Streaming/Recording in the Lizard Lab: x264 vs NVENC - Darksiders Warmastered Edition
5Can you see a difference?
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Both streams recorded in 720p 60fps to flv, converted to mp4 using ffmpeg, and put side by side + synched up in adobe premier
NVENC Settings (OBS) -- GTX1080 Strix 8GB
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 5700
Keyframe Interval = auto
Preset: High Quality
Profile: High
Level: auto
Use Two Pass Encoding
B-Frames: 4
x264 Settings (OBS) -- i7 4790k
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 5700
Keyframe Interval: 2
CPU Usage Preset: veryfast
Profile: High
Tune: Animation
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EXTRA FILE INFO:
Nvenc resulting filesize for .flv= 111MB for 2:38 minutes of footage
x264 resulting filesize for .flv = 111 MB for 2:39 minutes of footage
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Notes: Probably should have set the keyframes for NVENC to 2 instead of auto to simulate proper Twitch settings, but the difference in quality + filesize should be negligible.
The results I find are that the quality AND the filesizes for this game are approximately equal. Darksiders Warmastered Edition should be considered a difficult game to encode in the darker areas of the game, such as the one chosen here, because it has such fast paced motion, high contrasting colors, high-definition textures, and flashy colors + effects. This footage shows that these settings may be ideal for NVENC.
However there is a noticeable difference in the "flickering" of the vignette filter on the screen borders for NVENC. Going to have to see why this happening.