Question / Help 750 Ti for nVenc - Local Recording only - good enough?

[NighthawKillian]

Hi,

Planning on getting a new PC so the idea is to turn my current PC into a streaming PC, thus the new PC will be the gaming PC and I will have a 2 PC stream setup (one PC running the game, connected via capture card to the streaming PC which encodes everything and sends it to Twitch).

I want to hang on to my current GTX 970 for a while more, at least until AMD Vega releases and to continue using my 970 in the gaming PC.

I need a GPU for the streaming PC (would not run games) that needs to have a specific set of video outputs for my 4 monitors. And I want it to be as cheap as possible.

As I want to have the best stream quality, I will use the CPU (x264) in the streaming PC for the stream encoding, but I would use nVenc for the local recording part.

Is a GTX 750 Ti with 1GB VRAM good enough for 720p/1080p @ 48 FPS nVenc local recording? I currently do local recordings with the 970, nVenc, 720p 48fps, 9k bitrate and the result is ok for Youtube.

P.S. I stream at 48 FPS as quite a few viewers said they don't like WATCHING 60 fps gameplay, but would want something more in tune with actual gameplay than 30 FPS. So...48 fps was my chosen middle ground.

The plan is to later on move the 970 from the gaming PC to the streaming PC and replace the 970 with an AMD Vega or nVidia card (when the replacement for the 10 series launches).

I would get a 1070 now (almost 50% faster than then 970) but with Vega around the corner, I am not sure if it makes sense.

 

[alpinlol]

Theres no real point in using NVENC in a dedicated streaming PC though in theory it should be working even up to 1080p60 (depending on the capture card input)

I would wait until Vega is released since it might change the prices even on nvidia cards once again.

 

[NighthawKillian]

"Theres no real point in using NVENC in a dedicated streaming PC though in theory"

Agreed, but I have an AMD FX 8350 that sometimes can dish out "encoder overloaded" messages in OBS when trying to stream using a lower preset for the CPU and I want to plan ahead to where I can stream at medium or fast and do local recording as well and I am not sure the encoder would be able to handle both on the CPU, hence why I want the backup option of having the ability to do a local recording with nVenc.

The reason why I am asking about the 750Ti + nVenc is because I've read that some cards from the 7XX series had/have issues with nVenc. Also, The 750TI is a low end card so I am not sure how well nVenc would work on it. At the same time, in my use case, it would only handle local recording and the quad monitor output with Win10 + software, zero gaming.

 

[alpinlol]

Every GTX 7xx card has the dedicated hardware encoder with the kepler architecture. There were certain GT 730 card with a weird versioning and RAM interface that didnt have it.

The 8350 as a dedicated CPU should be capable of 720p60 with fast preset but that migh already be too much. Then again even at the veryfast Preset the quality for bitrate ratio is superior compared to nvenc.

For local recording it doesnt really matter as long as you have enough storage and high writes

 

[NighthawKillian]

On my 8350 @ 4.4 + nVidia GTX 970 I streamed RE7 (PC version), 720p @ 48 FPS, veryfast preset @ 5500 bitrate (Twitch now allows for max 6k) with the stream looking great and the game running at 60 FPS stable. Had to take texture quality down to medium from the max of high as there was some stuttering (apparently a game bug) but all else was maxed out.

However the local recording was nVenc, 720p @ 48 FPS, 9k bitrate, high performance, dual pass.

SIDE NOTE: However games like Titanfall 2 which don't like the AMD FX architecture and improperly use the cores, when trying to play the game AND stream it from the same PC, I end up with 100% CPU usage. While the game still runs 60 FPS stable, the stream stutters like hell.

This is why I am getting a new PC (Titanfall 2 is just one example of games not being stream-able) and since I will still have the AMD FX pc, I am turning it into a dedicated streaming machine/

 

[NighthawKillian]

Hmm,
For anyone looking into this post in the future. It seems that Gigabyte's Windforce video cards with nVidia chipsets at least from the 750 Ti and 1050 (Ti) series are natively supporting quad monitor output.

I am seriously considering the 1050 2Gb Windforce card from Gigabyte for the purposes mentioned in the above posts.