Question / Help Help! Encoding Issues

[YesHah]

So I have this issue where my streams and recordings are kind of blurry (more the streams). I have a really good GPU, but an awful CPU by today's standards (an Intel i5-6400), and I was just wondering what settings you guys would recommend changing from the ones I post below. Thanks for any help!

First, my PC Specs/Internet Connection:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
RAM: 12GB
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 (build 14393), 64-bit
Download Speed: 30 Mbps
Upload Speed: 4 Mbps

NOTE: I am recording at 60 fps in a canvas size of 1600x900 down-scaled to 1280x720 in all of the following clips. Additionally, every setting I do not include in the following are at their default values.

NVENC Video Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/QWPJMvlKdX4
OBS Settings:
Encoder: NVENC H.264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 10000 kbps
Preset: High Quality

x264 Video Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/A3X7YhOqdE0
OBS Settings:
Encoder: x264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 4000 kbps
CPU Preset: Veryfast

NVENC Livestream Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/TC_Miw2ePIU
OBS Settings:
Encoder: NVENC H.264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 4000 kbps
Preset: High Quality
Rescale Output: 1280x720

x264 Livestream Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/82-ErGWTE2Y
OBS Settings:
Encoder: x264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 4000 kbps
CPU Preset: Veryfast
Rescale Output: 1280x720


If you have made it this far, I would also like to put some notes here:
- When recording, neither x264 or NVENC lagged me in-game and both played about 60 fps at pretty high quality
- I tested recording with NVIDIA ShadowPlay, and I assume that it is the same as using NVENC in OBS from my understanding of all this
- When streaming, NVENC had 0 lag and streamed at 60 fps, but had pretty bad quality (and yes I know NVENC sucks for streaming, go onto next note)
- x264 streamed significantly better quality, but lagged me in-game (down to about 20 fps or so) at the veryfast setting, and putting the CPU preset at ultrafast, etc, made the quality worse than the NVENC stream plus a little bit of frame lag


Here are some pastebins of my OBS logs:
https://pastebin.com/9yhp4W4i
https://pastebin.com/P9cfTAx0


Let me know if I forgot anything and thanks again for helping! :)



EDIT:
QuickSync Video Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/6dmbmSN13n8
OBS Settings:
Bitrate: 4000 kbps

QuickSync Livestream Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/QifbyZsiO_s
OBS Settings:
Bitrate: 4000 kbps


Now I'm kinda just confused... NVENC has the best quality for recording... I think... And for streaming everyone says x264 is the best for streaming hands down but it lags your game and has meh quality. NVENC has no lag but awful quality, and QuickSync has no lag and meh quality... But everyone says that QuickSync sucks for streaming/recording, someone please help me!



EDIT #2:
The only thing I changed from the auto-config wizard was the resolution to 1280x720 because YouTube doesn't support 630p and random stuff like that lol.

Note: The Auto-Config Wizard, for whatever reason, decided to make the bitrate 819... No idea why because my upload speed at the moment is around 7 Mbps, so I did 2 more streams, raising the bitrate to 2000.
Additionally, all 4 streams merged Into 1 stream because YouTube was trying to be helpful!

Pastebin Link: https://pastebin.com/cW6F65yf

NVENC Setup Wizard Settings:
Link: https://youtu.be/KTSyQtqH5Ms
Settings should be in the logs but I can provide if needed

x264 Setup Wizard Settings:
Link: https://youtu.be/KTSyQtqH5Ms
Settings should be in the logs but I can provide if needed

 

[xxAssassin349]

Try Quick Sync because Quick Sync has similar quality to x264 combined with the performance benefit of NVENC.

 

[YesHah]

Try Quick Sync because Quick Sync has similar quality to x264 combined with the performance benefit of NVENC.

First of all, thank you for your response! I will run a quick recording and stream with Quick Sync and edit the OP to show if it made any difference

 

[Xsoulsin]

Download Speed: 30 Mbps
Upload Speed: 4 Mbps



NVENC Livestream Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/TC_Miw2ePIU
OBS Settings:
Encoder: NVENC H.264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 4000 kbps
Preset: High Quality
Rescale Output: 1280x720

x264 Livestream Clip:
Link: https://youtu.be/82-ErGWTE2Y
OBS Settings:
Encoder: x264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 4000 kbps
CPU Preset: Veryfast
Rescale Output: 1280x720

Are you trying to stream with 4k Bitrate? Cause you said you're upload is at 4k Bitrate. If so that would cause issues with live streaming.

 

[Adrian Schofield]

Looking at your logs you have all the problems.

Streaming you have network throughput problems to YouTube and are dropping packets
Recording either your GPU or CPU is overloaded.

Have you tried running the Auto Configuration Wizard and seeing what it comes up with as recommended settings?

 

[YesHah]

Thank you everyone for replying - I really appreciate the help! Sorry about taking so long to reply was really busy Thursday and Friday

Looking at your logs you have all the problems.

Streaming you have network throughput problems to YouTube and are dropping packets
Recording either your GPU or CPU is overloaded.

Have you tried running the Auto Configuration Wizard and seeing what it comes up with as recommended settings?

I ran the auto configuration wizard and used the bitrate it said (except I rounded from 4132 to 4000) and changed the resolution to 1280x720 from like 1200x675 or something just below. These seem to be the settings optimized for my PC/Internet at 60 fps streaming/recording according to the auto-config wizard...

Additionally, my CPU only seems to be overloaded when I stream using the (x264) which makes sense because it is only an i5 6400. The beginning of the first pastebin may (not really sure) have been when I was messing around trying to get my PC to pump out the best quality possible with the x264 encoder, which was before I did the recordings for this post. I don't think my CPU would get overloaded using NVENC or QuickSync because they don't put as much pressure on the CPU as far as I know. My GPU is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 so I don't think that would get overloaded either, so I'm just really confused now... xD

Are you trying to stream with 4k Bitrate? Cause you said you're upload is at 4k Bitrate. If so that would cause issues with live streaming.

If you mean that my upload speed isn't fast enough, normally it is around 6 Mbps, but I gave worst scenario and said 4 - maybe I should have just said 6 instead sorry.

Sorry if I'm a big noob and am missing something obvious to experienced users btw

 

[Adrian Schofield]

Help us narrow it down a bit, can you use the settings determined by the auto-config wizard and do a test stream and post a new log file? If you want to try NVENC then make that change and post a separate log and we'll take a look. It kinda feels like we are getting there :-)

 

[YesHah]

Help us narrow it down a bit, can you use the settings determined by the auto-config wizard and do a test stream and post a new log file? If you want to try NVENC then make that change and post a separate log and we'll take a look. It kinda feels like we are getting there :-)

Ok thanks for the help O really appreciate it! :) I will run a test stream with the recommended 60 fps settings from the setup wizard when I get home tonight. Sorry it might be like 10 hours until I am able to do so.

 

[YesHah]

Help us narrow it down a bit, can you use the settings determined by the auto-config wizard and do a test stream and post a new log file? If you want to try NVENC then make that change and post a separate log and we'll take a look. It kinda feels like we are getting there :-)

I just edited the OP for you. I ended up doing 4 streams, but YouTube merged them into 1 stream, sorry. Hopefully you can spot where the settings change... I tried it with NVENC and x264, with the recommended bitrate and a raised bitrate from that.

Hopefully this was of some help

 

[YesHah]

Bump? @Adrian Schofield