Shadowplay for AMD using VCE

[SkilledRebuilds]

Searched for similar articles and posts... nothing, so If this has been posted, don't give me any lip about it.

If you are not interested in AMD, love Nvidia only & DO NOT CARE, DO NOT REPLY,  I'm not here to criticize Nvidia's Shadowplay in any way. This thread is for AMD alternative interested parties ONLY.

 

 

AMD users rejoice, MSI Afterburner & DXtory capture using AMD's VCE.

So first and foremost, watch this video.

Test it for Yourself and post your thoughts afterwards!

 

Nvidia people get ShadowPlay. They're lucky like that.

Luckily, AMD users have similar hardware on their GPUs (assuming you have GCN architecture) the VCE (Video Codec Engine)

 

Grab the Codec here - https://github.com/jackun/openencodevfw

I downloaded and used his settings except @ 50Mbps Bitrates with 30fps and tested with Southpark & Battlefield 4, this works as intended.

Issues I found - I tested 60fps and the video is encoded to 60fps, but the smoothness seems to still be of the 30fps capture outputted as 60fps.

Will be testing other games in both 32/64 mode with 30/60fps and see if its a bug only I'm experiencing.

 

 

This is great for those wanting to minimize CPU overheads and FPS drops while Gaming like the 3rd party capture devices enable many Gamers to do.

 

While its not a standalone application or part of AMD's drivers themselves, this works and with less than 3 minutes to enable it and set it up, all your troubles are gone.

 

Reason I love this.
MSI lets me use Intels Quicksync instead of the CPU, but only for DX9 in Win7, needing Win8.1 to enable DX11 captures.
MSI and DXtory let me use my 2600K CPU to do it in realtime, and I've been doing it this way for months, but my fps loss of 10+fps was too great and had been looking for alternatives using the VCE, so I didn't have to buy a 3rd party device.
VCE codecs! Thank got your here!

[Fetzie]

@SkilledRebuilds

 

RE the message

echo ===    echo === 64 Bit Operating System detected,    echo === but installing only 32 bit OpenEncode version.    echo === Edit install.bat if you need 64 bit too.    echo ===

Which bit of the batch file do I need to edit to install the 64 bit version?

 

full text of the batch file:

@[member='Echo'] offREM stolen from lagarithSet RegQry=HKLM\Hardware\Description\System\CentralProcessor\0REM set OLDDIR=%CD%pushd %~dp0%REG.exe Query %RegQry% > checkOS.txt Find /i "x86" < CheckOS.txt > StringCheck.txt If %ERRORLEVEL% == 0 (    del StringCheck.txt    del CheckOS.txt    Echo "32 Bit Operating system detected, installing 32 bit OpenEncode version"    copy openencode.inf %windir%\system32\    copy OpenEncode32\OPENENCODEVFW.DLL %windir%\system32\    pushd %windir%\system32\    rundll32 setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 %windir%\system32\OpenEncode.inf) ELSE (    del StringCheck.txt    del CheckOS.txt    echo ===    echo === 64 Bit Operating System detected,    echo === but installing only 32 bit OpenEncode version.    echo === Edit install.bat if you need 64 bit too.    echo ===    copy OpenEncode.inf %windir%\system32\    REM No 64bit in the package yet    REM copy OpenEncode64\OPENENCODEVFW.DLL %windir%\system32\        REM Because something weird with windows, you have to run this from within syswow64 dir    copy OpenEncode.inf %windir%\SysWOW64\    copy OpenEncode32\OPENENCODEVFW.DLL %windir%\SysWOW64\    REM Don't do this, probably confuses 32bit uninstaller. Use different INF.    REM cd /d %windir%\system32\    REM rundll32 setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 %windir%\system32\OpenEncode.inf    pushd %windir%\SysWOW64\    rundll32 setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 0 %windir%\SYSWOW64\OpenEncode.inf)popdpause

[Legion]

Pretty cool, shame I just stream instead.

[dragosudeki]

 

 

I see the line 

REM No 64bit in the package yet

So I assume its not there? I'll check this thing out later. Seems interesting.

[Physc]

looks good on my side however, the color seems to be a bit off, any methods to fix these?

[SkilledRebuilds]

Only just came back now since posting.. 12:09am

 

I didn't install the x64 variant.

 

I did tell MSI's Afterburner's RTSS settings page to use VFWx32 and not VFW x64, which helped with less performance drops.

I noticed the color issue also, and will be testing more setting changes tomorrow and will post more info.

 

I was hugely excited by this, and have been using it 2nite capturing some Titanfall @ 1080p/30fps@50Mbps, using DXtory its weird, captures only in 30fps, but MSI can use the codec to grab 60fps just fine.

(I also think syncing the game-fps to the recording-fps help it too but isn't ideal when recording 30fps obviously)

 

I may have been overzealous when I posted,.. but more testing to be done... when I wake up.

[mizifih]

I know this post is kinda old, but I was wondering if there's something new on the VCE scene. I have a 280x and I was wondering if there are newer and better solutions.

 

I'm just asking beacuse DXtory is not quite getting the job as well done as Gaming Evolved+GVR. I get like 1~2FPS hit on performance while using GVR, DXtory hits harder like minus 10FPS, sometimes even more.

 

What would I be doing wrong? Have you guys been using it for a while now? Is that FPS drop expected?

[Luckylock]

For those using Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), here's the link to the VCE build:

 

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-branch-with-amd-vce-support.13996/

 

Great for streaming CPU bound games (like planetside 2)

 

VCE's quality per bitrate is lower than the standard x264 though.

[IBIubbleTea]

looks good on my side however, the color seems to be a bit off, any methods to fix these?

 

 

Only just came back now since posting.. 12:09am

 

I didn't install the x64 variant.

 

I did tell MSI's Afterburner's RTSS settings page to use VFWx32 and not VFW x64, which helped with less performance drops.

I noticed the color issue also, and will be testing more setting changes tomorrow and will post more info.

 

I was hugely excited by this, and have been using it 2nite capturing some Titanfall @ 1080p/30fps@50Mbps, using DXtory its weird, captures only in 30fps, but MSI can use the codec to grab 60fps just fine.

(I also think syncing the game-fps to the recording-fps help it too but isn't ideal when recording 30fps obviously)

 

I may have been overzealous when I posted,.. but more testing to be done... when I wake up.

I know this is old but I was wondering if you guys fixed the color issue. As of right now I'm trying to install it for my Dxtory but the codec isn't showing up. Trying to reinstall Dxtory right now.

[DEDRICK]

I know this is old but I was wondering if you guys fixed the color issue. As of right now I'm trying to install it for my Dxtory but the codec isn't showing up. Trying to reinstall Dxtory right now.

 

What color issue? H.264 isn't RGB colorspace, it's YUV.  The color will not look the same as the game you are playing when using Shadowplay, x264, AMD VCE, QuickSync etc.

[IBIubbleTea]

What color issue? H.264 isn't RGB colorspace, it's YUV.  The color will not look the same as the game you are playing when using Shadowplay, x264, AMD VCE, QuickSync etc.

Is there a way to have the colour the same? When I use Dxtory with the lagarith lossless codec, with YV12 mode, The colours look great.

[DEDRICK]

Is there a way to have the colour the same? When I use Dxtory with the lagarith lossless codec, with YV12 mode, The colours look great.

 

In short, no, even Lagarith YV12 loses colors.  You can get it close though in Openencodevfw with the right settings. The only way to not lose color is to capture in Lagarith RGB which is a huge space hog. 

 

VCE defaults to  BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.1, which is the bottom picture and the shittiest of them all. For best results, set your Openencode up to be BT.709 Full Range with level 4.2

 

 

 

http://imgur.com/a/zjSMJ <--- its better to view these in fullscreen on the album.  Note the differences in the fonts and in some cases the entire image is much more dull.

 

This is an in-game screen shot, no encoding

 

 

This is Lagarith RBG

 

 

This is Lagarith YV12

 

 

This is VCE BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.2

 

 

This is VCE BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.1

[IBIubbleTea]

In short, no, even Lagarith YV12 loses colors.  You can get it close though in Openencodevfw with the right settings. The only way to not lose color is to capture in Lagarith RGB which is a huge space hog. 

 

VCE defaults to  BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.1, which is the bottom picture and the shittiest of them all. For best results, set your Openencode up to be BT.709 Full Range with level 4.2

 

 

 

http://imgur.com/a/zjSMJ <--- its better to view these in fullscreen on the album.  Note the differences in the fonts and in some cases the entire image is much more dull.

 

This is an in-game screen shot, no encoding

 

 

This is Lagarith RBG

 

 

This is Lagarith YV12

 

 

This is VCE BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.2

 

 

This is VCE BT.709 Full Range - Level 4.1

 

Okay so just wondering but what are the ideal settings for the VCE besides the colour profiles and what not? I don't know what to set it too. In Lagarith, it was just a simply edit box.

 

My computer specs are i7 4770k with a R9 290. I'm recording it to a normal 7200rpm harddrive at 160MB/sec. Most of the time I will be recording at 1080p 30fps.

 

 

Edit: Also these are my settings and I find that my recorded video aren't as sharp as Lagarith.. Is this normal? Maybe I could do a comparison when I have time.

http://i.imgur.com/nadcpkJ.jpg

 

And last when recording with these settings, If I were to open the recorded video, I can't hear my own microphone but I can hear in game. But if I were to split the audio stream, Both the game and microphone is there and I can hear both..

[DEDRICK]

Okay so just wondering but what are the ideal settings for the VCE besides the colour profiles and what not? I don't know what to set it too. In Lagarith, it was just a simply edit box.

 

My computer specs are i7 4770k with a R9 290. I'm recording it to a normal 7200rpm harddrive at 160MB/sec. Most of the time I will be recording at 1080p 30fps.

 

Level 4.2 maxes out at 50Mbps, level 5.0 or higher you can do more but really it isn't necessary.  You can click Quality and set it to VBR 50000kbps, You could do CBR(Constant Bitrate) which will give you predictable filesizes but a lot of wasted bits on stuff that isn't moving.

 

50Mb/s is 6.25MB/s so hard drive write speed is a non-issue and it's more than enough for 1080p30.  When doing local recording it is always better to have more bitrate so you can work with the best quality before compressing for Youtube.

 

50Mbps CBR is 22.5GB per hour.  VBR will use up to 50Mbps but not always so it will be less than CBR

[DEDRICK]

 

Edit: Also these are my settings and I find that my recorded video aren't as sharp as Lagarith.. Is this normal? Maybe I could do a comparison when I have time.

http://i.imgur.com/nadcpkJ.jpg

 

And last when recording with these settings, If I were to open the recorded video, I can't hear my own microphone but I can hear in game. But if I were to split the audio stream, Both the game and microphone is there and I can hear both..

 

it shouldn't be blurry that sounds like an up-scaling issue which should only happen if you recorded lower than 1080p.  Both issues sound like dxTory being dumb, the video codec should have no effect on audio.

 

Take a screenshot of your dxTory video tab 

[IBIubbleTea]

it shouldn't be blurry that sounds like an up-scaling issue which should only happen if you recorded lower than 1080p.  Both issues sound like dxTory being dumb, the video codec should have no effect on audio.

 

Take a screenshot of your dxTory video tab 

http://i.imgur.com/QO6Tfr5.jpg

 

 

It records at 1080, I checked the file properties and it said 1080. lol idk why. Maybe it's because I'm using a bit older version of Dxtory. 2.0.127. 

 

I hope you understand why I'm using the baddie version of Dxtory...

[DEDRICK]

http://i.imgur.com/QO6Tfr5.jpg

 

 

It records at 1080, I checked the file properties and it said 1080. lol idk why. Maybe it's because I'm using a bit older version of Dxtory. 2.0.127. 

 

I hope you understand why I'm using the baddie version of Dxtory...

 

I have that same baddie version I'm pretty sure.  Do you have VLC media player?  Can the blurriness be captured in a VLC snapshot?

[IBIubbleTea]

I have that same baddie version I'm pretty sure.  Do you have VLC media player?  Can the blurriness be captured in a VLC snapshot?

Oh nevermind, After taking the screenshots and viewing them in full screen full screen, they seem to be sharp, just the colours are different. idk the windows media player made the VCE recorded videos look less sharp.. 

[DEDRICK]

Oh nevermind, After taking the screenshots and viewing them in full screen full screen, they seem to be sharp, just the colours are different. idk the windows media player made the VCE recorded videos look less sharp.. 

 

Have you changed the video enhancement settings in Catalyst Control Centre? I always leave mine default, or no change to video, they might be doing something funky

[IBIubbleTea]

Have you changed the video enhancement settings in Catalyst Control Centre? I always leave mine default, or no change to video, they might be doing something funky

I play with 200 saturation. When I was talking about the colour different, I meant the difference between Lagarith and VCE, You can really see the differences. VCE seems more grey and washed out

[Lotte]

I have an issue where OpenEncodeVFW is not installing under Windows 10. The Xbox Game DVR works with VCE, but I'm looking for more control that Dxtory or MSI Afterburner can give me. I've had it work on Windows 8.1 and on the same machine, if anyone wants to lend me some help or something.