Question / Help Just went from Classic->Studio and I'm confused about the bitrate they gave me from auto-configure

[battlefader1]

So I used to stream at 720p@60fps with x264 at 2500 bitrate

I just updated to OBS Studio and tried out its automatic configuration- even with my game running in the background it recommended I stream using NVENC, at 10000 video bitrate (this is under the "simple" output set up) at 1080p and 60fps.

I was under the impression that NVENC is the devil and x264 should always be the one used for streaming, not to mention going above 3000 is a sin. Are these outdated ideas? I tested it out and my stream looked better than I've ever seen at NVENC 10000 bitrate.

For the record I'm not being cheeky - I'm genuinely curious because it makes me feel like I've been streaming with inferior settings the whole time.

Will streaming at 10000 cause my stream to be inaccessible? I'm using Youtube, for the record. I can watch my own stream just fine.

 

[RytoEX]

Are these outdated ideas?

Yes, these are somewhat outdated ideas. Let me address these point-by-point.

So I used to stream at 720p@60fps with x264 at 2500 bitrate

While 2500 is just within the recommended bitrate for 720p@60fps for YouTube, it is below Twitch's recommended bitrate for those settings. But don't worry about this too much, since we'll be working with new settings.

I was under the impression that NVENC is the devil and x264 should always be the one used for streaming, not to mention going above 3000 is a sin.

NVENC on the earlier Nvidia chipsets were decidedly interesting, but did not provide very good quality compared to x264, especially at lower bitrates (like the 2500-3000 that everyone used to use for Twitch). To get good quality, you'd have to crank up the bitrate, which was a no-no in years past. On the newer 10-series chipsets, NVENC is actually pretty decent, even at some lower bitrates. Though, x264 will still output better quality against NVENC when using the same/lower bitrates.

The "going above 3000 is a sin" is about transcoding. If your streaming service didn't provide live transcoding for your stream, then viewers with low-speed connections or on low-spec devices might not be able to watch your stream. For example, Twitch used to only transcode streams for Twitch Partners. Nowadays, they provide transcoding for a much larger percentage of their streamers. However, "YouTube will automatically transcode your live stream", so no need to worry about that there.

Will streaming at 10000 cause my stream to be inaccessible? I'm using Youtube, for the record. I can watch my own stream just fine.

On YouTube, you should be fine. You might be able to get slightly better quality by using x264, but if NVENC is working fine for you, then there's no need to change your settings for this particular case.

As a side note, you can deselect hardware as an option during the autoconfig wizard. See here.

Congrats on the upgrade to OBS Studio! Let us know if you have any questions.

 

[awolive]

This guy is correct but to add my own information. If you decide to stream on twitch you absolutely cannot/should not attempt 10k bitrate. 6k is the max recommended for everyone as opposed to years past of 3.5k for non partners. 6k looks "okay-goodish" on NVENC for twitch and would recommend it to most people who don't have the funds to buy a new top of the line PC as the results will be infinitely better than attempting x264 at faster/fast/medium preset. 10k bitrate will look great using NVENC (GPU) on YouTube and will not hog your CPU resources unlike x264 which uses your CPU for encoding. The NVENC (GPU) encoder uses your graphics card to do the encoding at very minimum performance loss if any loss at all.

bascially
YouTube
NVENC 10K bitrate 1080p60

Twitch
NVENC 6K bitrate 1080p60
NVENC 6K bitrate 720p60 - slightly less artifacting than 1080p60

 

[battlefader1]

Fantastic explanation, thank you. I took a long break and this was exactly what I needed to catch up on.

I have an i5 4690 with a GTX 970 and I feel like it's using too much CPU on x264.
I plan to stream to Youtube

Probably more of a hardware question than OBS but does streaming at 1080p vs 720p have a noticeable difference on GPU stress? (using NVENC of course). Same question to 60 vs 30 fps.

Thanks again.

EDIT: Ugh, I posted this before my page refreshed and awolive kinda answered part of my post already. Thank you

 

[awolive]

NEVEC uses very little CPU/GPU and at 10k bitrate you should aim for 1080p60
I would only downgrade to 720p60 if you are getting artifacting on your videos but you should get very little to no at 10k bitrate. 10k is kinda the super sweet spot for NVENC from my testings.