obs-gstreamer plugin shows no encoder type options

[MurdoMaclachlan]

I've installed the obs-gstreamer plugin but I'm unable to get it working, as the "Encoder type" option in output settings is blank (see below).

I'm running OBS 30.1.2 via Flatpak on Slackware Current. I have these relevant plugins installed via Flatpak:
com.obsproject.Studio.Plugin.GStreamerVaapi
com.obsproject.Studio.Plugin.Gstreamer
org.freedesktop.Platform.GStreamer.gstreamer-vaapi

I don't see anything in the log that immediately jumps out to me, as far as I can tell all my plugins are being loaded successfully. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Tuna]

Since you also have installed the obs-vaapi plugin, use these encoders:

18:55:54.488: [obs-vaapi] version: 0.4.1, gst-runtime: 1.22.11
18:55:54.489: [obs-vaapi] found vah265enc
18:55:54.489: [obs-vaapi] found vah264enc

They are the succesor of the GStreamer one that is not recommended.

 

[MurdoMaclachlan]

How do I use those encoders? Is it the two VAAPI H.264/5 on Navi 23 in this screenshot?

I couldn't work out how to configure those encoders since they have vastly different options from any I've worked with in the past. All the settings I've tried have pretty similar visual equality to the normal FFmpeg VAAPI encoders but with some faint visual artefacts.

 

[MurdoMaclachlan]

Since you also have installed the obs-vaapi plugin, use these encoders:

18:55:54.488: [obs-vaapi] version: 0.4.1, gst-runtime: 1.22.11
18:55:54.489: [obs-vaapi] found vah265enc
18:55:54.489: [obs-vaapi] found vah264enc

They are the succesor of the GStreamer one that is not recommended.

So I'm just very confused about what my GStreamer situation actually is. The version of GStreamer I have installed via my distro's package manager is 1.24.3, not 1.22.11, so I'm confused where obs-vaapi is actually finding the version of the gst-runtime that it reports? Either way I have no idea how to set OBS to use either of those two encoders.

 

[Tuna]

You are using flatpak. it comes with its own gstreamer libraries. Andperhaps they dont install the old encoder plugins the gstreamer plugins used in the past.

 

[MurdoMaclachlan]

You are using flatpak. it comes with its own gstreamer libraries. Andperhaps they dont install the old encoder plugins the gstreamer plugins used in the past.

Sorry, I'm still confused - does that mean I can't use the two encoders you recommended, or just not the older ones?

 

[Tuna]

The ones I quoted from the log (you identified them correctly) should work.

These are from the GStreamer va plugin.
The old GStreamer plugin used the vaapi plugin from GStreamer.

va has superseeded vaapi plugin.

 

[MurdoMaclachlan]

The ones I quoted from the log (you identified them correctly) should work.

These are from the GStreamer va plugin.
The old GStreamer plugin used the vaapi plugin from GStreamer.

va has superseeded vaapi plugin.

Oh, okay. Well, thanks for the help. I suppose I was just expecting more of a quality boost over the FFmpeg encoder.

 

[Tuna]

The FFMPEG one is fine if it works for you performance wise. The rest is just settings. It is running on the GPU anyway. The chip is the one that defines the quality of the encoding (following the rules set by the settings).

 

[MurdoMaclachlan]

The FFMPEG one is fine if it works for you performance wise. The rest is just settings. It is running on the GPU anyway. The chip is the one that defines the quality of the encoding (following the rules set by the settings).

Huh. I was going off GloriousEggroll's video here where he says the GStreamer VAAPI gives you better quality than the FFmpeg one without the encoder overloading. I see people with worse GPUs than me get much better quality, so I must be doing something wrong.

 

[Tuna]

The initial buffer size set by FFMPEG VAAPI was not optimal at that time. That has been fixed in OBS. Performance wise I'm not sure. FFMPEG VAAPI worked for many and some not. May have been related to the MESA version being used.

Iirc Nobara project switched back to FFMPEG VAAPI as they seemed to conclude that most issue had been fixed I guess.