My Screen Recorder Pro: Disabling Hardware Acceleration

Disabling Hardware Acceleration

Disabling hardware acceleration may be required to record videos from a media player such as Windows Media player, RealPlayer or QuickTime. Otherwise a blank screen will be recorded. However some applications like games may not work when hardware acceleration is turned off. Disabling hardware acceleration also results in much smoother recordings since fewer system resources are used.

Turn off  Hardware acceleration while recording

To disable hardware acceleration:

1. On the Tools menu, select Settings.
2. Select the Performance tab.
3. Check the option Disable Hardware acceleration during recording.
4. Click OK.

Note: Disabling the hardware acceleration using this method causes a black screen to appear when the recording process is started and stopped. Disabling Hardware while recording is not available on Win98 or Windows Vista.

Turn off  Hardware acceleration system wide

To turn off Hardware acceleration system wide in Windows XP:

1. Right-click on the Desktop and click Properties.
2. Select the Settings tab and click Advanced.
3. Select the Troubleshooting tab and move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.

To turn off hardware acceleration in Windows Vista:

1. Right-click on the Desktop and choose Personalize.
2. Click on Display Settings.
3. in the Display Settings window, click Advanced Settings.
4. Switch to the Troubleshoot tab.
5. Click Change Settings.  
6. Reduce hardware acceleration.            

If the necessary options are not present for manual disabling, check with the maker of your PC for a video driver upgrade.

Note: turning off hardware acceleration system-side will slow down video performance for all applications, but it eliminates the black screen that appears when starting and stopping recording with "Turn off Hardware Acceleration While Recording" turned on.

Turn off Video acceleration in Windows Media Player

Apart from the previously mentioned solutions, you may also need to turn off the video acceleration in Windows Media Player to avoid recording a blank screen. To do so in Windows Media Player 9 or 10:

1. In Windows Media Player, on the Tools menu, click on Options.
2. Select the Performance tab. 
3. Move the Video Acceleration Slider to None.

There is no way to disable hardware acceleration in Windows Media Player 11.

Download the Latest Windows Media Player

If none of the above solutions work, check the Windows Media Player version you have. You need to download the latest Windows Media Player and that should solve the problem.

Related Topics             

• Recording Media players and games
• Changing Appearance
• Changing Display Settings