Vice
Instant-replay game clipping for Linux.
Press one key to save the last 20 seconds of gameplay. No scenes, no setup, no upload.
Website · Install · Features · Config · Troubleshooting
 Home: recent clips, playlists, and quick toggles |
 Editor: multi-track timeline with clips, text, and audio |
 Viewer: highlight markers dropped mid-session |
 Trim a clip in place, no re-encode needed |
Install#
Arch / Manjaro / CachyOS / any Arch-based distro:
yay -S vice-clipper # or: paru -S vice-clipper
Ubuntu / Debian / Mint / Fedora / openSUSE / other:
git clone https://github.com/eklonofficial/Vice && cd Vice && ./install.sh
Launch Vice from your app menu (or run vice-app) and press F9 in a game. If the terminal says vice: command not found, restart the terminal first.
Both paths install everything Vice needs, including the gpu-screen-recorder capture backend and a systemd user service so clipping starts at login. The script detects your package manager (apt, dnf, pacman, zypper) automatically.
| Update | Uninstall | |
|---|---|---|
| AUR | yay -Syu |
sudo pacman -Rns vice-clipper |
| Git clone | cd Vice && git pull && ./install.sh |
vice uninstall && rm -rf Vice |
Don't mix the AUR package and
./install.shon the same machine. Uninstall one before switching.
Bazzite / Fedora Atomic: not supported yet. rpm-ostree systems can't use install.sh, and the installer exits early on them rather than breaking your system. A Flatpak will fix this; follow #97.
Features#
Free and open source. No account, no subscription, no telemetry. Read the code, change it, ship your own build.
Share links that just work. Every clip gets a public URL the moment you save it, no upload step, no size limit. Paste it into Discord and it plays inline as an embed, tinted to match your theme color.
A real timeline editor, built in. Multiple video and audio tracks, transitions, and text overlays, all free and included. Trim, arrange, and layer clips into something bigger without leaving Vice.
Playlists. Clips file themselves into a playlist for whatever game you were playing, automatically. Make your own for anything else, and drag clips between them.
Driver-level capture. Vice runs on gpu-screen-recorder, the same approach ShadowPlay uses: it talks to NVENC/VAAPI directly instead of compositing a scene. Typical CPU usage is under 1%, and it works on NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel, on every major compositor.
Discord Rich Presence. Shows what game you're clipping right in your Discord status, on by default for known games.
Clips titled for you. Vice recognizes the game you're playing from a curated list and names the file accordingly, no guessing from window titles.
Hotkeys per clip. Add your own rename-able, color-coded hotkeys to any clip for quick recall later.
Vice Sessions. Double-tap your clip key to start recording a full match. Single-tap during the session to drop a marker at that moment, then pick up right where you left off once it lands in the editor.
Tune it to taste. Custom gpu-screen-recorder flags and arguments, color themes, and fully rebindable hotkeys, all from Settings.
Using Vice#
| Key / Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| F9 | Save the last 20 s |
| Extra clip keys | Save their own duration, e.g. F6 for 60 s (Settings → Hotkeys) |
| Key combos | Rebind to a modifier combo like Alt + F9 (Settings → Hotkeys) |
| F9 · F9 (double-tap) | Start / stop a session recording |
| F9 during a session | Drop a highlight at this moment |
| Click a thumbnail | Open viewer · ← → next/prev · H new highlight · Esc close |
| Share | Copy the public URL (pastes into Discord as a playable embed) |
| Trim | Drag handles to crop a clip in place |
Clips live in ~/Videos/Vice/. Closing the window keeps the daemon recording; reopen from your launcher any time.
Why Vice?#
OBS has a replay buffer. So why use Vice?
| OBS Replay Buffer | Vice | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Launch OBS, build a scene, enable the buffer, bind a hotkey | Install, press F9 |
| Always on | OBS must stay open with a scene active | Silent daemon, always watching |
| GPU overhead | Encodes a composed scene continuously | Captures the compositor framebuffer directly. Near zero. |
| Global hotkey | OBS must be focused (or use a plugin) | Reads evdev; works on every compositor |
| Sharing | Manual upload | Built-in public URL, Discord auto-embed |
| Clip management | None | Gallery, viewer, trim, highlights, rename |
Compatibility#
| Compositor / Shell | GPU | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyprland (Wayland) | ✅ | NVIDIA | ✅ NVENC |
| GNOME (Wayland) | ✅ | AMD / Intel | ✅ VAAPI |
| KDE Plasma (Wayland) | ✅ | Anything else | ✅ libx264 software fallback |
| sway (Wayland) | ✅ | ||
| Any X11 WM | ✅ |
gpu-screen-recorder is the default backend everywhere. wf-recorder (Wayland) and ffmpeg x11grab (X11) exist as explicit opt-ins via recording.backend for unusual setups; they are never auto-selected.
Game detection (filename tagging and Discord presence) works on X11, Hyprland, and sway. On other compositors clips simply save untagged.
CLI#
vice start Start the recording daemon
vice start --no-open-ui
Start the daemon without opening the browser UI
vice stop Stop the daemon
vice clip Save a clip right now
vice status Show daemon status, backend, and share URL
vice ui Open the web UI in your browser
vice clips List saved clips
vice config Print current config
vice open-config Open config in $EDITOR
vice list-keys Show valid hotkey names (KEY_F9, KEY_INSERT, …)
vice doctor Run startup diagnostics
vice uninstall Remove Vice cleanly
The systemd user service created by the installer runs vice start --no-open-ui, so Vice clips at login without opening a window. Custom systemd/Nix units can use the same command.
Configuration#
Vice writes ~/.config/vice/config.toml on first run. Everything below is also editable live from the GUI.
[recording]
buffer_duration = 120 # seconds kept in the rolling buffer
clip_duration = 20 # seconds saved per clip
fps = 60
display = "DP-1" # optional; omit to use the backend default display
encoder = "auto" # auto | h264_nvenc | hevc_nvenc | h264_vaapi | hevc_vaapi | libx264 | libx265
backend = "auto" # auto | gsr | wf-recorder | ffmpeg
container = "mp4" # mp4 | mkv (mkv is crash-safe; Discord embeds need mp4)
capture_audio = true
capture_microphone = false
microphone_source = "default_input" # default_input | device:name; which mic to capture
gsr_audio_source = "default_output" # default_output | device:name | app:name | app-inverse:name
audio_tracks = [] # separate tracks instead of a mix, e.g. ["default_output", "default_input", "app:Discord"]
audio_tracks_mix_first = false # also record a track 1 that mixes every source
gsr_args = "" # extra gpu-screen-recorder flags, e.g. "-k hevc -bm cbr -q 20000"
[hotkeys]
clip = "KEY_F9"
[[hotkeys.clip_presets]]
key = "KEY_F6"
duration = 60
[[hotkeys.clip_presets]]
key = "KEY_F7"
duration = 120
[output]
directory = "~/Videos/Vice"
tag_clips_with_game = true # Vice_Clip_4_Overwatch-2.mp4 when a known game is focused
auto_playlist_by_game = true # file each clip into a per-game playlist
clip_name_template = "" # optional: e.g. "clip_$date_$time"; empty keeps default naming
[sharing]
enabled = true
port = 8765 # local control UI (always 127.0.0.1)
public_port = 8766 # public share-only server (defaults to port + 1)
cloudflare_tunnel = true
base_url = "" # optional public origin override (reverse proxy / custom domain)
[discord]
enabled = true # shows Rich Presence when a known/custom game is focused
client_id_override = "" # leave blank to use Vice's default Discord app
# Add custom games via Settings → Discord. Each line is "Display Name | match1, match2".
[updates]
check_on_start = true # ask GitHub once a day whether a newer release exists
Notes:
-
updates.check_on_startasks the GitHub releases API at most once a day whether a newer Vice is out, and shows a notice with a few lines from the release notes when there is. Nothing about you or your clips is sent, the notice appears once per release and leaves only a small chip in the top bar after you dismiss it, and a failed check is silent. Turn it off in Settings → Advanced, or with this key. -
recording.audio_tracksrecords each listed source as its own audio track, in order. Browsers and Discord play only track 1; video editors see all of them. Tracks can be reordered from Settings → Recording. With mic capture on, the microphone is added as its own track.audio_tracks_mix_firstadds an extra track 1 that mixes every source, so shared clips carry full audio.containerandaudio_tracksapply to the gpu-screen-recorder backend; wf-recorder/ffmpeg clips stay single-track MP4. -
recording.microphone_sourcepicks which microphone the mic toggle captures.default_inputfollows the system default;device:<name>pins a specific input without changing your system setting. -
recording.gsr_argssupports environment/tilde expansion and a{default_sink_monitor}placeholder for desktop-audio capture.
Troubleshooting#
vice: command not found after install. Restart your terminal, or run exec $SHELL (fish: exec fish).
App launcher icon does nothing. Check ~/.local/share/vice/vice-app.log. Most common cause: gpu-screen-recorder is missing from PATH. If the log mentions autoaudiosink not found, install your distro's GStreamer base/good plugin packages.
Hotkey not firing. Add yourself to the input group:
sudo usermod -aG input $USER && newgrp input
Hotkey stopped after unplugging the keyboard. Fixed in v1.2.0; Vice reattaches within a few seconds of replugging. Update if you're on an older version.
Daemon can't find the Wayland session when started by systemd or the app launcher. On Hyprland/Sway, the systemd user instance often doesn't inherit WAYLAND_DISPLAY from the compositor. Add to your compositor config:
Hyprland (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf):
exec-once = systemctl --user import-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS XDG_RUNTIME_DIR XDG_SESSION_TYPE XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec-once = dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
Sway (~/.config/sway/config):
exec systemctl --user import-environment WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS XDG_RUNTIME_DIR XDG_SESSION_TYPE XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
Restart your compositor session, then systemctl --user restart vice.service.
Share link only works on my local network. Enable the tunnel in Settings → Sharing and make sure cloudflared is installed. cloudflared is the only supported tunnel; if it's missing, Vice shows an error in the UI instead of generating a broken link.
Clip won't embed on Discord. Discord only inlines videos up to about 50 MB; trim the clip or lower CRF/resolution. Links also stop working when the Vice daemon restarts, since a fresh tunnel URL is generated each run; repost the link after a restart. MKV clips don't embed; use the default MP4 container for sharing.
Clips show a grey box inside Vice but play fine in other apps. The Qt WebEngine build Vice is running has no H.264 decoder. This happens when the installer fell back to the PyPI PyQt6-WebEngine wheel, which ships without proprietary codecs; distro packages include them. Install the system package, then reinstall Vice: sudo apt install python3-pyqt6.qtwebengine (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint), sudo dnf install python3-pyqt6-webengine (Fedora), sudo zypper install python3-qt6-webengine (openSUSE), then ./install.sh again. Since v1.2.6 the app detects this and says so instead of showing a grey rectangle, and the player offers "Open in system player" as a fallback.
UI looks like plain unstyled HTML right after an upgrade. The previous daemon is still running old code in memory. Run vice stop && vice-app once. vice-app self-heals from the next upgrade onward.
Native window is laggy. On NVIDIA, Chromium occasionally fails GPU compositing at launch; Vice detects it and relaunches that run in software mode with reduced visual effects. Nothing is remembered, so just close and reopen the window to try the GPU again. ~/.local/share/vice/vice-app-stderr.log shows what happened on the last launch. Vice prefers QtWebEngine (Chromium, GPU-accelerated) and only falls back to WebKit2GTK if the Qt bindings are missing. Install them: sudo pacman -S python-pyqt6-webengine (Arch), sudo apt install python3-pyqt6.qtwebengine (Debian/Ubuntu), sudo dnf install python3-pyqt6-webengine (Fedora). Then run vice-app; the log should say Using QtWebEngine (Chromium) backend.
Native window crashes when I click a button. Reproduce it in debug mode:
vice stop
vice-app --debug
# reproduce the crash, then Ctrl+C if the window didn't exit
The log lands at ~/.local/share/vice/vice-debug.log; attach it to a GitHub issue. Don't pipe the command through tee: Chromium's stderr can back up through the pipe and freeze the Qt event loop.
Anything else. Run vice doctor for full diagnostics, or open an issue with the output.
Star History#
https://www.star-history.com/?repos=eklonofficial%2FVice&type=date&legend=top-left
Credits#
Created by Andrew Marin (github.com/eklonofficial). Bug reports and PRs welcome.