Pixelation/Aliasing in video, regardless of quality and frame's dropped/stutters.

BunX

New Member
I have a Issue I cannot seem to diagnose or solve. In short, my recordings have this certain pixelation to it, its most visible in contrasted areas, but it is everywhere, looking very similiar to aliasing in videogames.
Side by side, I have two screenshots taken from the game "Ultrakill" Left screenshot is of my recording done through obs in Cybergrind, while the Right one is a screenshot from within the game. Visible is when up close, pixelation, which is only present on the Left Image, most notably red SSadisctic text, in areas with less contrast, such as the "Stale: 0.50x" text, it causes mild blur. This has been taken on OBS's "lossless quality, themenodous file size" setting in simple output mode. it is present regardless of ANY settings. it is akin to a pixelation filter, but not anything I did.
1755967268484.png
1755967256270.png


I have tried to:
1. Change output quality, switching recording quality to different, Switching encoders, switching file formats. No change
2. Downscale to 720p in hopes of erasing this issue, no change, visually still present.,
3. Using NVidia's tools i rendered the game at 4K and recorded at 4k, then downscaled to 1080p, minor change, however still visible.(was under the impression that 4k downscaling would help fix issues)

my Video tab settings are:
Base Canvas resolution: 1920x1080
Output Resolution: 1920x1080
Downscale filter: none
Common FPS value: 60.

My output tab settings -> Simple mode:
recording quality: Lossless
Recording format: Matroska .mkv
Video Encoder: Nvenc
No further changes.
These settings were used to capture the footage and subsequently the image of Screenshot 1, on left.
Normally I use advanced mode:
Format: Matroska
Encoder: Nvenc NVIDIA
Encoder settings: -> rate control to CQP, level 18, 0s keyfram interval. Preset P7, tuning high quality, Multipass mode with two passes full resolution.Y
profile main
gpu + Max Bframes 0
Look ahead + psycho visual tuning disabled.

My process priority is set to high. and I record on my main monitor, Samsung LC27RG50, 1080p monitor with 240hz refreshrate.

ADDITIONALLY:
Dropped frames/Stuttering of a recording.
Since this is local recording and not stream, the initial red warning note is not applicable, but even then I kept it in mind.
my recording often stutters, this is most common on high speed games LIKE Ultrakill, but not exclusive, it happens with minecraft, fortnite, terraria aswell.

My computer specs:
RTX 2060,both for gaming and recording sadly.
Ryzen 5 3600.
16gb of ddr4 ram, 2800mhz
M.2 NVME samsung 980 ssd, 500gb, but I have 140gb spared for recording.

my main concern is this pixelation effect since, even on some older laptops this isnt visible.
This seems almost exclusive to me, as I have not seen a single instance of this problem.
What do I do to fix this?

PS, this is not low bitrate artefacting, (i think) these are not big juicy blurred blocks.
 

BunX

New Member
I want to add, a mistake I made, I said I use matroska with lossless, I was incorrect as the file saves as .AVI. pardon
Along I attach what I believe to be a logfile for my current OBS settings. I created a new recording with same settings just because there are more logs. this is the most recent and uses the same settings as mentioned to capture my lossless fottage
 

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  • 2025-08-23 18-44-32.txt
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qhobbes

Active Member
1. You are running an old version of OBS Studio (29.1.2). Please update to the newest available version by going to Help -> Check for updates in OBS or by downloading the latest installer from the downloads page and running it.
2. In updated OBS, go to Settings > Output > Output Mode: Simple, Recording: Recording Quality: Lossless Quality, Tremendously Large File Size [Apply] [OK].
3. Remove Display Capture from your scene and use Game Capture to capture your games. If that doesn't work, remove Game Capture and try Window Capture.



If still having issues, post new log
 

Suslik V

Active Member
What you seeing is chroma subsampling 4:2:0 (NV12 format), thus colored text has spill and blur. Chroma (color) planes reduced twice. So, that's normal. Anyway, almost all video services delivers chroma subsampled videos to the end users.

More about color in OBS (including tests charts for standard 8-bit videos) and some recommendations for lossless quality can be found in guides:
 
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