I don't remember what sparked this, but I got the urge to research better Recording Settings for OBS on my device.
In all the videos recorded before now, I used x264 algorithm, which is CPU-based. Sometimes, I re-encoded some videos with GPU-based encoding, but that's something I used to do after the recording... Usually using FFMPEG's HEVC_VAAPI encoding:
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I didn't know how to utilize my hardware encoding with OBS. I didn't give it much thought before, to be honest.
Using hardware encoding turned out to be simple: Just Switch 'Output' settings in OBS to Advanced Mode. That unlocked the Hardware HEVC and AV1 encoding options. I tried AV1, but the recording slows down and crashes in a few seconds. My Steam Deck isn't powerful enough for AV1 encoding...
So I tested for HEVC_VAAPI, and after recording hours worth of footage in various quality settings, in VBR and CQP, I finally found a setting I'm comfortable with. HEVC_VAAPI in CQP Mode with QP at 27. That gives me the best Size Quality ratio for now.
I'd like to switch to QP at 25 or even 23 for better quality in the future, but I'll need bigger storage first, and I mean BIGGER storage! Even my External HDD is almost full right now. Oh, well...
One thing that bothered me in all of my Gameplay Videos that I uploaded to Youtube before, is how blurry they look compared to the original captured footage. I don't think I can influence the Youtube side, but even on my machine, the video version looks worse than my screen during the gameplay.
I could increase the video quality, but it's not practical for my limited storage...
So, I experimented with OBS Filters a bit, and I'm impressed at how much the footage improves just by adding slight Sharpness Filter, and Color Correction!
Here are my current settings, I'm still working on refining them, though. Tell me if you want to know if I settled on something later...
- Sharpness: 0.08
- Gamma: 0.02
- Contrast: 0.04
- Saturation: 0.08
Here are screenshots of my Filters screen below, though I changed it since I took them:
That's all for today. I just reached a stable settings so I'll refrain from further refining for now... I'm happy to answer your questions about the set-up and how I reached my conclusions!
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Thanks for Reading~