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Zagubadu?

Recording/Streaming Anyone can!

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[DISCLAIMER]

This is not a guide on how to stream/setup your recording this is simply information for those who perhaps have already started and are maybe running into issues, I will however answer any questions anyone might have but bare with me I am by no means an expert.

 

I see tons of people nowadays getting into streaming/recording when playing PC games. Whether you want the footage for your own personal viewing or your aspiring to be a streamer/youtuber its basically never been easier to record your game play.

 

Really the thing I want to talk about is you don't need a powerful insane gaming rig to get yourself going.

When streaming/recording in programs like OBS most people use software encoding, which relies heavily on your CPU to work properly. 

 

But what about us noobs with not so great PCs? For most of you your probably packing an I7 and a beast graphics card to go with it. I am by no means saying for those people to not use software encoding as its superior to hardware in every possible way. And unless your streaming something like Hearthstone (basically 2D) or a MOBA like DOTA2/League of Legends in which case your probably fine. More demanding titles that most PCs could run just fine usually can't stream at the same time without hiccups.

 

But if your computer is struggling with gaming while your encoding your PC might just not be cut out for recording with your CPU.

 

Which brings us to hardware encoding. If you want to stream/record a game while still getting good in-game performance. Use your GPU to do all the work instead. It requires much higher bitrate to get even close to what you would get with software encoding, and even then it won't be anywhere close. I must say though I am quite impressed with the quality you are able to get out of it. And when the performance impact overall is essentially null its a huge advantage.

 

Just remember if your trying to record any fast-pace action game that isn't a MOBA/RTS your upload speed must be able to at least output 6000+bps I'd recommend or its simply not worth it.

 

 

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1 hour ago, yordan said:

Sorry being a newbie concerning that subject, but... What is the goal for this ? Is this for showing what you are doing while plaing a game on your PC ?

Essentially yes.

Its for streaming to services like Twitch or just locally recording video if you have a gaming channel on youtube or something.

 

Honestly if your not familiar with encoding software like OBS or Xsplit this whole post isn't going to make much sense.

 

Basically the normal optimal way for recording gameplay on your PC is to use software encoding that heavily utilizes your CPU but if your gaming rig is a few years old or you spent like 500 bucks on it ( Like I did hehe ) this isn't really an option for us. Either the quality will look horrible or if you can get the quality to look good enough your in-game performance (FPS) will suffer and then whats even the point?

 

So for whatever reasons ( I really don't understand the technical aspects of it) using the GPU to encode instead is overall much less taxing on your machine. But again quality will suffer and if  your PC is powerful enough its better not to bother with hardware encoding. 

 

 

Edited by Zagubadu? (see edit history)

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19 minutes ago, Zagubadu? said:

I really don't understand the technical aspects of i

I guess that the technical reason is that directly using the GPU avoids the overhead of using the CPU power for accessing the gpu and coming back to the cpu for encoding the session. However, I guess that this approach is not valid if your game is fully using the GPU potentials. T_T

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35 minutes ago, yordan said:

I guess that the technical reason is that directly using the GPU avoids the overhead of using the CPU power for accessing the gpu and coming back to the cpu for encoding the session. However, I guess that this approach is not valid if your game is fully using the GPU potentials. T_T

Yea its really only a niche thing for people on budget builds. Anyone with a stronger CPU would be silly to try hardware encoding. I literally can't get the performance out of software encoding that I could with hardware because I'm using a random AMD quad core. 

 

Most games nowadays are so CPU heavy so I really couldn't use my CPU and game anything more powerful than like a MOBA without major frame drops. While hardware encoding with my GPU is the same performance if I were streaming or not.

 

I don't know if all cards are like this though. But Nvidia cards encode pretty damn well.

 

I swear I look at some peoples streams and I'm getting better bitrate/overall stream quality than they get on their setups. Mostly because I believe their PCs aren't powerful enough to really make use of software encoding. To much power is being eaten up by the game itself. But if your limited on bandwidth CPU encoding is still extremely superior I have to push like 7000 bitrate to get the same quality another could get through software encoding with half that.

 

I'm still pretty happy with the quality that's possible lots of information out there on hardware encoding is that its completely useless. :huh: But I've had great results.

Edited by Zagubadu? (see edit history)

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12 minutes ago, Zagubadu? said:

I literally can't get the performance out of software encoding that I could with hardware because I'm using a random AMD quad core. 

Really ? with a quad core ?

How is your cpu usage while encoding ? (Alt-Ctrl-Del :) ) Is each cpu used  100% ? I would guess that poor performance means that a single cpu is used by the encoding program and the second one is used for displaying graphics, and the remaining two are idle.

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My real problem is how CPU hungry some of the games I play are. I could get away with software encoding on maybe two of the titles I'd play (Hearthstone or LoL) my CPU simply isn't powerful enough to run a game like Arma 3 while encoding.

 

I know its surprising because its not like my CPU is trash but it has aged I'll say. Really it just seems like video games nowadays rely less and less on your GPU and more and more on CPU.

 

I should probably point out I don't play any single player games really and it does seem like multiplayer games are extremely CPU hungry although I have no idea why. I can barely run PUBG a multiplayer Battle Royal game. But then any random AAA title game like the newest Call of Duty or Battlefield I could probably run on all high settings with great FPS.

 

And Battlefield / CoD titles look so much better than PUBG making it even more confusing.

 

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