Improving recording with shadowplay

uncle_rufus said:
I think in Handbrake you want to be setting it to whatever your FPS was in Shadowplay (so probably 30 or 60)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind, though I've never had a problem before with handbrake in this regard. The second attempt failed, too. I have heard that Premiere Pro has an audio bug (no software is perfect as we know).


uncle_rufus said:
and then set the quality thing (RF?) all the way to zero (i.e. don't affect the quality in any way)
Click to expand...

Unless I'm much mistaken, that would cause the file to take an age to complete; something as low as the mid teens should be more than ample. These are the settings I've been using recently, which differ a little from what I used to employ (e.g. two pass encoding) :

34y5mqq.png



Edit : I'll have to try that fps tip you gave for the next time, as another piece of software sorted it out.
 
Last edited:
It shouldn't take too long to re-encode - the problem with not setting 0 RF is that every time you re-encode the video (with compression) you are losing a little bit more quality... currently you have:

Shadowplay encoding it as H.264
Handbrake re-encoding it as H.264 (and compressing it again unless RF is 0)
Your editing program re-encoding it (probably as H.264 again)
And eventually YouTube re-encoding it (using some magic YouTube encoder)

The first step you can't really help (unless you drop Shadowplay for something which doesn't compress it)... the third step also because if you need to make cuts or do editing there's no other way... and the fourth step because we are all slaves to our YouTube overlords...

But that second step is avoidable - "Constant Framerate" "60" or "30" and "Constant Quality" with RF "0". (Of course it's up to you but just trying to pass on my findings from when I was using ShadowPlay)
 
uncle_rufus said:
It shouldn't take too long to re-encode - the problem with not setting 0 RF is that every time you re-encode the video (with compression) you are losing a little bit more quality... currently you have:

Shadowplay encoding it as H.264
Handbrake re-encoding it as H.264 (and compressing it again unless RF is 0)
Your editing program re-encoding it (probably as H.264 again)
And eventually YouTube re-encoding it (using some magic YouTube encoder)

The first step you can't really help (unless you drop Shadowplay for something which doesn't compress it)... the third step also because if you need to make cuts or do editing there's no other way... and the fourth step because we are all slaves to our YouTube overlords...

But that second step is avoidable - "Constant Framerate" "60" or "30" and "Constant Quality" with RF "0". (Of course it's up to you but just trying to pass on my findings from when I was using ShadowPlay)
Click to expand...

I'll have to experiment. Cheers for the insight. :)

Edit : well, interesting results. I set the RF to 0, and surprisingly it didn't take as long as I expected : 3 - 4 hrs. Though, this is still too long to be practical; (obviously having it set to 'medium' and only one pass helped considerably). However, the quality is corrupted - which reminds me of how the uncompressed raw footage (Stalker) turned out.
 
Last edited:
arc@css said:
interesting results. I set the RF to 0, and surprisingly it didn't take as long as I expected : 3 - 4 hrs. Though, this is still too long to be practical; (obviously having it set to 'medium' and only one pass helped considerably). However, the quality is corrupted - which reminds me of how the uncompressed raw footage (Stalker) turned out.
Click to expand...

Well firstly sorry for the wasted time :( but it seems surprising... When you say corrupted how do you mean? Like pixelated artifacting on the image? Also when you say "uncompressed raw footage" what do you mean - the output from something more like fraps/dxtory?
 
sadly in gaming videos the more you tend to swear and shout you tend to get more views. so lambs just scream and rant to be part of the norm.
 
uncle_rufus said:
Well firstly sorry for the wasted time :( but it seems surprising... When you say corrupted how do you mean? Like pixelated artifacting on the image? Also when you say "uncompressed raw footage" what do you mean - the output from something more like fraps/dxtory?
Click to expand...

There's no need to apologize. It's my error, not yours. :)

I tell you what, I'll upload the file and show you what I mean (I have a fast upload speed so its no bother). Edit : Just realized I deleted it. FML! :o I'll re-encode it, then upload it.

20shlkh.png




I may even take some brief Stalker footage again like before with different software for comparison. I shouldn't have deleted it, but one minute recordings will take no time. :)
 
Last edited:
Browsers can even mess with stuff like brightness, seen that firefox can make vids much darker where others are fine for games with night gameplay. Youtube will mess some stuff up as well.

Upscale your vids, it will ultimately look better because of bitrate limits at 1080p compared to say a 1080p vid but encoded as 1440p. Used to do it, don't need to now since I play @ 1440.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
sadly in gaming videos the more you tend to swear and shout you tend to get more views. so lambs just scream and rant to be part of the norm.
Click to expand...

This is very true - I don't know what's more depressing - how 90% of channels can instantly be recognised as desperate and obvious imitators, or the fact that it sometimes seems to be effective...

Incidentally - I was looking to try and see if there's much of a "OcUK youtube channels" community but other than one neglected thread from quite a few years ago it seems like maybe there isn't... Also I can't decide if this is a good place to try and promote a channel or not (really deeply dislike aggressive spamming + promotion, but also at a bit of a loss where/how else to grow the channel)
 
arc@css said:
Anyone?
Click to expand...

I never tried ShadowPlay with DSR active but if I had to guess I'd say it will still result in a 1080p video, however it may look a little more crisp (in the same way that in-game it is still ultimately showing you a 1080p image, it's just downscaled)

~>Dg<~ said:
just link in sig . thats not spammy if people want to look they will.
Click to expand...

Good thinking! I've done just that :p
 
uncle_rufus said:
Decent comparison - What are your conclusions from the above?
Click to expand...

Thanks. Well, unsurprisingly, the larger the file size the better the quality. Though, of course YouTube compression certainly doesn't help. :)


ShadowPlay : v.good performance; v.small file size; reasonable quality.

Fraps : good performance; v.large file size; reasonable+ quality, but not as good as I expected.

Afterburner : good performance; v.large file size; quite good quality. Quite a decent free alternative to ShadowPlay if you don't have an Nvidia card.

Dxtory : poor performance (not configured yet to be fair/ test is about quality); v.large file size; v.good quality - similar contrasts and vibrance to Fraps, Afterburner & ShadowPlay.

Mirillis : good performance; quite large size but considerably less than most of the others; v.good quality, though a fair drop in vibrance.


All in all : most disappointed with Fraps; such a large file size yet not 'that' good a quality over ShadowPlay. Favourite overall was Mirillis, with (currently) ShadowPlay being my second choice. Once Dxtory gets tweaked, things may change.
 
Last edited:
if you record it at 30 fps you probably wont get any blockyness . if you look at the stalker vid ;)

sometimes 30 works out better.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
if you record it at 30 fps you probably wont get any blockyness . if you look at the stalker vid ;)

sometimes 30 works out better.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that about 30fps. I'll have to try it out, though having said that I did do a Clear Sky playthrough (30fps) on my channel & that looks worse (poorer recording technique / less experienced / performance problems). Plenty, plenty of blocky visuals there. :)

I tend to use Stalker as a comparison because I find it to be one that highlights the blocky graphics the most. Mirillis looked the best, imo. And the lack of vibrance could soon be remedied with sweetfx.


I'm not sure I've done DSR correctly :

 
Last edited:
arc@css said:
Thanks. Well, unsurprisingly, the larger the file size the better the quality. Though, of course YouTube compression certainly doesn't help. :)

... snip ...

Once Dxtory gets tweaked, things may change.
Click to expand...

Definitely give it a try with the non-default codec. The default codec produces really big files and performs terribly - something like Lagarith Losselss YUV12 is a lot better - there's also some good multithreading options and stuff you can turn on which help further.

Be aware too that especially for the "big file size" cases you hard-drive will make a big difference to performance (if it can't write fast enough to the drive you end up with choppy performance, or video, or both) - the formats which write compressed like ShadowPlay don't have as much of a problem with the disk

~>Dg<~ said:
if you record it at 30 fps you probably wont get any blockyness . if you look at the stalker vid ;)

sometimes 30 works out better.
Click to expand...

Source for this? I can think of a lot of reasons why 30 can be better sometimes (smaller filesize for the same duration... less impact on system resources...) but why would it have any effect on compression artifacts? (This isn't me being a smart-ass I honestly don't know!)
 
no source just try it at 30 fps then try at 60 fps see if it looks less blocky or better.

some gameplay looks better at 30 fps than 60. just experiment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom