Nvidia Encoder or CPU endcoder

[ConstantCanadian]

I stream BL2 to twitch, I've been using the Nvidia encoder in OBS but during moments of high action (which is often) the video looks like crap

I have a 7700 so I'm pretty sure that my computer can handle CPU encoding. I just want to know which one will look better

[2SidedPolygon]

4 minutes ago, ConstantCanadian said:

I stream BL2 to twitch, I've been using the Nvidia encoder in OBS but during moments of high action (which is often) the video looks like crap

I have a 7700 so I'm pretty sure that my computer can handle CPU encoding. I just want to know which one will look better

Probably GPU, but you might as well just go ahead and test it because it's inevitably going to vary.

[WereCat]

10 minutes ago, ConstantCanadian said:

I stream BL2 to twitch, I've been using the Nvidia encoder in OBS but during moments of high action (which is often) the video looks like crap

I have a 7700 so I'm pretty sure that my computer can handle CPU encoding. I just want to know which one will look better

Depends on what graphics card you have.

With Turing, use NVIDIA encoder. If you have an older card, depends. You are still more likely better off with using NVENC though.

 

Would help to know your OBS settings as well.

Whether your PC can handle CPU encoding or not depends on what specific settings you use.

[Princess Luna]

What GPU do you have? You also can use QuickSync and encode through the iGPU.

[BrinkGG]

37 minutes ago, ConstantCanadian said:

I stream BL2 to twitch, I've been using the Nvidia encoder in OBS but during moments of high action (which is often) the video looks like crap

I have a 7700 so I'm pretty sure that my computer can handle CPU encoding. I just want to know which one will look better

Hey! OBS and Twitch streaming consultant here. Couple of questions for ya to help fix this.

What are your system specs? (Looking specifically for CPU and GPU)

What are your OBS video and output settings? (Screenshotting both tabs and posting them here is ideal)

What is your CPU and GPU usage in game when NOT streaming? This will help me see how much system headroom you have for streaming on GPU vs GPU. 

[ConstantCanadian]

12 hours ago, BrinkGG said:

What is your CPU and GPU usage in game when NOT streaming?

My CPU usage is 75% And GPU Usage is 62%

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What are your system specs?

I have an Intel i7-7700 and An EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

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What are your OBS video and output settings? 

 

 

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[ConstantCanadian]

@BrinkGG

[Kisai]

On 5/28/2019 at 11:37 AM, ConstantCanadian said:

I stream BL2 to twitch, I've been using the Nvidia encoder in OBS but during moments of high action (which is often) the video looks like crap

I have a 7700 so I'm pretty sure that my computer can handle CPU encoding. I just want to know which one will look better

 

You should use the NVenc encoder. The "moments of high action" are a result of low bit rate, not the encoder. It's not the encoder's fault. You should also use the "fast" or "fastest" not "quality" setting for streaming encoders, otherwise you increase latency.

 

Take note of what Twitch actually lists here https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/

 

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Technical Specs:

Vertical Resolution: 1080

Bitrate: 4500 to 6000 kbps

Framerate: 60 or 50 fps

Keyframe Interval: 2 seconds

AVC (h.264) Profile: Main/High

AVC (h.264) Level: 4.2

 

 

It probably makes more sense in this table, "max video bit rate (VCL) for high profile":

Table from https://books.google.ca/books?id=RG5YUOAzRsEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false , but this info is in Wikipedia as well, and is part of the standard spec.

 

Basically, the idea is, if you specify 4.2, then any video you encode will not exceed a specified number of blocks that require a buffer of n size. So 4.2 is REQUIRED minimum to stream 1080p60 video. 4.1 for 1080p30, 3.2 for 720p60. 

 

So you should probably check what level it's set to, (auto might select based off input settings.) 

 

However you're looking at 500MB/sec of bandwidth per trip over the PCIe bus at 1080p60. So if you send NVEnc something too complicated, then it will send back empty frames. If you do too much complicated composition via CEF (Chrome Embedded Framework), then you're also sending additional passes through the GPU. The only trip that guarantees only one pass is nVidia experience. The FFMPEG CPU encoder still needs the memory bandwidth to do that encoding, so ultimately the right option depends on how much latency you're willing to trade for quality. If you want a high quality stream, then you need to spend more time on the CPU encoder. If you want a low-latency stream then you want to use the NVencoder alone, using "fastest" settings. The NVenc encoder is considered rubbish before Pascal, and all encoders use the GIGO (Garbage In , Garbage Out) rule. Which means that they will only encode what you give it, so if there are more composition layers, and one of those layers makes the entire video too complex to fit your target CBR , then the frame will be skipped. This can result in having entire spans of seconds of just a "frozen" frame when you opt for "quality" instead of "fast/fastest" settings where the encoder instead just stops further compression steps once it spends enough time on it.

 

[ConstantCanadian]

Alright everything seems to be working just fine now turned my bitrate up to 5500 and my last stream was amazing