I figure there are a ton of people like me that come here asking for help and I hate to create spam but I've been researching for weeks to find a way to make it work on my own and I haven't been able to. I don't know a lot about how recording works, but I've been trying to figure it out. Even if it's not possible to make it work on my computer, I'd still like to learn more about how this all works. Essentially, my computer is garbage for gaming. It's a Lenovo Yoga laptop, here are the specs:
I know it's terrible for gaming and even worse for gaming and recording, but I've been able to make it come close to working which is why I have hope. What I'm trying to do is record Overwatch. I'm not trying to stream and I don't really care about keeping the file size down. The game already runs poorly and I have the settings turned down all the way. I'm running it at 1280x720 and at 50% render scale, so it already looks terrible. Without OBS running, I have the game capped at 30 fps and it runs pretty stable with very few FPS drops. With OBS running, there are problems. All I want is to record at a usable FPS without it affecting my in game FPS too much. The settings I use to record are 20 FPS, 20000 bitrate, 0 buffer size, and ultrafast CPU preset. I don't downscale it because the game already looks terrible with the 50% render scale, so downscaling from that makes it look even worse. I'm also confused about whether or not it would make it work better since downscaling means its running an additional process.
The big difference maker is what I set the process priority at. If I leave it at normal, the game runs almost as well as it does without OBS running. There's only a few more FPS drops and the FPS usually hovers around the high 20s or 30. However, the recording itself is extremely stuttery and is completely unwatchable. In my log files, 72% of the frames are skipped because of encoding lag and it says that I only have 2000 MB of RAM (total and free). When I set process priority to above normal, the game's FPS suffers, running in the mid- to low- 20s with a lot more drops. The recording doesn't seem to have a lot of FPS problems or at least I can't differentiate between them and the FPS problems in the game. I don't know how to read those logs, but they say I have 8000 MB total RAM and 6000 usable.
Here is my normal priority log: https://gist.github.com/13e2eec30a531c521be2715a54142aba
and my above normal priority log: https://gist.github.com/ab92f3021c6c5b84578223f0618879ca
I've tried experimenting with different settings and researching how to improve it but I haven't really been able to make things better than they are right now. Beyond all that I just said, I have a few specific questions that I hope you can help me with.
First, would lowering the bitrate help it run any more smoothly or will it just make the files smaller? It seems to me like a higher bitrate is the easiest way to make the quality appear better without affecting the FPS.
Second, to my understanding, the point of encoding is to reduce the final file size. I've read that OBS uses an encoding standard that is more demanding but gives smaller file sizes than other recorders. If that is the case, is there a way for me to allow larger filesizes in exchange for better FPS?
Third, I've tried using Quicksync encoding but when I do, it tells me the encoding is overloaded. When I click stop recording, it says "stopping recording" forever and never actually finishes the video. Would I be able to make it work by using Quicksync? I checked out Plays.tv and they used Quicksync to record my games and it wasn't a problem. However, they don't allow you to alter the settings much and the recording was still very stuttery so I went back to OBS.
Fourth, my computer's display is 1600x900. Would changing that to 1280x720 help with anything?
Fifth, like I mentioned, I'm playing Overwatch with a 50% render scale, which means its rendering at half the resolution and then scaling up to 1280. Would there be a way to record at the resolution it is rendering at? When I record at 1280, it has to do a lot more work, but downscaling the resolution would make it look absolutely horrible since it's already upscaled. Is it possible to grab the initial resolution and record that?
Thanks for the help. I know I wrote a super long post but I really want to make this work. I've been researching and tinkering on my own for a few weeks but I'm at the point where I don't think I'll be able to figure it out on my own.
BIOS: 66CN54WW
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
Display Memory: 1792 MB
Dedicated Memory: 32 MB
Shared Memory: 1760 MB
Current Mode: 1600 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
Display Memory: 1792 MB
Dedicated Memory: 32 MB
Shared Memory: 1760 MB
Current Mode: 1600 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz)
I know it's terrible for gaming and even worse for gaming and recording, but I've been able to make it come close to working which is why I have hope. What I'm trying to do is record Overwatch. I'm not trying to stream and I don't really care about keeping the file size down. The game already runs poorly and I have the settings turned down all the way. I'm running it at 1280x720 and at 50% render scale, so it already looks terrible. Without OBS running, I have the game capped at 30 fps and it runs pretty stable with very few FPS drops. With OBS running, there are problems. All I want is to record at a usable FPS without it affecting my in game FPS too much. The settings I use to record are 20 FPS, 20000 bitrate, 0 buffer size, and ultrafast CPU preset. I don't downscale it because the game already looks terrible with the 50% render scale, so downscaling from that makes it look even worse. I'm also confused about whether or not it would make it work better since downscaling means its running an additional process.
The big difference maker is what I set the process priority at. If I leave it at normal, the game runs almost as well as it does without OBS running. There's only a few more FPS drops and the FPS usually hovers around the high 20s or 30. However, the recording itself is extremely stuttery and is completely unwatchable. In my log files, 72% of the frames are skipped because of encoding lag and it says that I only have 2000 MB of RAM (total and free). When I set process priority to above normal, the game's FPS suffers, running in the mid- to low- 20s with a lot more drops. The recording doesn't seem to have a lot of FPS problems or at least I can't differentiate between them and the FPS problems in the game. I don't know how to read those logs, but they say I have 8000 MB total RAM and 6000 usable.
Here is my normal priority log: https://gist.github.com/13e2eec30a531c521be2715a54142aba
and my above normal priority log: https://gist.github.com/ab92f3021c6c5b84578223f0618879ca
I've tried experimenting with different settings and researching how to improve it but I haven't really been able to make things better than they are right now. Beyond all that I just said, I have a few specific questions that I hope you can help me with.
First, would lowering the bitrate help it run any more smoothly or will it just make the files smaller? It seems to me like a higher bitrate is the easiest way to make the quality appear better without affecting the FPS.
Second, to my understanding, the point of encoding is to reduce the final file size. I've read that OBS uses an encoding standard that is more demanding but gives smaller file sizes than other recorders. If that is the case, is there a way for me to allow larger filesizes in exchange for better FPS?
Third, I've tried using Quicksync encoding but when I do, it tells me the encoding is overloaded. When I click stop recording, it says "stopping recording" forever and never actually finishes the video. Would I be able to make it work by using Quicksync? I checked out Plays.tv and they used Quicksync to record my games and it wasn't a problem. However, they don't allow you to alter the settings much and the recording was still very stuttery so I went back to OBS.
Fourth, my computer's display is 1600x900. Would changing that to 1280x720 help with anything?
Fifth, like I mentioned, I'm playing Overwatch with a 50% render scale, which means its rendering at half the resolution and then scaling up to 1280. Would there be a way to record at the resolution it is rendering at? When I record at 1280, it has to do a lot more work, but downscaling the resolution would make it look absolutely horrible since it's already upscaled. Is it possible to grab the initial resolution and record that?
Thanks for the help. I know I wrote a super long post but I really want to make this work. I've been researching and tinkering on my own for a few weeks but I'm at the point where I don't think I'll be able to figure it out on my own.
