NVIDIA ShadowPlay is a great program, but issues such as the driver not updating and the game not recording are common.
If your GeForce Experience ShadowPlay keeps minimizing when you activate it or won’t record the game, this is the article for you.
Restart PC
If ShadowPlay can’t record games and keeps minimizing them, try restarting your PC. The reason for this obvious method is that some users have reported that some streaming software causes issues.
After restarting, don’t open anything else. Play the game and record. If it does, you will need to find out what software is causing the issue.
If you want to use the two together, try other methods, and if any of those fixes the problem.
Re-enable In-Game Overlay
Another fix is to re-enable the in-game overlay in the GeForce Experience, but it depends on your system. For some people, it was fixed, while for others, it did not.
To re-enable the In-Game overlay:
- Right-click on the NVIDIA icon in the notification tray
- Click on NVIDIA GeForce Experience
- On GeForce Experience, click on the gear icon to go to settings
- Find and toggle off the “In-Game Overlay” option
- Toggle on the same option
Try recording the game and see if the program is gone. If not, try other methods.
Turn on Experimental features
Some users have mentioned that turning on the “Enable experimental features” fixed the issue. If you want to try this way, then follow the below steps:
- Open NVIDIA GeForce Experience
- Click on the “gear” icon in the top row next to your profile name
- In the “About” section, enable the experimental features
This will check for any updates and may take some time to complete. Once the process completes, try recording the game.
The software may get stuck at “checking for updates.” In that case, close GeForce Experience and open it. Also, we will move to method three, which is a reliable way to fix the GeForce minimizing games issue.
Update or reinstall the driver (worked)
I fixed the issue on my PC this way. In this method, we will check for updates, and if no updates are available, we’ll reinstall the current driver.
To fix the GeForce not working issue:
- Open GeForce Experience
- Click on Drivers on the top
- Click on “Check for updates”
- If an update is available, download and install
- If not available, tap on the three dots next to the up arrow in the driver version row
- Click on “Reinstall the driver”
- Click on “Express Installation”
Follow the steps to reinstall the software and restart your PC if required. After restarting, the issue should be fixed.
Repair Redistributable program
Jordan Abe on YouTube showed the fix to this issue by repairing the 2015-2019 Redistributable program from the Control Panel.
As 2019 is in the past, you won’t find the program. Instead, you will find the 2015-2022 version. This may or may not work, but it’s worth a shot if other methods do not work.
Here you want you to need to do:
- Search for “control panel” in the search bar
- Click on “Uninstall a program” under “Programs”
- Find the 2015-2022 Redistributable program
- If you have both 64 and 86-bit, repair both
- Right-click on it and click on “Change”
- Click on “Repair”
If the restart option displays, restart your PC.
The last fix is to add NVIDIA Share in the graphics settings.
Follow the steps to fix the ShadowPlay not working issue:
- Search and open “Graphics Settings” in the windows search bar
- Click on Browser under “Graphics performance preference”
- Go to the C Drive, then Program files
- Look for and open the NVIDIA Corporation folder
- Find and open the GeForce Experience folder
- Select “NVIDIA Share”
- Click on Options next to “Remove”
- Click on “High Performance”
If the GeForce Experience folder is missing, try the other Program files (i.e., 86x).
Conclusion
Different methods work on different PCs to fix ShadowPlay not recording or minimizing problems, but the article covered the common fixes.
Please let me know which method worked so others can try that method.