X264 fast vs slow

[applesuxD]

How big are the differences?

[GammaProX]

Wut

[ZetZet]

Slow will look cleaner than fast. Less artifacting.

[Samfisher]

Slow will look better, but it immensely increases render time.

[ZetZet]

Slow will look better, but it immensely increases render time.

Or cpu usage if talking about streaming.  :lol:

[.spider.]

Depends on the source material 

[applesuxD]

Slow will look better, but it immensely increases render time.

Any idea of time difference

[.spider.]

Any idea of time difference

depends on the source 

[applesuxD]

depends on the source

Lets say 6000 bitrate on fps gameplay

[LAwLz]

Fast vs slow doesn't make too big of a difference. Here is an example I made for you and how long it took to encode.

This is with a target video bitrate of 4077Kbps.

FAST (23 seconds)
SLOW (54 seconds)

 

Here is a screenshot comparison.

 

 

Side note: I made this using bit rate as a target, which means they will be pretty much the same size but different image quality. If you instead use RF then both files will look the same (more or less) but the one encoded with the slow setting will be smaller in size.

Also, how big the difference is will vary depending on content.

 

For streaming I would recommend setting it to the slowest setting you can use without starting to drop frames. For archiving I recommend you just use the placebo preset.