X264 vs nvenc

[Ryzen init bro]

Hi people,

I was messing around with Obs last night and with some advice from you guys I got the best results with x264 ultra fast and bit rate 35000.

It hardly touched my cpu, recordings were much smoother than nvenc at a 40000 bit rate and better quality in motion.

 

What do you guys use and prefer and why ?

[Evolution90]

CPU encodes are far superior in quality.

 

GPU encodes have speed and file size superiority.

[Jasun]

Usually, I record with nVidia ShadowPlay since it barely influences my gpu/cpu performance considering that I have an older system with a not-so-great cpu but on the other hand, if your cpu is strong enough, then stay with x264 for the good quality. 

[Ryzen init bro]

1 hour ago, Jasun said:

Usually, I record with nVidia ShadowPlay since it barely influences my gpu/cpu performance considering that I have an older system with a not-so-great cpu but on the other hand, if your cpu is strong enough, then stay with x264 for the good quality. 

My issue with shadowplay was I couldn't edit the video files after as the variable frame rate which shadowplay uses pulls the audio out of sync

[PlayStation 2]

If you can, x264 is excellent. However, a lot of us kinda can't, so we just go for GPU encoding. I own an HD 7850 and 1080p60 recordings at ~11000kbps is fine enough for me. The bitrate is more than fine for what I generally do though, 720x480 videos at 60fps or 720p videos at 60fps.

[Ryzen init bro]

50 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

If you can, x264 is excellent. However, a lot of us kinda can't, so we just go for GPU encoding. I own an HD 7850 and 1080p60 recordings at ~11000kbps is fine enough for me. The bitrate is more than fine for what I generally do though, 720x480 videos at 60fps or 720p videos at 60fps.

Well I have a 1700 at 3.9ghz and it hardly touches the cpu so I gets it's ok for me

[Frankenburger]

For me it depends on the end goal. If I'm recording videos for archive, or want maximum quality, I'll do x264 with the ultrafast preset, psnr tune, and qp set to 11. It hardly touches my CPU (5820k @ 4.2GHz) even at 1440p. Some games I can get away with 4k encoding with x264 at the above settings.

 

You can see the results of my encode settings here.

 

All my PangYa videos were captured at 4k 60 FPS, but I uploaded the 30 FPS versions since YouTube refused to do the full 60 at 4k.

 

However, if I'm recording long sessions, or want to record something that just happened, I'll go with ShadowPlay.

[Ryzen init bro]

54 minutes ago, Frankenburger said:

For me it depends on the end goal. If I'm recording videos for archive, or want maximum quality, I'll do x264 with the ultrafast preset, psnr tune, and qp set to 11. It hardly touches my CPU (5820k @ 4.2GHz) even at 1440p. Some games I can get away with 4k encoding with x264 at the above settings.

 

You can see the results of my encode settings here.

 

All my PangYa videos were captured at 4k 60 FPS, but I uploaded the 30 FPS versions since YouTube refused to do the full 60 at 4k.

 

However, if I'm recording long sessions, or want to record something that just happened, I'll go with ShadowPlay.

Where is the quality option because I can't seem to find it the one you have set to 11

[Frankenburger]

32 minutes ago, Ryzen init bro said:

Where is the quality option because I can't seem to find it the one you have set to 11

QP and Tune are settings you specify as an advanced command.

 

 

Fair warning, qp= overrides your bitrate, and targets a specified quality instead. Lower numbers is better quality, higher numbers is better size. At qp=11, make sure you have enough space to record with, since games that have a lot of motion will cause a pretty sizable file size. At 4k/60, qp=11 in Tera Online produced a 2.8GB file for 40 seconds of footage. Games with less motion will produce a smaller file size. If you need to save space, qp=17 up to qp=20 are good choices. At qp=17, 40 seconds of footage from Tera produced a 1.6GB file.

[Ryzen init bro]

10 hours ago, Frankenburger said:

QP and Tune are settings you specify as an advanced command.

 

 

Fair warning, qp= overrides your bitrate, and targets a specified quality instead. Lower numbers is better quality, higher numbers is better size. At qp=11, make sure you have enough space to record with, since games that have a lot of motion will cause a pretty sizable file size. At 4k/60, qp=11 in Tera Online produced a 2.8GB file for 40 seconds of footage. Games with less motion will produce a smaller file size. If you need to save space, qp=17 up to qp=20 are good choices. At qp=17, 40 seconds of footage from Tera produced a 1.6GB file.

Ok that's great thank you

il give it a try. ultrafast with bitrate 35000 isn't massive files but good quality.I think so I may stick with that 

thanks for you help 

[Frankenburger]

7 hours ago, Ryzen init bro said:

Ok that's great thank you

il give it a try. ultrafast with bitrate 35000 isn't massive files but good quality.I think so I may stick with that 

thanks for you help 

No problem

The main advantage of qp over bit rate is it guarantees far less artifacts and a more consistent image quality. If artifacting isn't a concern, then I'd stick with bit rate based encodes.