<p align="center"> <img src="assets/vice.svg" width="96" alt="Vice icon"/> </p>

Vice

Medal.tv-style game clip recorder for Linux. Press a hotkey to instantly save the last few seconds of gameplay.

Website: https://viceclipper.framer.website/

Vice is actively maintained. Bug reports and PR requests are welcome.

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Installation

Arch Linux / Manjaro / Arch-based (AUR recommended)

yay -S vice-clipper
# or
paru -S vice-clipper

Then launch Vice from your app launcher or run vice-app.

Arch users should update through their AUR helper, not by running ./install.sh over an existing vice-clipper install.

vice-clipper now installs the official gpu-screen-recorder package on Arch by default so a working capture backend is present immediately after install.

Ubuntu / Debian / Ubuntu-based distros

git clone https://github.com/eklonofficial/Vice
cd Vice
./install.sh

The installer detects apt from your distro metadata, installs the required packages, and supports Ubuntu derivatives such as Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, Kubuntu, and similar Debian/Ubuntu-based systems. It now verifies that a usable recording backend was actually installed before it finishes.

Fedora / other non-AUR distros

git clone https://github.com/eklonofficial/Vice
cd Vice
./install.sh

The installer detects the correct package manager from your distro metadata, so Fedora uses dnf even if tools like pacman are also installed on the machine. It now verifies that a usable recording backend was actually installed before it finishes.

After the installer finishes, restart your terminal, then launch Vice from your app launcher (or run vice-app).

Do not mix the AUR package with the git clone installer on the same user install. Remove vice-clipper first if you are switching away from the AUR package.

If the vice command isn't found after restart, run exec $SHELL (or exec fish on fish shell).

Updating

AUR: Your AUR helper handles updates automatically.

yay -Syu
# or
paru -Syu

Git clone (Ubuntu/Fedora/other non-AUR installs):

cd Vice
git pull
./install.sh

Do not use git pull && ./install.sh to update an AUR installation.

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How It Works

| Action | What happens | |---|---| | F9 | Save the last 15 seconds as a clip | | Double-tap F9 | Start a session recording (records continuously until you double-tap again) | | F9 during session | Mark a highlight at that timestamp — it shows up in the viewer once the session ends | | Double-tap F9 again | Stop the session and save the full recording with your highlights baked in | | Click a thumbnail | Open the video viewer — use ← / → to navigate, H to add a highlight, Esc to close | | Share button | Copy a public link that works outside your WiFi and embeds in Discord | | Trim | Visually trim a clip in-place | | Settings → Hotkeys | Rebind the clip key — click the button and press any key |

Clips are saved to ~/Videos/Vice/. Closing the window keeps the daemon running — reopen from your launcher any time.

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What It Does

| | | |---|---| | Instant clips | Rolling buffer saves the last 15 seconds on a single keypress | | Session recording | Double-tap to record continuously for as long as you want | | Hotkey highlights | Tap the clip key during a session to mark timestamps — no need to edit later | | Clip gallery | Browse, watch, rename, trim, and share clips | | Share links | Public view-only URLs via Cloudflare Tunnel — embeds in Discord | | Viewer highlights | Press H in the viewer to mark timestamps, colour-code and rename them | | Themes | Blue, purple, green, red, or orange accent colour |

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Why Vice?

OBS has a replay buffer. So why use Vice?

| | OBS Replay Buffer | Vice | |---|---|---| | Setup | Open OBS, configure scene, enable replay buffer, press hotkey | Install once, press F9 | | Always on | OBS must be open and a scene active | Daemon runs silently in the background | | GPU overhead | OBS encodes a full scene continuously | gpu-screen-recorder captures the compositor's framebuffer directly — near-zero overhead | | Hotkey scope | OBS window must be focused, or use global hotkey plugin | Works globally on any compositor via evdev | | Share links | Manual upload | Built-in public URLs, Discord embeds | | Clip management | None | Gallery, viewer, trim, highlights, rename |

Performance: Vice uses gpu-screen-recorder by default, which hooks into NVIDIA's NVENC or AMD/Intel VAAPI at the driver level — the same approach ShadowPlay uses. CPU usage is typically under 1%. On hardware that doesn't support it, Vice falls back to wf-recorder or ffmpeg.

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CLI Reference

vice start          Start the recording daemon
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 uninstall      Remove Vice cleanly

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Credits

Created by Andrew Marin — github.com/eklonofficial

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Details

Compatibility

| Environment | Status | |---|---| | Hyprland (Wayland) | ✅ | | GNOME (Wayland) | ✅ | | KDE Plasma (Wayland) | ✅ | | sway (Wayland) | ✅ | | Any X11 WM | ✅ | | NVIDIA GPU | ✅ NVENC hardware encoding | | AMD / Intel GPU | ✅ VAAPI hardware encoding | | Software encoding | ✅ libx264 fallback | | fish / bash / zsh | ✅ PATH configured automatically |

Recording Backends

Vice picks the best available backend automatically:

| Backend | Wayland | X11 | NVIDIA | AMD/Intel | |---|---|---|---|---| | gpu-screen-recorder | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ NVENC | ✅ VAAPI | | wf-recorder | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | | ffmpeg x11grab | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

Vice uses evdev to read hotkeys directly from /dev/input/ — works on any compositor, no keybind config needed.

Configuration

~/.config/vice/config.toml — created on first run, all settings editable in the GUI:

[recording]
buffer_duration = 120   # seconds kept in rolling buffer
clip_duration   = 15    # seconds saved per clip
fps             = 60
display         = "DP-1"   # optional; omit to auto-select the current display
encoder         = "auto"   # auto | h264_nvenc | libx264 | hevc_nvenc | h264_vaapi
backend         = "auto"   # auto | gsr | wf-recorder | ffmpeg
capture_audio   = true
apply_watermark = false   # enable only if you want watermark text on exports
gsr_args        = ""      # optional extra gpu-screen-recorder flags, e.g. "-k hevc -bm cbr -q 20000 -fm cfr -a {default_sink_monitor}"

[hotkeys]
clip = "KEY_F9"

[output]
directory       = "~/Videos/Vice"

[sharing]
enabled           = true
port              = 8765
public_port       = 8766   # optional; defaults to port + 1 for the public share-only server
cloudflare_tunnel = true
base_url          = "https://clips.example.com"   # optional public share origin override

recording.gsr_args supports 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. On fish: exec fish.

App launcher icon does nothing

Check the log: cat ~/.local/share/vice/vice-app.log Common cause: recording backend not found. Install gpu-screen-recorder, wf-recorder, or ffmpeg. If the log says GStreamer element autoaudiosink not found, install your distro's GStreamer base/good plugin packages and relaunch Vice.

Launcher/service starts the UI shell, but Vice still fails to start

Run the built-in diagnostics first:

vice doctor

Then confirm which install you are actually running:

which vice
readlink -f "$(which vice)"
python3 -c 'import vice, inspect; print(vice.__file__)'

If the path points at an AUR install, update with yay -Syu / paru -Syu. If it points at your git clone install, update with git pull && ./install.sh.

Hotkey not working

You may need to be in the input group:

sudo usermod -aG input $USER
newgrp input

Share link only works on my WiFi

Make sure cloudflare_tunnel = true in Settings. Install cloudflared if it's missing.

Why can I open the UI locally but not from another device anymore?

Vice now keeps the control UI local-only on 127.0.0.1 and exposes a separate public share server for clip links. If you use a reverse proxy, point it at sharing.public_port, not sharing.port.

Vice fails only from a manual systemd --user service

Do not use shell syntax like Environment=HOME=${HOME} or Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u) in the unit file. systemd does not evaluate those expressions there. Omit those overrides unless you need them, or use concrete values only. Recent Vice builds also recover WAYLAND_DISPLAY from a live Wayland socket when launcher contexts omit it, and the generated vice.service passes through the current display-session variables automatically. If you hand-edited the service earlier, reinstall or remove the custom overrides before testing again.

Uninstall

AUR:

sudo pacman -Rns vice-clipper

Git clone:

vice uninstall
rm -rf Vice

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License

GPL-3.0