Question / Help 8K Recording?

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

ok, so I'm tryna figure out how to record 8K smoothly with my computer build. The thing is, I can edit 8K n play 8K fine (under 60fps), but I can't seem to get any 8K recorded video from my games to play smoothly. They almost always come out stuttery and even audio drops. I read somewhere online (Puget Systems I believe) that I might need 128GB of RAM minimum (https://www.pugetsystems.com/recomm...-Premiere-Pro-CC-143/Hardware-Recommendations), but that doesn't make any sense to me as I can edit 8K video fine. Just not record 8K fine. I also don't think I need SLI or NVlink as I've tried that before and it didn't do a damn thing. Task manager says I'm only using around 10GB of memory on my RAM. However, I'm assuming I need the extra RAM just cuz it can feed the higher resolution to my GPU and CPU faster I assume? I pretty much need to know what I need to upgrade in my computer to be able to record 8K smoothly if I don't already have it in my build listed below, because I've tried everything to get an 8K recording to play smoothly to no avail. I also seem to only be able to use x264 as no matter what settings I use for NVENC, NVENC (new), H.264, etc., it fails to either start recording or save the video file at all... x264 is the only encoder that is allowing me to start and save video file recordings in 8K.

Here is the best recording I could possibly do so far, but it's still too stuttery and laggy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAY3bqqvuXQ

Here are the settings I'm using:
Format: MP4
Encoder: Software (x264)
Rate Control: CRF (Set to 0)
Keyframe Interval: 0
CPU Usage Preset: Ultrafast
Profile: (None)

Base (Canvas) Resolution: 7680x4320
Output (Scaled) Resolution: 7680x4320
FPS: 30

"Preview Disabled for more Performance"

My Build:
--MB: MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon
--CPU: 2950x 16 Core AMD Threadripper
--GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio
--RAM: 32GB (8x4) 2400Mhz DDR4 Kingston HyperXFury
--SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 4TB
--OS: Windows 10 Pro For Workstations

 

[Tomasz Góral]

Nvidia work only to h.264 4096x4096, 4320p need h.265 codec but now rtmp work only with h.264.

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

Nvidia work only to h.264 4096x4096, 4320p need h.265 codec but now rtmp work only with h.264.

I guess maybe that's why I'm seeing other youtube videos of games in 8K (mainly SLI videos), but the video itself only shows a max of 2160p60 (4K). Guess it's not even possible to output "smoothly" recorded 8K videos directly from PC games yet. I already know about H.264's limitation of 4096x4096 and I already know that I have to use H.265 for 8K. The issue is that OBS won't allow me to even start a recording with H.265/NVENC, just like it won't with H.264 as I already stated (which I understand now that you mention it, since x264 is the only encoder that will let me do anything). I can't start or finish an 8K recording with H.264 "or" H.265/NVENC... but I guess that's why the recordings r choppy with x264 (the only encoder that will work) since 8K needs more GPU power than CPU (since x264 is CPU based).

So I guess I don't have a choice but to record 8K games into 4K videos like everyone else... I just wish since youtube supports 8K video resolutions that I'd be able to record my 8K games directly into 8K videos. It makes no sense to me that we can edit 8K video but not record 8K video. Editing requires more power than recording (imo), so I find that to be the most dumbest thing ever :\

 

[koala]

8k needs 4 times the computing power to encode 4k, and 4k needs 4 times the computing power to encode 1080p. Together it means 8k needs 16 times the computing power of 1080p. If you need 1 CPU core to encode 1080p fine, you need 16 CPU cores to encode 8k. Actually, 1 core is not enough for 1080p, as with x264 you use about 4 cores for encoding, so for 8k you need 64 cores.
The only reasonable way to live-encode 8k is with a hardware encoder.
If you look at your CPU, your Threadripper is unfortunately not made for encoding with x264, since its NUMA architecture makes it look especially bad with memory-intensive applications like video encoding. The more cores are used for encoding simultaneously, the worse the performance of each core due to RAM (data transfer) congestion.

 

[koala]

OBS is able to record 8k with nvenc_hevc (ffmpeg output) for me.
Comment on the encoder settings: Setting bitrate to 0 and set the given encoder settings as custom parameters makes nvenc_hevc switch to constant quality mode instead of constant bitrate mode, which is better suited for recording.

(my machine is not strong enough to record more than 25 fps with 8k, you can try more, of course)

With these settings, I actually get 8k videos that play back flawlessly with MPC (Media Player Classic).
My machine: Intel i7-6700k, GTX 1070. A machine from 3 years ago.
OBS will crash after stopping the recording, if it encountered skipped frames due to encoding lag with this setup. So keep the fps low enough to not get encoding lag, or be prepared to restart OBS after each recording. And keep an eye on "average time to render frame". On my machine this increases tremendously during recording, and it must not be larger than the time available for 1 frame. Actually the sum of it and of the encoding time must not be larger than the time available for 1 frame.

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

OBS is able to record 8k with nvenc_hevc (ffmpeg output) for me.
Comment on the encoder settings: Setting bitrate to 0 and set the given encoder settings as custom parameters makes nvenc_hevc switch to constant quality mode instead of constant bitrate mode, which is better suited for recording.
View attachment 47818
View attachment 47819
(my machine is not strong enough to record more than 25 fps with 8k, you can try more, of course)
View attachment 47820

With these settings, I actually get 8k videos that play back flawlessly with MPC (Media Player Classic).
My machine: Intel i7-6700k, GTX 1070. A machine from 3 years ago.
OBS will crash after stopping the recording, if it encountered skipped frames due to encoding lag with this setup. So keep the fps low enough to not get encoding lag, or be prepared to restart OBS after each recording. And keep an eye on "average time to render frame". On my machine this increases tremendously during recording, and it must not be larger than the time available for 1 frame. Actually the sum of it and of the encoding time must not be larger than the time available for 1 frame.

Using those exact same settings with my build, this is what I experience in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4DhoLEjXYU
This is what I get every single time no matter what I do with NVENC/H.265. Keep in mind, this is the recording doing that. NOT the game. The game plays flawlessly. The first video link in my original post is the closest I've gotten to the smoothest possible playback of the 8K recording and it was from x264, so I'm kinda confused when u said my Threadripper isn't meant for x264. Matter of fact, almost my entire youtube channel of almost over 1,000 videos with now almost 59,000 subs was using x264 4K videos... I just now started using H.264 for 4K on my channel like a half a year ago.

Anyways, kinda odd that u said u can play 8K videos flawlessly as I can too IF they/I can even even record them properly. Watching that video above, u can see what I'm talking about. Even recording it at 20fps produces screen tears in the middle and still skips more than it should all during playback (even tho OBS doesn't crash). It's really weird that x264 works for everything I do (4K and 8K both) at the closest smoothest playback possible (refer to very first video link on my original post in thread) even though it's mostly CPU bound.

Maybe it's cuz playing an 8K game that uses most of the GPU power and then turning around n trying to use that same amount of GPU power for 8K recording is too taxing on the system? Since x264 uses the CPU mostly and only the GPU when needed, the computer doesn't have to work as hard to play the game and record at the same time with the same GPU? I don't even know anymore...

I guess I don't have a choice but to use x264 for 8K recording since it's the closest to smoothest playback of the recordings I can get at minimum of 30fps. And the funny thing is, it's not using HEVC/H.265 at all nor does OBS crash. I can record and save 8K video files completely fine with x264 without needing HEVC/H.265. My main issue is getting the recordings to play smoothly and not jittery, freezing, audio drops, etc.

Also, it's very weird that any 8K recording I do with H.264 or HEVC/H.265 crashes OBS and also plays SEVERELY worse. Only time the "H" encoders (h.264/h.265) doesn't playback worse is during 4K playback. During 8K playback, it's completely not acceptable. Only time I don't have an issue playing 8K video on my build is if I get an 8K video already recorded from somewhere online n play it, copy an 8K video to my computer from an 8K camera n play it or actually play 8K video on youtube. I have no issues on playback with those 3 ways. It's only the recorded 8K videos straight from OBS/my own computer that never plays acceptably and seeing as x264 is the only one that comes the closest to acceptable 8K playback and recording on my build, I guess I'm gonna stick with that... H.264 and H.265 8K recordings just freeze and jump n stutter WAY too often and WAY more often on my build.

Just watch my first video link with x264: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAY3bqqvuXQ
Then watch with ur settings/H.264/H.265: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4DhoLEjXYU

You can see ur settings/around the same settings/using H.264 or H.265 on my build does nothing but make playback of the 8K recordings worse... Both H.265/H.265 and x264 produce screen tearing in the videos as well. x264 is the only one that doesn't produce artifacting, freezing, audio drops or anything like that NEAR as often as H.264/H.265 on my build. So it's definitely not my Threadripper as it's clearly doing a good job with x264 having the better playback...

 

[TryHD]

Do you record on a HDD or ssd?

 

[koala]

Anyways, kinda odd that u said u can play 8K videos flawlessly as I can too IF they/I can even even record them properly. Watching that video above, u can see what I'm talking about.

Yes, I understand what you're talking about. I only meant I am able to play my 8k video flawlessly, not that I'm able to record 8k videos flawlessly. Keep in mind, not all media players are able to to replay such videos without errors. Some people mistake lags from playback with lags from recording. They think their videos are laggy, but actually the videos are good and only the player doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I cannot help any further. I am unable (and don't need) to create any real 8k footage from games with my hardware. My tests were with a mostly still desktop captured with display capture and fit to the 8k-sized canvas to see if such big recording works in theory with nvenc_hevc, or if OBS outright refuses to record anything visible. Earlier versions of OBS+nvenc painted the lower half of such a huge canvas green, for example. Capturing a game is much different as well, since the GPU has not only to composite the video for OBS, it also has to create the frames for the game in the first place. And the CPU also has to run the game.

I suspect even your machine isn't able to handle that much data. The videos you posted are very laggy, and this is usually a sign of overloading some system component. It may even be that the bottleneck is the pci-express bus, since the uncompressed data has to be downloaded from GPU memory to CPU memory for encoding. With nvenc, it is uploaded right again for encoding, so this double transfer might be the cause that nvenc performs worse for you than x264.

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

Do you record on a HDD or ssd?

SSD. I put that in my system build info at bottom of my original post.

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

Yes, I understand what you're talking about. I only meant I am able to play my 8k video flawlessly, not that I'm able to record 8k videos flawlessly. Keep in mind, not all media players are able to to replay such videos without errors. Some people mistake lags from playback with lags from recording. They think their videos are laggy, but actually the videos are good and only the player doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I cannot help any further. I am unable (and don't need) to create any real 8k footage from games with my hardware. My tests were with a mostly still desktop captured with display capture and fit to the 8k-sized canvas to see if such big recording works in theory with nvenc_hevc, or if OBS outright refuses to record anything visible. Earlier versions of OBS+nvenc painted the lower half of such a huge canvas green, for example. Capturing a game is much different as well, since the GPU has not only to composite the video for OBS, it also has to create the frames for the game in the first place. And the CPU also has to run the game.

I suspect even your machine isn't able to handle that much data. The videos you posted are very laggy, and this is usually a sign of overloading some system component. It may even be that the bottleneck is the pci-express bus, since the uncompressed data has to be downloaded from GPU memory to CPU memory for encoding. With nvenc, it is uploaded right again for encoding, so this double transfer might be the cause that nvenc performs worse for you than x264.

Yea, from my experience it's probably still best to just record 8K games to 4K like everyone else on youtube. Well, only if the game will play at least at 60fps in 8K, which mostly won't happen unless ur SLI'ing/NVlinking (which I can't do anyways as for 1, Ive done it b4 like I mentioned in my original post, it's not worth it n most r better off just waiting on a single GPU to play 8K60. 2, it doesn't do a damn with video editing or recording from my experience n just a waste of another $1,000 for a GPU... And 3, I can't use my 4K60 capture card to record my game consoles since SLI'ing/NVlinking uses all my available PCI-E lanes).

The game from those video links is a PS2 game running through an emulator. It's easier to hit higher frame rates in 8K on older games than it is newer games. At least til like u said, we get a higher PCI-Express/Bus that might allow for more higher computing within everyone's builds which would in turn most likely push n allow the GPU n CPU to use even more available power faster in more intense graphically demanding games.

With the new AMD 3950x that's supposed to be coming out soon and the new X590 n X599 motherboards that have the new PCI-E Gen 4, we should achieve 8K 60fps recording possibly within a year I'd imagine. If we can play most PC games at least at 8K 30, then it's only a matter of time before we'll be able to play 8K 60 n even record it. Especially with the new PCI-E Gen 4 allowing faster data throughput on both the GPU n CPU.

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

I appreciate all your guys' help. Thank you all :)

 

[R_ichard]

The highly anticipated Sharp 8K Video Camera was shown off in working (albeit extremely limited, prototype) form at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, and early hands-on reports of the camera are very exciting UPSers Employee Login

 

[GamingCanBeFunYT]

Still having this problem a year and a half later: https://obsproject.com/forum/thread...ith-rtx-3090-copy-shadowplay-possible.140235/ and with an RTX 3090 that can easily record 8K 30 with Shadowplay n flawless video playback. So what's the issue? I need better audio, n OBS provides that but every outputted video with every NVENC/HEVC encoder OBS has doesn't output good 8K 30fps videos n I mean, the videos ALWAYS skip every 2 to 3 seconds with 6 sec freeze frames. N this is with newer (and original) FFMPEG libx265 files also.

So at this rate, OBS will NEVER be able to record 8K 30fps smoothly without errors or without outputted video stuttering/freezing. But Shadowplay will always record it in libx265/NVENC/HEVC without issues. I wudnt complain so much if Shadowplay allowed me to set my audio bitrate. 192Kbps is nothing when i have to edit the videos in Davinci or Premiere Pro n then youtube upload will slaughter the audio quality down even more.