Recording with x264 or NVENC?

[killabee]

Was wondering on what you guys think would be the best for quality when it comes to recording? I have an i9-9900K, 2080, 32gb RAM. I was thinking it might be better to record with my CPU to since it's more than enough to handle it and then my GPU can focus more on the game. I have not tried x264 recording much and have stuck with NVENC. I have not had too many issues with NVENC. The only issues I have ran into with NVENC so far is that in game I don't have performance issues but my recording seems choppy.

What you guys think of recording with these encoders with the specs I have?

 

[Deleted member 121471]

Turing NVENC has quality comparable to x264 Fast-Medium and negligible impact on FPS, unless you use a few of the new features introduced recently.

Post a logfile if you want more specific information.

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

obsproject.com

 

[killabee]

Turing NVENC has quality comparable to x264 Fast-Medium and negligible impact on FPS, unless you use a few of the new features introduced recently.

Post a logfile if you want more specific information.

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

obsproject.com

Here is the last log file I used when testing recording: https://obsproject.com/logs/TrANrSpEeJombGi-

 

[carlmmii]

There's hardly any lost frames shown in your logs for your nvenc recordings. If you're having issues with choppy playback, that means one of 2 things:
- your player isn't playing the video back properly (make sure you're using VLC -- the default Movies & TV app does not play back high framerate videos properly), or...
- OBS is not receiving frames in the right timing for capture

You are using multiple monitors at different refresh rates, which windows 10 has an issue with. The new 2004 windows update fixes this, so if you're already using VLC for playback, then this would be the next step -- force the 2004 update. Otherwise, you'll need to drop your refresh rate down to 60hz on all monitors, or try disconnecting your other monitors.

Past that, these are the other bits to ensure OBS has the best chance of minimizing rendering and encoding lag:
- run OBS as administrator
- do not use "rescale output" in the output tab if possible (this forces the old nvenc method) -- it is preferred to use the Output (scaled) resolution option in the Video tab, as this uses the GPU for scaling
- do not use Max Quality, Lookahead, or Psychovisual tuning. All 3 of these options utilize CUDA processing, which can result in poor performance when coupled with gaming.