Pixelation and Compression Artifacts in Videos Exported and Uploaded to YouTube

[AllanY]

[All hardware and recording/export settings at bottom]

No matter what settings I seem to use, I always end up having pixelation and compression artifacts in videos I upload to YouTube. I post videos just to share with friends and even though it's just for fun, I'd prefer the videos to be as high quality as possible. I'm not sure if it's something wrong with my sequence settings or my export settings but the videos I'm importing to Premiere Pro do not have these issues.

I use OBS Studio to record at 144fps because I would like the YouTube videos to be buttery smooth. I used to record with Nvidia Shadowplay before and even though the recordings were crisp and I would export with VBR, 2 Pass (15 Mbps Target Bitrate, 20 Mbps Maximum Bitrate), the uploads would end up pixelated with compression artifacts.

Here is the latest recording with OBS Studio with all current settings:

Thanks for any guidance!

Hardware:
Intel i7-7700K
EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Gaming
16GB DDR4 3000MHz

Recording & Export Settings:

 

[R1CH]

If the videos look ok before you upload them, then this is a result of YouTube's re-compression and there isn't much you can do about that.

 

[AllanY]

If the videos look ok before you upload them, then this is a result of YouTube's re-compression and there isn't much you can do about that.

Man this is frustrating because I see how crisp people whose guides I’ve followed videos are.