Streaming with certain software and encoding ways

[TheGamingLawNL]

Hi guys, dunno where to put this and troubleshooting isn't really it but the best I figured.

 

I am streaming quite often and after I wanted to try Intel Quick Sync (and then Slick came with his video, thanks for that!), Nvidia NVENC and just the regular X264 encoding to figure out what is best on quality/performance.

 

But there's some other factors too like xSplit or OBS. OBS is very basic but isn't smashing the CPU like an idiot like xSplit does (or used to do?). 

 

All in all, I can stream fine on the X264 codec with OBS but I just keep wondering, isn't there a way to put the coding more onto the GPU instead of the CPU? It all uses GPU and with the lack of my knowledge of how it all works I just keep wondering why not GPU?

 

So what do I do with streaming, well first of these days its just OBS. I had xSplit for $10 a year when it was full in development and it always wanted to smash my CPU no matter what so I quit that program.

 

Settings are 1920x1080, 30 FPS, 3500 kbps bitrate and it all goes fine. *Though I might want to say that somehow 1080P streaming goes great on Twitch but when on youtube the CPU gets a heavier beating. Weird! Oh and going to 720P setting barely makes a difference, no need to suggest that after reading the following.

 

Tried X264, great quality but heavy CPU load. Despite I can play games on Ultra just fine while streaming it somehow ends up *slow* by the looks of it on the webpage. Lowering the game even to high and that *slowniness* is gone whilst there wasn't any FPS drops.

 

Tried Intel Quick Sync, very smooth and runs great but when shit hits the fan and loads of things happen it will pixelate badly. Despite that, it runs incredibly smooth and lower CPU usage.

 

And as the last one. Nvidia NVENC, heard great stories which I just cannot confirm. So far, horrible experience. The system takes it good and so does OBS in the preview. Output is pixelating, once again slow without any registered FPS loss and choppy. This was supposed to be great but I can't confirm that.

 

So my question rests, anyone experience with the latest xSplit and how is it? + anyone experiences with Intel Quick sync or even better Nvidia NVENC? I just try to get a nice balance between quality, smoothness and System Performance.

 

System specs are in my forum signature!

[Quest]

I use DXTory + OBS (TekSyndicate has a video on this) using the Lagarith Lossless Codec. It literally looks exactly as it does to me for stream viewers, and the only quality loss when uploading to YouTube is from the normal compression that YouTube does.

[TheGamingLawNL]

I use DXTory + OBS (TekSyndicate has a video on this) using the Lagarith Lossless Codec. It literally looks exactly as it does to me for stream viewers, and the only quality loss when uploading to YouTube is from the normal compression that YouTube does.

 

That's my exact setup for over a year already

 

You've pretty much covered everything. Having the CPU encode the video will leave a better result compared to any specialised hardware like Intel QuickSync and NVENC. There's not much you can do apart from hoping that these technologies will improve over time, or wait for x265 to hit the mainstream market with its higher efficiency and better quality at lower bitrates. 

 

Also, how is 1080p eating as much CPU as 720p? Sounds a bit weird. Doesn't happen to me. 

 

Hmm shame! On the 1080P vs 720P I am completely clueless on that one but the readings are quite similar. When playing for example BF4 I get around 75-85% CPU usage on Ultra + stream on either 720P or 1080P. The only weird thing there is what I stated earlier. The output when the game is on Ultra appears to be a bit slow, like less than 30FPS yet it is 30FPS. When changing the game to Medium which has also barely affect on CPU but still goes down to around 65-70% it is very smooth. Might be 2nd monitor setup (as I keep an eye on the stream on a 2nd monitor) but apart from that I am quite clueless about this all.

 

Totally not a techie! Hobbywise maybe but that's it, gotta focus on Law ^^

[AlwaysFSX]

I've used QuickSync extensively since OBS had the update to select it, and I can say that it provides the best performance to quality there is, with added benefits too. I couldn't tell the difference between using x264 and QuickSync in quality running at any bitrate. I also found out something interesting too. QuickSync makes the best, lag free fraps alternative that there is. Just throw the bitrate up to 60k and you can record in crystal clear quality without any performance hit.