Streamlabs OBS (Slobs) Recording Settings

[Codeyy89]

Hey, so I just got my 9700k running with my MSI 1080 TI Duke and I'm wondering what I should have my CBR Bitrate at? Also should I be using x264 or NVENC (New) for recording? I know bitrate skipped be way lower when streaming but figured I'd ask you guys and gals what you recommend.

[Kisai]

21 minutes ago, Codeyy89 said:

Hey, so I just got my 9700k running with my MSI 1080 TI Duke and I'm wondering what I should have my CBR Bitrate at? Also should I be using x264 or NVENC (New) for recording? I know bitrate skipped be way lower when streaming but figured I'd ask you guys and gals what you recommend.

The bitrate should be set at what you stream at, so for twitch that's typically 2.5-3.5Mbit for 720p/1080p30 streams. NVenc should be used if you prefer low-latency and are doing no composites (eg not mixing streams) 

 

That card can actually pull off h265 at 1080p60 with nvenc, but I don't believe twitch or youtube will accept that.

[Codeyy89]

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The bitrate should be set at what you stream at, so for twitch that's typically 2.5-3.5Mbit for 720p/1080p30 streams. NVenc should be used if you prefer low-latency and are doing no composites (eg not mixing streams) 

 

That card can actually pull off h265 at 1080p60 with nvenc, but I don't believe twitch or youtube will accept that.

Yeah I guess I should have specified I am streaming on YouTube doing ultra low latency 1080p60 is what I'm aiming for for streaming and then recording I was wondering if it could handle like 25000 for CBR Bitrate since I won't be uploading that to YouTube later after it's recorded anyways.

[BrinkGG]

15 minutes ago, Codeyy89 said:

Hey, so I just got my 9700k running with my MSI 1080 TI Duke and I'm wondering what I should have my CBR Bitrate at? Also should I be using x264 or NVENC (New) for recording? I know bitrate skipped be way lower when streaming but figured I'd ask you guys and gals what you recommend.

What games are you playing? The NVENC (new) encoder will have no graphical increase in quality over the old one, just an increase in performance while running it. 

GTX 10xx series do NOT have the new hardware encoder that gives a higher quality output, but can take advantage of the lower overhead. Only RTX 2060 or better, or a GTX 1650 Super or better can take advantage of the quality increase of the new hardware.

 

x264 (Software) still gives you the best quality image of any options in SL OBS. If you're playing a low CPU draw game like Fortnite, World of Tanks, Rainbow six: Siege, etc, you can probably get away with the "faster" encoding preset, or drop it down to "veryfast" less CPU usage. Don't worry about dropping to anything slower then Fast. Medium and Slow 

aren't worth it unless you have a dedicated stream PC. 

 

For bitrate, It depends on where you're uploading and at what res/FPS. 

1080p/30 to Youtube, I usually go at least 18Mb/s, especially if you plan on editing it after recording. 

1080p/60 is my standard upload res, and I usually record at 45-50Mb/s, then export from Resolve at 38Mb/s. No real science behind it, it's just the numbers I've used for videos. 

 

TL;DR, for quality but more overhead, go x264. For low overhead (more frames) but poorer quality, go NVENC. 

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The bitrate should be set at what you stream at, so for twitch that's typically 2.5-3.5Mbit for 720p/1080p30 streams. NVenc should be used if you prefer low-latency and are doing no composites (eg not mixing streams) 

Noooooo don't go that low for recordings. The general "Minimum acceptable" bitrate on youtube for 1080p30 is 8Mbps, and that doesn't even assume that there will be fast motion in the video, so I really recommend going higher then that. 

[Codeyy89]

26 minutes ago, BrinkGG said:

What games are you playing? The NVENC (new) encoder will have no graphical increase in quality over the old one, just an increase in performance while running it. 

GTX 10xx series do NOT have the new hardware encoder that gives a higher quality output, but can take advantage of the lower overhead. Only RTX 2060 or better, or a GTX 1650 Super or better can take advantage of the quality increase of the new hardware.

 

x264 (Software) still gives you the best quality image of any options in SL OBS. If you're playing a low CPU draw game like Fortnite, World of Tanks, Rainbow six: Siege, etc, you can probably get away with the "faster" encoding preset, or drop it down to "veryfast" less CPU usage. Don't worry about dropping to anything slower then Fast. Medium and Slow 

aren't worth it unless you have a dedicated stream PC. 

 

For bitrate, It depends on where you're uploading and at what res/FPS. 

1080p/30 to Youtube, I usually go at least 18Mb/s, especially if you plan on editing it after recording. 

1080p/60 is my standard upload res, and I usually record at 45-50Mb/s, then export from Resolve at 38Mb/s. No real science behind it, it's just the numbers I've used for videos. 

 

TL;DR, for quality but more overhead, go x264. For low overhead (more frames) but poorer quality, go NVENC. 

Noooooo don't go that low for recordings. The general "Minimum acceptable" bitrate on youtube for 1080p30 is 8Mbps, and that doesn't even assume that there will be fast motion in the video, so I really recommend going higher then that. 

Thank you for this reply! Okay, so using x264, for the Rate Control (for recording not streaming) I'm using CBR and for the bitrate I'm understanding that I could probably run higher than when I'm streaming being like 20000? Or am I just completely lost with the bitrate with recording settings hah. 

[BrinkGG]

3 minutes ago, Codeyy89 said:

Thank you for this reply! Okay, so using x264, for the Rate Control (for recording not streaming) I'm using CBR and for the bitrate I'm understanding that I could probably run higher than when I'm streaming being like 20000? Or am I just completely lost with the bitrate with recording settings hah. 

No problem! So bitrate in SL OBS is measured in Kbps, but almost everywhere else, you will see it measured in Mbps. The conversion is 1,000kpbs = 1Mbps. 

Your 20,000 kbps bitrate is right around what I recommend for 1080p30fps video to youtube. Note that I use nvidia's shadowplay for recording though because of how little overhead it has, and it's built in recording tool is good enough for most games. So yes, you're on the right track  

[Codeyy89]

3 hours ago, BrinkGG said:

No problem! So bitrate in SL OBS is measured in Kbps, but almost everywhere else, you will see it measured in Mbps. The conversion is 1,000kpbs = 1Mbps. 

Your 20,000 kbps bitrate is right around what I recommend for 1080p30fps video to youtube. Note that I use nvidia's shadowplay for recording though because of how little overhead it has, and it's built in recording tool is good enough for most games. So yes, you're on the right track  

I did try and stream a bit and it seems x264 isn't ideal for CoD since my cpu usage was quite high and it seemed GPU wasn't as much. I was running at 5000 for my bitrate and was running on performance, the step above that (that uses less GPU power) and it still seems like it's pixelated when there's a lot going on the screen. Idfk

[Kisai]

On 3/13/2020 at 7:44 AM, BrinkGG said:

 

 

TL;DR, for quality but more overhead, go x264. For low overhead (more frames) but poorer quality, go NVENC. 

Noooooo don't go that low for recordings. The general "Minimum acceptable" bitrate on youtube for 1080p30 is 8Mbps, and that doesn't even assume that there will be fast motion in the video, so I really recommend going higher then that. 

Youtube and Twitch recommend relatively low settings, and most people on cable and DSL don't have more than 3MBps. https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/ , 

 

1080p60

Quote

• When you schedule Events, make sure to check the 60-fps box in the Ingestion Settings tab if you are not using a variable resolution stream key. Stream now will auto-detect the frame rate and resolution.
• Resolution: 1920x1080
• Video Bitrate Range: 4,500-9,000 Kbps

1080p30

Quote

• Resolution: 1920x1080
• Video Bitrate Range: 3,000-6,000 Kbps

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853702?hl=en

 

Stream quality is different from recording (eg you record on your disk and upload it later), in which if you are uploading something you already recorded, set it to 2x where you feel comfortable. Like if you think 8Mbps is usable for 1080p60 I'd instead record that at 16Mbps.