Question / Help x264 or Nvidia NVENC - HELP PLEASE

[RonanN1]

Hello!

First let me just say that I'M SORRY if this subject has been discussed on the forum but I've searched and I did not find something relevant and second i'm sorry for my bad english.

Oki, here is the deal:

I stream 99% of the time console games (right now I'm streaming TITAN FALL | XBOX ONE) and I'm using my PC. Yes I know that a few days ago there was an update and now you can stream via XBOX ONE but, at the moment, I don't like it because of the lack of customisations. Now my question is: Which of these (x264 & Nvidia NVENC) is better for streaming consoles aka streaming using video capture device? I used (for 24 hours) Nvidia NVENC and it's working great but I still wanna know which is better. I know that x264 is using CPU and Nvidia NVENC uses GPU, right? That's all I know.

Here are some of my specs:

Internet Test (I'm from Romania but I connect to a Germany Frankfurt server so the speed test it's from Romania to Germany):



PC specs: http://valid.canardpc.com/uikrf0

Video Card specs: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/4hphz/

Capture Card specs: http://avertv.avermedia.com/Product/Pro ... b=APDriver

OBS SETTINGS x264: http://pho.to/4uvjc

OBS SETTINGS Nvidia NVENC: http://pho.to/4uwBi

Thank you! :)

 

[Sapiens]

x264 is always the better option as long as your CPU is up to the task.

 

[RonanN1]

I understand but when I use x264 my viewers, sometimes, get buffering video loading screen. Is that from the CPU or it has nothing to do with it?

 

[Sapiens]

Buffering means your viewers aren't able to get the stream data from Twitch as fast as you're sending it out. It has nothing to do with the encoder you use.

 

[Blauwhelmpje]

Sorry for threaddigging but from what x264 preset is it better than the high quality option with the NVENC encoding? Because I don't think "fast" is gonna give better quality video than NVENC's high quality...

Because my laptop has a good gpu(680m) but "only an i7 3610qm.. As soon as I take faster or fast(not quite sure anymore), the cpu will get to 75-80% (720p@60fps) and even the preview window will choke/lag..(I only stream console gameplay through a capturing device as well when streaming from laptop.... I find it odd that it chokes/lags if the cpu is only used for max 80%.. anything I should know? Or is x264 encoding 'usage percentage' of the cpu not 1:1 with the total percentage?

Another question: My gaming pc has a gtx 780 but cannot seem to choose nvenc. Always gives me something about encoding initalisation failed... Does it not support it? Because that's a kepler gpu right? It has the latest drivers.

 

[rangerrambo]

It is not about quality, it is about how well can you pack the data together at a specific quality. With x264 you will get more bang for the buck at let say 2000kbit than NVENC or Quicksync, since they are based on H264, which encodes a bit less compactly.

But ya this is speaking when you have to CPU to encode it,

 

[Sapiens]

@Blauwhelmpje in the future please just make a new thread instead of apologizing for necroing one that's 6 months old. :)

Using the fast preset will absolutely yield better quality than NVENC at any setting. Your CPU may choke at 80% because hyperthreading isn't the same as having actual CPU cores to do the work. 4 cores with hyperthreading appear as 8 cores (4 physical, 8 logical) in Windows, and while the extra logical cores certainly help with encoding performance, that doesn't mean they will perform the same as physical cores.

Regarding the failed NVENC initialization, make sure OBS is configured to run on your NVIDIA GPU and not the integrated one. Refer to https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/laptop-black-screen-when-capturing-read-here-first.5965/

 

[MikBe]

x264 is always the better option as long as your CPU is up to the task.

An update to this thread:

For me this used to be true, the Nvidia encoder looked terrible and was slower, however, lately, I've found the Nvidia encoder does a much better job of avoiding capture stutter. In fact the x264 encoder is literally useless as it induces stream killing stutter.

This is not with a wimpy computer either, I have a watercooled i7 5960x overclocked to 4.2GHz (an 8-core beast of a CPU), 64GB of RAM, an X99 workstation motherboard (Asus X99-E WS USB 3.1), I'm running my games off a 3TB RAID0 using 3 1TB Samsung 850 EVOs (not the boot drive), and I've got two GTX 1080s (I turn off SLI since OBS has issues with it). This computer should have no issues with software rendering using x264 but I find many games get massive capture stutter unless I switch to the Nvidia encoder.

Note that I'm using game capture from a 3440x1440 monitor (again, game capture, not monitor capture) so your milage may vary: try each one and see which works better for you. For me it's unquestionably the NVENC setting in both OBS Classic and OBS Studio.

 

[Boildown]

1) This is a two-year old thread that you just bumped. I don't think the OP is still waiting for a response.
2) If x264 is "stuttering", then you're using too high settings. This can happen with NVEnc too. Reduce the settings until your duplicated frames drop below 1% and you should no longer notice any stuttering.

 

[minionmerch]

1) This is a two-year old thread that you just bumped. I don't think the OP is still waiting for a response.
2) If x264 is "stuttering", then you're using too high settings. This can happen with NVEnc too. Reduce the settings until your duplicated frames drop below 1% and you should no longer notice any stuttering.

what do you mean by reduce settings, i am having problems with x264 stuttering n want to try using nvenc. (my hardware is good so it shouldnt be suttering and my in game fps dosnt drop) im talking about in game stuttering, could you help?

 

[Tawm]

what do you mean by reduce settings, i am having problems with x264 stuttering n want to try using nvenc. (my hardware is good so it shouldnt be suttering and my in game fps dosnt drop) im talking about in game stuttering, could you help?

Hey minionmerch, I've been doing some reseraching lately for my own purposes. Boildown means that you need to either use a faster preset for x264 or use a lower bitrate CBR or use a higher CRF, whichever you're using.
Your game could be stuttering because of your CPU being pegged at 100% while playing the game and encoding with x264, and maintaining all your other processes currently running on your computer.
Open your Windows Task Manager and keep an eye on the Performance tab while playing the game and recording (as in just alt-tab out and look at the graph for CPU usage).

You can certainly use hardware encoding if you choose, but from what I've read, x264 software encoding will produce a nicer image than H264 hardware encoding. I don't really understand why that would be the case, but I'm still learning about this stuff.

Hope that helped. If you've come across anything else, or perhaps a solution for your question, let me know!