Today, we’re taking a look at the Genki Shadowcast 2, which is one of the more inexpensive capture cards on the market right now.
Streaming video games is an expensive hobby – or career! As someone who’s very experienced in not being a streamer, the Genki Shadowcast 2 is very appealing. As you can imagine, it’s an improved version of the Genki Shadowcast, a budget capture card that was first released a few years ago. It normally goes for around $50 USD, which is already much cheaper than other options – but it goes on sale for $30 every so often, which makes it a particularly enticing pickup. The Genki Shadowcast 2 hooks up to your gaming console’s HDMI port and essentially beams over the footage to your computer right away. Other capture cards have a delay, which often necessitates a dual-monitor setup so that you can play on one monitor and use your computer on the other. The Genki Shadowcast 2 aims to fix this with near-instant passthrough.
Before we get into all the specifics, here’s how the Genki Shadowcast 2 works. Basically, you attach it to your console’s HDMI port and connect the other end to your computer or laptop. From there, you open the Genki Arcade app, and the gameplay from your Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 is streamed directly to your PC with almost no lag whatsoever. This means you can use your laptop as a screen for your system, which otherwise wouldn’t be possible. The Shadowcast 2 can capture footage at a max resolution of 2560 x 1440 at 30 frames per second, but I personally opted to capture footage at 1920 x 1080 at 60 FPS instead. There’s a decent amount of customization within the Genki Arcade app, with plenty of frame rate options and more. That said, it’s not a very elegant application – the settings menu can’t be opened and closed, and any time you hover the mouse over the window in any capacity it will pop up. And there’s no way to close the settings menu unless you move your cursor off the application and wait a few seconds. It feels super clunky and frustrating when that darned menu pops up, and it could’ve been fixed with one singular button. Kind of a baffling decision!
As for the streaming itself, it works really well for the asking price. There might be a tiny delay – we’re talking only a couple of frames here – but the delay is small enough that you should be able to play most games just as you would with a regular setup. Now, if you try playing fighting games online, those couple of frames might become more impactful given how important a fraction of a second is in those kinds of games. But for the average player, the Genki Shadowcast 2 does a great job. You can also record your gameplay as video files, if you like. If you’re thinking of getting into streaming or getting a new capture card specifically for Twitch streams or something similar, you might want to look at a more premium capture card – even though they have higher delays, they record in much better quality and have more customization options. But if you’re just looking to play games on your monitor and stream to friends, the Genki Shadowcast 2 is a great pick.
Have you tried the Genki Shadowcast or Shadowcast 2? If you have, feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments down below. You can learn more about the Shadowcast 2 over at Genki’s official website.
