Question / Help Pixelated despite high or low Bit Rate (Local Recording)

[ragnarok04]

Sorry for the trouble, but its bothering me that I can't get this to work and I would appreciate any help! I have looked at Many other threads with similar problems, but I just couldn't get it to work.

So basically I'm trying to record Hitman: Absolution. It just occured to me that the mp4 product seems a bit pixelated than the actual gameplay screen I see. Figured it was the bit rate.

I'm playing on 720p, my video is set on 1080p with downscale recording by 1.5, to match 720p.
Filter is just set on Bi linear.
30 FPS.

I have done a lot of messing around and testing with the advanced settings and encoding, but nothing really seems to make a difference. I have made a sample that had about 1k-3k bitrate but that seemed to be the same pixelation amount as one i made with 13k bit rate.

I am playing on the Lenovo Y500, and I think the CPU isn't really helping my situation, 3rd gen i7, max at 2.4ghz i think. 650m SLI.

I tried testing with the x264 presets, but doesnt make a difference. setting a crf=0-20 (lower the number) just wasn't physically possible to record without lagging it up entirely. and 20 didnt seem to make a difference.

Here is the video of my hitman recording. Even at 720 it looks like 480. Youtube didnt change the quality what so ever, my obs just produced it like that at 720p. I tried 1080p on the game and obs, but still pixelated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GqgqMy8gb4
The file was set around 3500 bitrate.

None of the changes I make on the settings seems to give me crystal clear sharpness. It always looks a bit bloated and pixelated compared to the quality I can play at.

I am a noob when it comes to posting logs and what not so I would appreciate the patience as I'm not as knowledgeable in this technical department for troubleshooting. Thank you in advance!

 

[dodgepong]

Here is how to post your log: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/problem-make-sure-to-post-a-log-and-or-crash-dump-howto.97/

Also, personally, I think that video looks great. I can't find anything to complain about. That does not look even close to 480p, definitely looks like good 720p quality to me. I'm actually surprised it looks that good with only 3500kbps bit rate.

If you're only locally recording, I recommend this guide: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/

OBS is not a lossless recorder. You can get very high quality recordings, but it will never look 100% exactly like it does when you are playing. At least, not using x264, but you're kind of stuck with x264 for now with OBS.

 

[ragnarok04]

Ah, it never occurred to me that OBS doesn't do lossless.

I really appreciate the help and the compliment on the video! I'll keep giving it a shot to see if I can make it better. I might just be getting paranoid by the small little details.