Question / Help x264 vs AMD vs Intel

Manfrex

New Member
Hello ! Can anybody help me? I'm using x264 encoder to record local gameplays but I want to ask you guys what is the best option because now I have two other options:

- AMD Video Coding Engine
- Intel Quick Sync

Thanks in advance.
 

Harold

Active Member
For recording, you could use any of the three since you can throw enough bitrate at the encoders to make up the quality difference.

For streaming, x264 or go home.
 

Manfrex

New Member
Should I see an improvement in game if I use Intel instead of AMD? I play with my off board graphics card (AMD) and I have my onboard which is Intel. What you think?
 

Harold

Active Member
For performance impact, in your configuration quicksync will be easier on your system and have less effect on your gameplay.
 

Manfrex

New Member
Ok thank you so much! Can you help me adjust the settings? =P I recorded a few minutes and I got I bad quality, the video was pixelated.

dyoAnql



http://imgur.com/dyoAnql
 

Harold

Active Member
You're probably going to need to add a couple more zeroes to the end of the bitrate value for that.
 
I don't think using the AMD encoder will significantly impact your performance at all. Although I've only ever used NVENC so it might be different.

Now, if you want to just record locally you want to use CRF based rate control (no idea how Quick Sync calls it). Basically, if you use that the bitrate setting becomes the MAXIMUM bitrate, so you set it to something really high like 10000, then set the CRF (constant rate factor, meaning the desired quality) to some value around 20. Once again, I'm not sure how much control Quick Sync gives you over the rate factor.
 

Harold

Active Member
Youtube will reprocess anything you upload. 12000kbit is their target for a specific type of video at 1080p60.

Some content works better with higher (specifically high motion videogames) so you need to upload using higher.
 

Harold

Active Member
Record at whatever is necessary to give you your desired quality.
You can always run it through a program like handbrake later to recompress it in a better quality density using x264 presets that are more cpu intensive than your system can handle on live recording.
 

Manfrex

New Member
i've done many experiments and the best bitrate for quick sync and maximum quality at youtube is 25000 for 1080p60.
Thank you so much! I'll try those settings. Btw, do you know if intel quick sync quality is better or worst than x264? And for quick sync, you use CBR or VBR ?
 

Harold

Active Member
x264 will pretty much always have the best quality per bitrate out of ALL the encoders out there.
Including the encoder that sony vegas and adobe premiere use for h264 encoding, mainconcept.

The reason that the GPU encoders like AMD VCE, Intel QuickSync and Nvidia NVENC are recommended for recording is that when you're recording you have the resources available to throw enough bitrate at the problem to offset the quality difference.

For recording, you pretty much always use VBR, as that will optimize the filesize within the bitrate limits you've set.

With x264, you use the CRF-based bitrate selection to simply set a quality target (values in the 15-18 range are almost indistinguishable from lossless) instead of a peak bitrate value. This also allows your bitrate to scale properly from one resolution to the next without having to re-do the settings every time you change.

With other encoders, you simply use VBR and set the bitrate sufficiently above where the upper limit is likely to be to not be a problem for encoding and you'll be fine.
 
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