Recently I have been getting back into recording my gameplay on my PS5 now that the 4K60 Pro Mk.2 supports VRR passthrough. The thing that has always bugged me about this capture card, or more specifically the included capture software, is the limitation on the bitrate. Now I have noticed that while recording through Elgato's 4k capture utility that my GPU isn't being fully utilized even in intense scenes. So, I have been trying to use OBS to record instead.
For the most part I have the settings I like and that work well nailed down but I have been noticing an issue anytime I try to record a game that supports VRR and is having VRR passed through to my TV by the capture card. The problem is that the same settings that were working fine before no longer perform smoothly with the VRR games. Additionally I noticed that when turning down or off the film grain setting in the game would result in over 50% reduction in frame drops while encoding, without touching anything in OBS.
At the time of writing this I am currently at work and do not have easy access to my computer at home. That said I do know the settings used for each test that I did, and know that the results of the tests that I did are fairly easily repeatable, at least by me. In the mean time here are my PC's specs and the recording settings used.
MB:ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X
*RAM: 32GB 3200MHz
GPU: RTX 3070
**Storage: 500GB Crucial nvme, 2x Samsung SATA SSD's in RAID 0
*I don't remember the brand of the ram sticks off the top of my head.
**storage mediums included are those used during testing. Neither had any difference in performance or stability. Boot drive is not shown.
Working encoding settings for non-VRR games
NVenc HEVC
Variable bitrate - avg: 150000kbps; max: 250000kbps
keyframe interval - 4s
Preset 5
High Quality
Single
Look Ahead enabled
Max B-Frames - 4
Some extra things that I noticed while doing my testing is that my encoding performance and dropped frames either lessens or goes away completely when turning off the preview. For non VRR games, turning off the preview ensures that don't drop any frames. Games with VRR, turning off the preview only lessens the amount of dropped frames but does not completely eliminate the issue with dropped frames still lasting .5 to 1 seconds.
I don't know if there is a system setting that I am missing or if there is a parameter in my encoding settings that I could change to increase performance and remove frame drops without sacrificing video quality. Any help is appreciated.
For the most part I have the settings I like and that work well nailed down but I have been noticing an issue anytime I try to record a game that supports VRR and is having VRR passed through to my TV by the capture card. The problem is that the same settings that were working fine before no longer perform smoothly with the VRR games. Additionally I noticed that when turning down or off the film grain setting in the game would result in over 50% reduction in frame drops while encoding, without touching anything in OBS.
At the time of writing this I am currently at work and do not have easy access to my computer at home. That said I do know the settings used for each test that I did, and know that the results of the tests that I did are fairly easily repeatable, at least by me. In the mean time here are my PC's specs and the recording settings used.
MB:ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X
*RAM: 32GB 3200MHz
GPU: RTX 3070
**Storage: 500GB Crucial nvme, 2x Samsung SATA SSD's in RAID 0
*I don't remember the brand of the ram sticks off the top of my head.
**storage mediums included are those used during testing. Neither had any difference in performance or stability. Boot drive is not shown.
Working encoding settings for non-VRR games
NVenc HEVC
Variable bitrate - avg: 150000kbps; max: 250000kbps
keyframe interval - 4s
Preset 5
High Quality
Single
Look Ahead enabled
Max B-Frames - 4
Some extra things that I noticed while doing my testing is that my encoding performance and dropped frames either lessens or goes away completely when turning off the preview. For non VRR games, turning off the preview ensures that don't drop any frames. Games with VRR, turning off the preview only lessens the amount of dropped frames but does not completely eliminate the issue with dropped frames still lasting .5 to 1 seconds.
I don't know if there is a system setting that I am missing or if there is a parameter in my encoding settings that I could change to increase performance and remove frame drops without sacrificing video quality. Any help is appreciated.