doubts...we will see...

Reply   |   Comment by TC  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#71

does not work with online poker sites (only games I play)

Reply   |   Comment by Mark  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#70

Nobody should ever have a problem activating these giveaways if one simply runs activate before running setup. And Vista users should know that many programs have to literally be run as administrator. It isn't enough to be logged in as a member of the administrator group. One must right click on the file to be run and choose "Run as Administrator" from the context menu. Vista users have to also extract all files from the zip before running them.

#66 - I also wondered about #4's post, then just figured that he meant the resulting video is proprietary to the company that made the game, not the company that made Playclaw. In other words, you would need permission from the makers of the game, as well as any participants in the game if you were capturing a multiplayer session, for commercial use of the video.

Anyway, Playclaw worked fine for me with windowed casual games, but I have not yet tried it with Painkiller. Playclaw was easy to configure with use of the online help, which while occasionally showing obviously outdated screenshots, was very clear and concise.

Reply   |   Comment by gmon  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#69

I cant get the sound to work
Everything else works like a breeze

thanks GAOTD

Reply   |   Comment by unknown  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#68

Gave it a thumbs down because of the problems with the software not because it's an undesirable software.

Reply   |   Comment by Babie  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#67

I've attempted all the registration fixes and still have the trial version. It initially showed as registerd goatd version. After closing and restarting the software it showed trial version. I even uninstalled and reinstalled it as well as the mentioned fixes. Also am getting the mixer error message.

Will uninstall.

Reply   |   Comment by Babie  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#66

i really need hypercam becaause i em a really big gamer

Reply   |   Comment by thompson  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-9)
#65

#53

You are right about the desktop icon...how did I miss that. I must have unknowingly unchecked it by accident both times i installed it. Surprised even the developer did not alert my mistake on that >.>'.

Thanks.

Reply   |   Comment by Ashraf  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-5)
#64

OK Guys....

could someone tell me what the REAL eula is about recording and owning the contents of that recorded file???

according to my read of the eula I do NOT see anywhere that it expressly states that anything I record with this on MY computer with MY game is OWNED by them...8(

#4 Ronald-
"I highly recommend this software, but be warned that you forfeit the right of all videos recorded by this software to the company - fine for casual videos, but not if you’re into machinimation or the like for money."

seems to me that this interpretation is pretty liberal...

I love recording and working with machinima and would be SO disappointed if I could not use this tool for that purpose...8(

maybe the software company would like to weigh in on this one...8)

sure would be disappointing to say the least if this isn't so...8(

how bout it Sytexis???

Reply   |   Comment by Rakos  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#63

I tried it not imppressed I would rather use fraps, yes this is free but you still are restricted from all the features of the product. There are better free alternatives out there even though this is free there are better alternatives.

Reply   |   Comment by Michael  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-6)
#62

Cannot get mixer info - Vista, Home edition.

Reply   |   Comment by Jos  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#61

Installed fine, but like others I can't get the hotkeys to work for starting and stopping recording. I think the setup window is being cut off, but can't find any way to expand it. So I can't get this application to record anything.

Reply   |   Comment by Mike  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#60

First impression: Multiple screen capture works very well. On this computer, a 3800+ dual core, 2GB RAM, GF 7800GS-256MB and a WD Caviar Black hd, I recorded scenes from COD2, The Assualt on Matmata. In game setting are 11x864, 2xAA, high world details, medium body count. It plays at slightly over 30 FPS.

Recording with no compression, full size, 2 cores, I can manage nearly 15 FPS, if that. Yikes. Very choppy and a little dark. Recording with high compression, full size and 1 core seemed to change things not one bit. I may have managed 20 FPS. Quite the resource hog. This probably shows more so, that this computer is aging fast. Faster processors should do much better.

Recording at half size made an enormous difference. All in all, this is a nice little program. Thank you GAOTD, and PlayClaw!

Reply   |   Comment by Pottery  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#59

I have a question.

Not into games so I find it hard to understand what purpose this program would serve? Is it to record your game moves so you can go back and see what you did wrong? Or is there other uses? Not trying to be cute or anything, just trying to figure out what I could use this for.

Reply   |   Comment by Ikeup  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#58

Registered fine but NO video nor images. Nothing, nada.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#57

.


Uh-oh. Looks like many of us may just THINK we got
the Registered version!

When I'm set on "General," it shows that I have
Current Version: 1.2 Build 478 -- and yet --

Just below that, it says Trial Version



So is it a Trial Version or a Registered Version?


I discovered a sure-fire way to tell:

1--Click on "Screenshots"

2--Change the Format setting from BMP to JPG.

3--If you get a pop-up saying this: "Only BMP image
format is available in unregistered version,"
you'll know you've got the Trial Version.


Now for the sad news . . . I've tried all the suggestions
listed, and STILL can't get anything but the Trial Version.


I wonder how many others *think* they have the
Registered Version simply because they see:

"Current Version: 1.2 build 478" listed.

(After all, I get that notice -- yet the BMP to JPG
change clearly tells me I have the "unregistered"
version.)


.

Reply   |   Comment by Garfey B.  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#56

thankyou 42 that explains what many have reported as to it not working.
Very useful, thankyou indeed

Reply   |   Comment by FB  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#55

How do you get this to start recording? I have setup the buttons in the GUI but nothing has even attempted to record... What am i doing wrong?

Reply   |   Comment by Matthew  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#54

why pay for this
Go download Hypercam, as far as I can see it does the same thing, and Hypercam is free, been using it 8 yrs

Reply   |   Comment by mack  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-5)
#53

All my output vids are quite jerky, oh and Ashraf don't know it all.

Reply   |   Comment by hermon  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#52

Installed and actived just fine, #38 spelled it out even for the simplest of minds.

Ashraf (#7, #23, #25, etc), as always, your comments seem general and misguided. Perhaps you could take 10 minutes and give a more accurate review intead of trying to be the first to comment without the need to tell us how you have not tested it or completely made stuff up.

"As for actual performance difference between the two, I have not had much time for gaming lately, so since my last reformat I don’t have games installed."

How COULD you see actual performance differences if you don't even have any games installed??? Also, look again, it gives an option for a desktop icon as a checkbox (and is checked by default).

Anyway, I DO do a lot of gaming and was pretty excited to see this giveaway today. Installed and actived just fine, #38 spelled it out even for the simplest of minds, so there shouldn't be any more complaints of anyone not being able to register.

The ONLY problem I have, which seems to be a pretty major one is that the program is not sized correctly, atleast at my resolution and the window cannot be resized manually. I currently run a 24" widescreen at 1920 x 1200 and the program seems to not show everything.

See images here:

http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/tt165/todamgood4U/image1.jpg
http://i608.photobucket.com/albums/tt165/todamgood4U/image2.jpg


Hope those links work.

~Shauna

Reply   |   Comment by Shauna  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#51

if you have problems with registration look at comment #15 and download to file drag and drop to the file playclaw is located in and delete it.

Reply   |   Comment by aether  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#50

Did not work for me. I installed it and that worked but the hot keys did nothing. Vista 32 home premium.

Reply   |   Comment by Wil  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#49

Please, take a look for a couple minutes:
- If you have single core CPU you will get in-game lags with video recordings always. The amount of lags is dependend of video size/fps.

- If you have dual core CPU you may get in-game lags if you set very high quality. For example, it is impossible to record full screen video (1024x768) with high compression and 30 FPS. In this case you can get skipped frames in AVI or decreased FPS in game. Just try to decrease frame size to half.

- If you have dual core CPU & modern game like Crysis, you will get lags because such games are trying to get maximum resources from your computer.

- If you have quad core CPU then you need to make an effort to get lags ;) In fact (tested with many games) quad core CPU allows to capture video with high compression in full frame with 30 FPS without any ingame lags.

#45, Yes, almost every game have demo recorder. But these demos can be played only with the same game and not with media players. Just imagine, your ~900Kb demo for 30 minutes = 900.000 bytes / 30 minutes = 900.000 bytes / 1800 seconds = 500 bytes per second. Are you still sure that recorded demo is the same as captured video? ;)

Reply   |   Comment by Eddie  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#48

To all those wandering why it is not capturing anything I guess it is because this tool is build to record only certain things such as games etc. If you like to have a free tool that capture both streaming video and stills of anything that shows on your screen try TechSmith Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/)

Reply   |   Comment by Gad  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#47

Installed and activated perfectly on XP SP3. I'm running an ATI Radeon HD 3870, 2 GB ram and a Pentium Dual-Core running at 2.7 GHz. So i decided to test it out and see what kind of quality PlayClaw could record at and to see how well it performed running with a heavy duty game, so i fired up Crysis (which is running at its highest possible specs without having a crossfire or SLI setup)

It does pretty good! the video quality is great, but unlike what the write up says, it did effect the framerate, but it still didn't make it unplayable. So i'd definitely give this one a try, and if it doesn't run as smooth as it should just turn some video settings down! simple enough fix.

Reply   |   Comment by Darth Biggles  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#46

hope thit is usefull....and good to know

This will NOT work with all the games..espacially online games cause of hacking prevention systems , there are games out there like the ones from GameTribe wich wont let u browse on the web. But normal games work fine :D

Reply   |   Comment by RavenX86  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#45

Ashraf, I would like to thank you for all of the nice things that you do around here. However, the whole comment cop attitude is less than interesting and actually quite useless. Of course this is just me putting two and two together and is not any different... You did it first tho. The internet and our ability to do a search is not flawless and calling someone out the way you have Ronald could be interpreted as self promotion at someone else's expense. Not pretty. And without knowing you, other than reading your mostly excellent and relevant posts, I think that you are a reasonable sort and would probably only need a small reminder to stay on course.

As far as the Software. Installs and works well on Vista 64 bit. Tested playing UT3. My framerates seemed a little off from the norm. But, I do think that a few tweaks here and there will probably take care of those issues for me.

Thanks again GAOTD Team. And also again, thank you Ashraf. Try not to take it personal. You are a Valuable asset to this forum and this commment section would not be as good or helpful without you.

Reply   |   Comment by JdgM3NT4L  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-4)
#44

Looks nice, going to try it out..,

Although I need ask but one question..

As most True-Gamers already know, most games come with a demo-recorder, so what is the need for fraps or which-so-ever other capture device..??..All you need is a converter most times..

Note, the in-built Demo-recorders in most games create small files, with crystal clarity of both sound and vision too. As an example, Call of Duty series, a quick 3 binds into the mp_config, save a demo file of 870-930kb for 30 minutes full on gameplay recording.

Don't believe me, try Googling it..!!..

Still, for the games that have no demo-recorder as of yet, then this little application should suffice. Lest it don't do as it says on the box..

Have a fine week-end all..

Reply   |   Comment by RancidFlesh  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#43

Good Investigative work Ashraf! You get a "Two Thumbs Up!" from me.

Reply   |   Comment by Archangel  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#42

Thank you so much GAOTD... I have been searching for a long time to get a video capture program for Halo CE Manchima

Reply   |   Comment by Halo  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#41

It installed and registered fine for me (WXP SP3, DX9.0c). Not sure if it is the full version, as the installer identifies itself on the first screen as "GAOTD edition". Looks promising, and I was excited about it, but is not recording anything in or out of "games".

I'm ~guessing~ this is because windows / the smaller games I am testing are not using directx to draw their graphics (Might be nice if the authors added this type of information to their support page). I guess (if this is the issue affecting me?) I'll have to try finding a game that specifically uses directx. (I don't have many of those installed on this machine; I wanted to try it out on a safe machine before installing it on my clean gaming box [oops, which now that I think about it might be dx10 :-(. will definitely be looking forward to a dx10 version of this from GAOTD someday]).

Would be nice if the program provided a way to indicate that it is unable to capture anything [due to non-directx game] this to its users, like a bad beep or something when you press the hotkeys (and the describe in the support file what a bad beep means). I guess I'll just have to use trial and error to see which games I can test it with (if this is indeed the problem).

"Ronald B" (@4) mentioned that you could download codecs. It was unclear to me if these were Microsoft's or Sytexis' codecs? If Sytexis', do you have a link for them? The only "help file" I can find for PlayClaw is their website support page.

FYI + Thanks,
Steve

Reply   |   Comment by Steve  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#40

Unfortunately, I am getting the "cannot get mixer info" error upon launching the program. It looks like a very nice utility for free , but what good is it when you cannot get it to operate as intended? Thanks GOTD, But I will sadly remove this one right now as I do not keep software on my machine that does not work.

Reply   |   Comment by Jason Carver  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#39

I just tried this out on Counter Strike source.. worked fine but it did lag my game.. then again, I'm running 1920x1200 and told it to use 2 cores :-) Will try some more but for free, good deal...

Reply   |   Comment by Insomniak  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#38

tried it out on left for dead, burnout paradise. left for dead was choppy, as was the video. burnout's performance was good, but again, videos were choppy as if frames had been skipped.

Reply   |   Comment by anon  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#37

I still see people having problems activating the software, despite the good instructions from Eddy (from playclaw). Thanks Eddy, really appreciated.

I try to cover all steps and cases here in a chronologic way for those who still have problems. You will get registrated, don't panic, be patient and confident and follow the steps below:

1. extract the files from the downloaded zip-file (don't run from the zip-file)

2. run activate.exe (today !!)

3. run setup.exe
If you forgot running activate.exe at this stage, stay with me (see #4).

4. Keep Play Claw from starting up; uncheck the run option at the end of the installation.

5. If you kept Play Claw from running (see #4) you still have the opportunity to run activate.exe before you start Play Claw. NO PROBLEM!

6. If you did start Play Claw unlike #4, download the tool from Eddie; comment #15:

a. download:http://www.sytexis.com/bin/cfgeditor.exe
b. Just close Play Claw completely from the ICON-TRAY
c. start cfgeditor and a folder will open with a file named 'config.txt'. Delete it!
d. close that folder
e. run activate.exe
f. run Play Claw


There you go, have fun.

Reply   |   Comment by ALF  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#36

Ok, if you unzip it install then activate it with activate.exe or whatever it's called and you get the trial version (which happened to me) then you must follow the instructions given at the "if you have a problem with registration, do the following" section and it WILL make it registered. ;)

Reply   |   Comment by Brian  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#35

Don't bother, stick with fraps. Registered and installed fine. But wouldn't work no matter what I tried. Fraps isn't free but at least it actually works. Definite no on this one, was so happy when I thought it was a free alternative to fraps, Oh well.

Reply   |   Comment by scrod  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#34

Installed fine but why can't I get it to record anything?

Reply   |   Comment by Mike  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-6)
#33

Another thing: you can see if you have directX 9 or 10 in this way: press start- then run- then type´dxdiag`. Thats it, a system information on your grafic card an direct X is shown

Reply   |   Comment by peter  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#32

Im new in directX 9 or 10??.
Problem is that: do you need special grafic card for use this software ?? can you install drectX 9 or 10 on every computer no matter what hardware you have on ?? Do you need to play a game to make screenshots or recording ??
Installed and activated ok( remember to run activate.exe first) on win xp pro sp3.
BUT!!
I can not get any screenshot/ video, but I´m only try to recording without playing any game.

Hope someone can help

Tanks

Reply   |   Comment by peter  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-5)
#31

Fine program, installed without a hitch on XP Home SP3, Have been using Gadwin Printscreen 3.1, This will complement my Screen shots of Trainz as now I can have one on Full screen and one on rectangular area.
Thank you. Jeff.

Reply   |   Comment by Jeff Gale  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#30

1.I have downloaded this software from this site and unzip open the file install active withe the key mark file which comes with this file , but It wont run ,what should I do ? my Computer have 3 GB RAM 350 HDD
256 Video Memory 2.8 GHZ any help ?

Reply   |   Comment by Alex  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#29

I tried installing it and activating it and it is the trial version so I uninstalled and then activated first and then installed and its still the trial version. I have tried three times. I cannot get the registered version. I have sent an email. Could you post the step by step instructions? I cannot get this to work!

Reply   |   Comment by Paul  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-9)
#28

If you forget to uncheck open Playclaw when you run setup and end up with the trial version...simply follow the instructions posted by Eddie in Post #15. They work like a charm!

If anyone has a problem with registration, do following:

1. Download http://www.sytexis.com/bin/cfgeditor.exe
2. Run it - it will open configuration folder. Delete config.txt file
3. Run PlayClaw again.

Thanks Eddie for posting this quick and simple fix!

Reply   |   Comment by Teresa  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#27

Downloaded installed and activated no problem on XPsp3. No problem registering either.
Don't know how much I will use the game but sure my kids will.

Reply   |   Comment by Peter Larsen  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#26

OK, I've figured out how to define recording/stopping/pausing buttons. However, after defining them and trying to start any screen capture nothing happen. any suggestions?

Reply   |   Comment by Gad  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
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