Question / Help Encoding Settings for Streaming at low bitrate

[Wolfezz]

Hi, I'm gonna stream Minecraft, Witcher 3 and some other games... but with my 2 mbs/sec upload I need to stream at 1800 kbits Bitrate. Because my CPU is going crazy with the x264-Encoder, I have to use the NVENC (High Quality Preset), but it's video quality is just awful at low bitrate. Are there any tips for me to reduce the cpu usage with x264-encoder or make the quality for the NVENC-Encoder better without changing the bitrates?

Also I noticed the new option for NVENC "Two-pass-Encoding", can anyone explain me what exactly it does?

 

[jds4578]

its something new, added 2 passing to encode, but only works with Maxwell Made GPUs, 750gti/gtx series cards , & all 900 series GPUs. don't know about the new 10 series card

 

[Sapiens]

Downscaling to a lower resolution like 480p is really the only good option here at that bitrate. You should also use vsync or the FPS limiter in Witcher 3 to help control CPU/GPU load.