Hello,
I have been experimenting a lot with OBS Studio, and while I am managing to get very high quality HD looking recordings, the footage is a bit more stuttery than the actual game, and frequently (around every 20 - 30 seconds) looks like it dropped a frame / the screen skips (this screen skip does not happen in the game, only in the footage). I only do local recordings, I'm not interested in streaming, and prefer using x264 rather than NVENC (getting very high temps on NVENC). I'm playing and recording this series of 2D shmups called Touhou. Most of the games' native resolution is 640x480, which I am capturing and upscaling to 1920x1080 60 fps from OBS Studio's Video tab settings.
View attachment upload_2017-9-4_18-6-55.png
I am using Simple Settings, Indistinguishable quality. At first I started with the x264 (low CPU usage preset), I was getting files of around 12 GB for an hour, averaging 28,000 bit rate. I tried switching to x264, which now I am getting much smaller file sizes of around 4GB for an hour, averaging 10,000 bitrate. HDD space isn't a problem for me, I tried changing the preset to x264 because since it uses veryfast I thought my footage might come out better since more cycles are being used on it. I am interested in using Advanced Settings, so I can tweak it a bit further and get the desired quality which will hopefully stutter less. While playing and recording with x264, my total CPU usage is never skipping 60%, so the footage is not stuttering due to my CPU being overloaded.
So, these are my questions:
1. Am I actually gaining something by upscaling the footage through OBS from 480p to 1080p if the game's native
resolution is 480p? If I had to record in 480p and upscale it AFTER to 1080p, won't the footage end up worse because
the bitrate that was previously on a 480p video ends up spread over 1080p instead?
2. What Advanced Settings are the best to set up so I can avoid the slight stuttering and frame drop I'm getting in my footage? Is it better dropping the preset to a slower one, or lowering the CRF?
3. What Profile should I choose, High or Normal?
4. What about Tune?
5. For an x264 option, I found a user's tips to set up OBS for Touhou (I think this is for OBS Classic though http://kasumi.moe/touhou/), and he mentions using '--tune touhou' in Custom x264 Encoder Settings. Do I type it in x264 options at the bottom of the Advanced Settings? (I can't find Custom x264 Encoder Settings).
What --tune touhou does is a preset in x264, it makes these changes:
--aq-strength 1.3
--deblock -1:-1
--partitions (p4x4 if p8x8 set)
--psy-rd <unset>:0.2
--ref (Double if >1 else 1)
6. By default in Advanced Settings, audio is set to 120 kbps, will it make a noticeable impact on cpu usage if I set this to 320 kbps?
I also attached a log of my latest recording, and these are my specs:
I7-4790
GTX 980Ti
32GB RAM
Playing from an SSD
Recording onto a 7200 rpm HDD
Thank you for any help, I would really like to get this sorted because after all this testing and experimentation I am still not getting my desired results from OBS, which I read in many sources is very customizable to get the quality you desire.
Log:
https://gist.github.com/f1cf932bd29c14bf0ea40018e1156a0b
I have been experimenting a lot with OBS Studio, and while I am managing to get very high quality HD looking recordings, the footage is a bit more stuttery than the actual game, and frequently (around every 20 - 30 seconds) looks like it dropped a frame / the screen skips (this screen skip does not happen in the game, only in the footage). I only do local recordings, I'm not interested in streaming, and prefer using x264 rather than NVENC (getting very high temps on NVENC). I'm playing and recording this series of 2D shmups called Touhou. Most of the games' native resolution is 640x480, which I am capturing and upscaling to 1920x1080 60 fps from OBS Studio's Video tab settings.
View attachment upload_2017-9-4_18-6-55.png
I am using Simple Settings, Indistinguishable quality. At first I started with the x264 (low CPU usage preset), I was getting files of around 12 GB for an hour, averaging 28,000 bit rate. I tried switching to x264, which now I am getting much smaller file sizes of around 4GB for an hour, averaging 10,000 bitrate. HDD space isn't a problem for me, I tried changing the preset to x264 because since it uses veryfast I thought my footage might come out better since more cycles are being used on it. I am interested in using Advanced Settings, so I can tweak it a bit further and get the desired quality which will hopefully stutter less. While playing and recording with x264, my total CPU usage is never skipping 60%, so the footage is not stuttering due to my CPU being overloaded.
So, these are my questions:
1. Am I actually gaining something by upscaling the footage through OBS from 480p to 1080p if the game's native
resolution is 480p? If I had to record in 480p and upscale it AFTER to 1080p, won't the footage end up worse because
the bitrate that was previously on a 480p video ends up spread over 1080p instead?
2. What Advanced Settings are the best to set up so I can avoid the slight stuttering and frame drop I'm getting in my footage? Is it better dropping the preset to a slower one, or lowering the CRF?
3. What Profile should I choose, High or Normal?
4. What about Tune?
5. For an x264 option, I found a user's tips to set up OBS for Touhou (I think this is for OBS Classic though http://kasumi.moe/touhou/), and he mentions using '--tune touhou' in Custom x264 Encoder Settings. Do I type it in x264 options at the bottom of the Advanced Settings? (I can't find Custom x264 Encoder Settings).
What --tune touhou does is a preset in x264, it makes these changes:
--aq-strength 1.3
--deblock -1:-1
--partitions (p4x4 if p8x8 set)
--psy-rd <unset>:0.2
--ref (Double if >1 else 1)
6. By default in Advanced Settings, audio is set to 120 kbps, will it make a noticeable impact on cpu usage if I set this to 320 kbps?
I also attached a log of my latest recording, and these are my specs:
I7-4790
GTX 980Ti
32GB RAM
Playing from an SSD
Recording onto a 7200 rpm HDD
Thank you for any help, I would really like to get this sorted because after all this testing and experimentation I am still not getting my desired results from OBS, which I read in many sources is very customizable to get the quality you desire.
Log:
https://gist.github.com/f1cf932bd29c14bf0ea40018e1156a0b
