MewCapture: record or stream your DMA overlay without a capture card

MewCapture is our free Windows app for recording or streaming your game with your overlay on it, without a capture card. You install it on both PCs. Download MewCapture, and if you're new to it, start with Set up MewCapture.

How it works

Your main PC captures the screen with Windows' own screen capture and hands it to your graphics card's encoder. It sends the game and the sound you pick, like the game and Discord, to your second PC. Your second PC adds your overlay, scenes and webcam, and records or streams.

Both PCs have to be on the same router, or joined by one Ethernet cable. A cable is best, because Wi-Fi drops show up as stutter. Direct cable between two PCs shows how to set one up.

What it does

• No capture card.
  The game goes to your second PC over your own network or one cable, at up to 4K or 144 fps.
• Light on your main PC.
  The game goes into your graphics card's encoder at low priority. The main PC screen shows how much MewCapture uses, with no preview to keep it light.
• Overlay background removal.
  Pick your overlay window and MewCapture removes its background, with a live preview and a slider for how much gets removed.
• Scenes.
  Add a webcam with background blur, images, text, countdowns, browser sources and a keys and mouse display, with studio mode and transitions.
• Clip That.
  A hotkey on either PC saves the last 30 seconds to 2 minutes, with the overlay or clean. Trim it and send a clean clip to your main PC.
• Recording and streaming.
  Pick a preset for YouTube, Twitch, Low impact or Clips only. You can stream to Twitch, YouTube and Kick at once, with chat in the app.
• Mixer.
  Meters, mute and push to talk. Game, mic and Discord go on their own tracks in your recordings.
• Pairing.
  Both PCs show the same 4-digit code the first time. After that they find each other by themselves.
• OBS support.
  OBS is optional. Set up OBS for me builds an OBS scene on your second PC from MewCapture's projector window and its sound.
• Something's wrong.
  One button checks both PCs and the connection, tells you what to fix, and gives you a summary to paste in a ticket.

What runs on your main PC

On your main PC, MewCapture only captures the screen, the same way Discord screen sharing does. It doesn't inject into the game, load anything into it, hook it or read its memory.

Your overlay never runs on your main PC, because anti-cheats take screenshots of it and scan them, also with AI, for things like ESP. If your second PC's picture ever comes back to your main PC, like the projector or an OBS scene with it in, MewCapture shows a red warning.

Everything can be detected eventually, no matter what anyone says. MewCapture keeps the main PC side as small as it can be, it captures the screen and sends it. Updates only come from our GitHub releases, and each one is signed, so a changed or fake update won't install.

Other ways to record your overlay

• A capture card with passthrough, like the Elgato HD60 X, costs about $140 to $180 and goes after your fuser. How to record or stream with your DMA overlay showing has the wiring.
• OBS with NDI is free, but you key out the overlay's black and line up the delay by hand. The steps are in How to record or stream your DMA overlay without a capture card.
• Sunshine with Moonlight, or Parsec, send the game to your second PC but don't record or stream, so you add OBS there.

MewCapture is free, removes the overlay's background for you, and records and streams by itself. The full table with cost, setup, delay and quality is in How it compares.

Install it

Download MewCapture-Setup from the latest release on GitHub and run it on both PCs. If Windows warns you, press More info, then Run anyway, because the app isn't code signed yet. Each release lists its SHA-256 sums, so you can check the file.

Say yes to admin rights, so MewCapture can open the firewall for your other PC, then pick which PC this is. Every step after that is in Set up MewCapture.

If something breaks, press Something's wrong in the app, then open a ticket in our Discord and paste the summary.

If MewCapture helped you, a star on GitHub helps us out a lot.