Best Game Capture Device for PC?

[Gandoril Spellbinder]

For some time now, I have been interested in recording footage of my gameplay on YouTube and Twitch (primarily inspired by a friend of mine that I met in a now-discontinued buy-to-play MMOJRPG for the PS3); however, I am ditching consoles and am playing solely on the PC, as for most of the games that I play are western RPGs, and those usually look better on computers (especially Skyrim). So, my question is this: since there are so many devices out there to record video-game gameplay, which ones do you, the forum-members, recommend are the best for recording gameplay-footage on the PC? Also, when I played on my consoles, I primarily shopped at GameStop (by the way, someone much higher than even regional managers at GameStop controls trade values, and everyone else that works there truly does wish that they could give you a lot more money for your stuff, and the people that I've met there are really sweet), and I still have their web-site as my browser's home-page, and I have noticed that GS seems to be boasting two new game capture devices for consoles, the Elgato Game Capture and the Elgato Game Capture HD60; I would greatly appreciate it if someone could tell me whether or not these can record gameplay on PCs (as the manufacturer mentions that they have 'unlimited capture to PC', but I have no idea whether or not that means unlimited capture on PC), and whether or not they even recommend using it. Any and all feedback on this topic is most appreciated!

[Andere]

Don't know if this helps you in any way, but the traditional FRAPS is generally good at recording. It works via DirectX. http://www.fraps.com/

Best wishes.

[Alarra]

I use FFSplit, myself. It's free, and good for both recording and streaming. It's easy to use - just tell it which monitor/window/whatever to record, and you can click and drag where you want it on the screen if you have multiple things up at once (I've done that before when, say, putting a note on the screen, or when I turn my webcam on.) I have it set to both record and stream to Twitch (although I can uncheck the box for one or the other if I only want to, say, record).
I have had occasional issues with it crashing my stream on me, but it's not too bad - I just hit "record" again and start streaming again when it happens - and overall it's the best of the free software I've tried.
Just make sure your computer's strong enough for it - I had originally wanted to record/stream when I was playing on my laptop, but learned that it wasn't powerful enough to both game and capture footage at the same time. And for streaming, for your internet speed, you'll want a minimum of 3mbps upload.

[Gandoril Spellbinder]

I have a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit laptop with an Intel Core i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 310M graphics card/GPU; is that powerful enough? I also want to record in 1080p at 60 fps; can your device do that? Thanks anyway, I appreciate it!

[Alarra]

Probably not. The laptop I tried it on is a Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit, Intel core i7-2670QM @ 2.20 GHz, 8GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000. I had tried it, even on pretty low settings, but it was basically like watching a slideshow. (I was trying to record/stream Oblivion, and then GW2 - it only looked smooth when I had the menu open, and basically froze whenever I was moving.)

I've built a real good gaming PC now, and that can handle it. While I could probably record just to my computer at 60fps/1080p, I have it set to 30fps and a 960x540 resolution for streaming; I don't think my upload speed is quite good enough for anything better (at 4 mbps), and also viewers on mobile devices (but not on computers) reported major lag when I had the resolution the size of my screen, so I halved it and it seems to look smooth and pretty clear for everyone.

[Gandoril Spellbinder]

I myself will eventually build a gaming desktop, but I need the money first (fortunately, a friend of mine will build it for only the cost of parts. Besides, I have no idea where to get such things). Hopefully, I'll have a job soon, so that'll help.