OBS/Shadowplay Optimization

[AntonChigurh]

Recently, I built a new PC for the purpose of recording YouTube videos and playing games. I want to record TF2 gameplay, but I don't really know how to optimize my recording programs to fit my hardware. I've been switching between OBS, Streamlabs OBS, and Shadowplay, but I have had no luck with getting to record with zero lag in the video and a decent bitrate. I'm kind of a noob at it, so the answer's probably pretty obvious :P. Any help is appreciated.

 

Specs:

R3 1200 @ 3.7ghz w/stock cooler

8gb of DDR4 Corsair RAM @ 2600mhz

MSI 1050 Ti

 

OBS Settings:

Superfast CPU preset

10k bitrate

Recording at 1080p 60fps

x264 encoder

crf=18

[Daniel Z.]

I would use nVenc OBS at the settings that work best.

[AntonChigurh]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Z. said:

I would use nVenc OBS at the settings that work best.

I tried NVENC, but it doesn't work. It won't let me use NVENC, even though I have an NVIDIA card.

 

https://pastebin.com/JGBa7Hfe

[Daniel Z.]

Just now, N1ghtshade said:

I tried NVENC, but it doesn't work. It won't let me use NVENC, even though I have an NVIDIA card.

 

https://pastebin.com/JGBa7Hfe

that is strange.

[Streetguru]

44 minutes ago, N1ghtshade said:

 

You can't use OBS due to your limited CPU unless you can get NVENC working in it

Just use shadowplay for the time being

[johnukguy]

I would tend to agree that Shadowplay may be your best option, or DXTory if you can get hold of it.

[AntonChigurh]

9 hours ago, Streetguru said:

You can't use OBS due to your limited CPU unless you can get NVENC working in it

Just use shadowplay for the time being

 

9 hours ago, johnukguy said:

I would tend to agree that Shadowplay may be your best option, or DXTory if you can get hold of it.

Alright. I guess I'll switch over to shadowplay and see how it goes. Would you have any recommendations as to my encoding settings?

[johnukguy]

8 hours ago, N1ghtshade said:

 

Alright. I guess I'll switch over to shadowplay and see how it goes. Would you have any recommendations as to my encoding settings?

Dxtory I can help with and, for recording, I generally prefer at times. But, I rarely use Shadowplay nowadays, so someone more familiar with it may have to advise on that, as my advise could well be out of date and inaccurate.

[AntonChigurh]

15 hours ago, johnukguy said:

Dxtory I can help with and, for recording, I generally prefer at times. But, I rarely use Shadowplay nowadays, so someone more familiar with it may have to advise on that, as my advise could well be out of date and inaccurate.

I would use Dxtory, but I don't have a license. Might have to try and find a crack...

[tomoki]

On 3/6/2018 at 9:41 PM, johnukguy said:

I would tend to agree that Shadowplay may be your best option, or DXTory if you can get hold of it.

Shadow play would be best for his setup. Dxtory does suck up a lot of resources.

[johnukguy]

1 minute ago, tomoki said:

Shadow play would be best for his setup. Dxtory does suck up a lot of resources.

Dxtory in fact uses very little in terms of system resources. It's FRAPS that is heavy on resource use. It does use more than Shadowplay but also tends to deliver better results for recording. I would recommend Dxtory for recording every time, but not for streaming.

[tomoki]

On 3/7/2018 at 6:52 AM, N1ghtshade said:

 

Alright. I guess I'll switch over to shadowplay and see how it goes. Would you have any recommendations as to my encoding settings?

What's your storage? Where are you recording to? I can't tell you what settings to use without taking that into consideration. I use Shadowplay and have used dxtory extensively. 

[tomoki]

Just now, johnukguy said:

Dxtory in fact uses very little in terms of system resources. It's FRAPS that is heavy on resource use. It does use more than Shadowplay but also tends to deliver better results for recording. I would recommend Dxtory for recording every time, but not for streaming.

Perhaps the codec I use is much more demanding? I use lagarith YV12 and my cpu spikes. I record to a Wd Red Pro 6tb. 

I've since stopped using dxtory altogether as games became more demanding. 

I don't like recording using any codec that isn't near par with what I see on my screen. 

[johnukguy]

If you record to a slower hard drive there can be issues but usually the Lagarith codec isn't that demanding. Again though that's for just recording, not streaming and it does use more resources than something like Shadowplay. As for parity with what you see, Lagarith is better than Shadowplay in that regard as it's a lossless codec.

[AntonChigurh]

7 hours ago, johnukguy said:

If you record to a slower hard drive there can be issues but usually the Lagarith codec isn't that demanding. Again though that's for just recording, not streaming and it does use more resources than something like Shadowplay. As for parity with what you see, Lagarith is better than Shadowplay in that regard as it's a lossless codec.

 

7 hours ago, tomoki said:

What's your storage? Where are you recording to? I can't tell you what settings to use without taking that into consideration. I use Shadowplay and have used dxtory extensively. 

My storage is a 1TB WD Blue 5400RPM drive. I'm recording to a folder I made in the Videos directory in Windows that I named "Captures".

[tomoki]

8 hours ago, johnukguy said:

If you record to a slower hard drive there can be issues but usually the Lagarith codec isn't that demanding. Again though that's for just recording, not streaming and it does use more resources than something like Shadowplay. As for parity with what you see, Lagarith is better than Shadowplay in that regard as it's a lossless codec.

Yup haha that's what I was getting at. Slower drives, bigger problems. I think recording at 100MB/s is fine for 1080p 60fps on a 7200RPM drive. It depends on what your drive is though still. My older 7200RPM drive could only write up to 110MB/s and I still pushed it to write 100MB/s with no dropped frames. My newer drive ...the WD Red Pro can write way faster than my older drive but I now play on 1440p and record 60fps. 

 

I'm using an older processor too ..much older than your R5 or OP's R3 but I'm thinking OP's processor is experiencing issues due to all that data throughput. I used to use Dxtory to stream as well with OBS. It's way better than just having OBS screen capture or game capture. I really didn't like NVENC either because the footage playback looked blurry. 

 

I like to keep recordings just for memories with friends and whatnot. Anything on my channel older than a year is recorded either streamed through Twitch (using Dxtory and OBS) or recorded using Dxtory and rendered through Sony Vegas Pro : https://www.youtube.com/dagazette93 

 

Nowadays I only use Shadowplay; it's come a long way since it's initial release and while the sound doesn't exactly seem the best when played through recordings, it's completely fine after rendering. Streaming seems painless as well but quality is still highly dependent on internet speeds. My Wolfenstein playthrough was streamed and I don't have great internet anymore cause I graduated from uni  

 

1 hour ago, N1ghtshade said:

My storage is a 1TB WD Blue 5400RPM drive. I'm recording to a folder I made in the Videos directory in Windows that I named "Captures".

That's probably your biggest problem. The drive is quite slow and I think anywhere between 60MB/s to 100MB/s is good for 1080p. 1080p 60fps requires (imo) 100MB/s. If your game files are on the same 1TB 5400RPM drive, you'll definitely experience lag cause it's trying to read and write at the same time of course unless your drive is able to handle both at once! 

[AntonChigurh]

On 3/9/2018 at 2:22 PM, tomoki said:

Yup haha that's what I was getting at. Slower drives, bigger problems. I think recording at 100MB/s is fine for 1080p 60fps on a 7200RPM drive. It depends on what your drive is though still. My older 7200RPM drive could only write up to 110MB/s and I still pushed it to write 100MB/s with no dropped frames. My newer drive ...the WD Red Pro can write way faster than my older drive but I now play on 1440p and record 60fps. 

 

I'm using an older processor too ..much older than your R5 or OP's R3 but I'm thinking OP's processor is experiencing issues due to all that data throughput. I used to use Dxtory to stream as well with OBS. It's way better than just having OBS screen capture or game capture. I really didn't like NVENC either because the footage playback looked blurry. 

 

I like to keep recordings just for memories with friends and whatnot. Anything on my channel older than a year is recorded either streamed through Twitch (using Dxtory and OBS) or recorded using Dxtory and rendered through Sony Vegas Pro : https://www.youtube.com/dagazette93 

 

Nowadays I only use Shadowplay; it's come a long way since it's initial release and while the sound doesn't exactly seem the best when played through recordings, it's completely fine after rendering. Streaming seems painless as well but quality is still highly dependent on internet speeds. My Wolfenstein playthrough was streamed and I don't have great internet anymore cause I graduated from uni  

 

That's probably your biggest problem. The drive is quite slow and I think anywhere between 60MB/s to 100MB/s is good for 1080p. 1080p 60fps requires (imo) 100MB/s. If your game files are on the same 1TB 5400RPM drive, you'll definitely experience lag cause it's trying to read and write at the same time of course unless your drive is able to handle both at once! 

Well I just looked and I got it wrong, I use a 7200RPM. RIP, drive speed shouldn't be a problem

 

And yeah, I only have one drive