How to Turn on Prefer Hardware Encoding on Obs 2019

Virtually THIS GUIDE
The objective of this guide is to aid you lot understand how to use the NVIDIA encoder, NvEnc, in OBS. We have simplified some of the concepts to make this accessible to a wider audition. If you retrieve we can improve whatever role of this guide or notice any problems or mistakes, please post below and nosotros will exist happy to update it.

BITRATE, RESOLUTION AND FRAMERATE
Encoding is all most compressing images. The smaller the size of the image, the less we must compress information technology and the more than quality it keeps. While the same applies for framerate, a viewer tin really notice a driblet in FPS only not and so much in resolution, so nosotros will always try to stream at 60 FPS.

Showtime, run a speed test to determine your upload speed (eastward.g.

Speed Test

). We desire to utilize effectually 75% of your upload speed, as the game and other programs such as Discord volition besides fight for bandwidth.

So, we will make up one's mind the resolution and FPS that we can use for such bitrate. Most streaming sites have recommendations (

Twitch

, Mixer,

Youtube

) on what to use. These are ours:

* Important Note for High Motility Content. If you are going to stream high motion scenes (i.e. Racing games, some Battle Royale games, etc.) nosotros highly recommend reducing your resolution. High motion content cannot be compressed as much, and suffers from more artifacting (encoding errors). If you lot reduce the resolution, you reduce the data that has to be encoded, and the resulting viewer quality is higher. For example, for Fortnite, many streamers decide to stream at 1600x900 threescore FPS.

Note for New and Upcoming Streamers to Twitch. Transcoding allows a viewer to view your video on a unlike resolution, thus requiring a lower bandwidth. Twitch but offers guaranteed transcoding to Partners; non-partners may receive transcoding, merely it is not guaranteed. This is important if your viewers are on mobile phones or their internet speed is not as fast. Yous may want to consider streaming at a lower bitrate and resolution to lower the bandwidth required to see your channel.

Note for Streamers to Mixer. Mixer allows you to stream through the standard protocol (RTMP) or an improved 1 called Faster Than Light (FTL). FTL provides very low latency. However, when you use it Mixer recommends to limit your bitrate to 7 Mbps and not use B-Frames. You lot select this in the OBS settings > Stream, under service.

• If you want to get the most quality, use RTMP with up to 10 Mbps and B-Frames.
• If you desire the lowest possible latency, use FTL.

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS
These are our recommended settings for OBS Studio 23.0 and up. You'll want to test and adjust these settings using a private account where you can verify yous're happy with the results.

VIDEO TAB SETTINGS

• Base (Canvas) Resolution: Set the resolution you normally play at. That is, your desktop resolution (if y'all play in borderless way), or the game resolution y'all ordinarily enter (if you lot play in full screen).
• Output (Scaled) Resolution: Enter the resolution appropriate for your Upload Speed and Bitrate, every bit we discussed in the previous section.
• Downscale Filter: This allows y'all to select a downscale filter that will provide a small epitome sharpness enhancement, at the cost of some encoder workload. NvEnc is very efficient and typically runs at low utilization, and so we recommend using this with the Lanczos, 32 samples option for the best quality.
• FPS: Enter the FPS appropriate for your Upload Speed and Bitrate, as we discussed in the previous department.

OUTPUT TAB SETTINGS

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If you want an like shooting fish in a barrel, out of the box configuration, we suggest the post-obit:

• Output Mode: Unproblematic
• Streaming:
  • Bitrate: Enter the Bitrate appropriate for your Upload Speed, as we discussed in the previous section.
  • Encoder: Select Hardware (NVIDIA NVENC).
  • Enable Advanced Encoder Settings: Checked. This makes the next selection visible.
  • Encoder Preset: Max Quality. If y'all are streaming 4K resolution on an RTX twenty-Series, you volition want to reduce this to Quality, as the RTX cards already run image optimizations that previous generations do not.
• Recording:
  • Recording Path: This is the directory where the videos will be saved. Make certain the hard bulldoze you select has enough space!
  • Recording Quality: Loftier Quality typically works for near users, only you can modify this to Duplicate Quality if you have enough disk infinite or are going to do brusk videos (about 60 seconds).
  • Recording Format: FLV or MKV.
  • Encoder: Hardware (NVIDIA NVENC).

OTHER SETTINGS
At that place are 2 other things yous want to configure to ensure a smooth stream:

• Windows: Make certain you lot update to Windows ten version 1903, and enable Game Style. This version includes performance enhancements for streaming, as well every bit an updated Game Manner uniform with streaming.

• GPU Utilization: If your GPU utilization is higher up 95% Windows will start prioritizing the game over everything; this can, in some cases, make your stream lag. To solve this, OBS added an option in OBS 24.0.3 to prioritize OBS Studio over the Game. Just run OBS as Admin, and your stream will exist silky polish.

If for some reason you don't want to run OBS in Admin mode, you can likewise limit your GPU usage to be below the 95% threshold. To practice this, you can:

• cap FPS in-game, run the game in Borderless Windowed mode, reduce game graphics or resolution, or turn V-Sync on.
• Run all assets at 1080p. To practise that, double click on the source in OBS and under Resolution select Custom and specify a resolution equal or nether 1080p.

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And there y'all have information technology! We hope this helps y'all improve your stream quality and reach your goals. Leave usa a comment if this worked for you or if you'd like us to update the guide with other info. Happy streaming!

ADVANCED SETTINGS
If y'all want to mess around with all settings, hither are our in-depth recommendations.

Streaming Settings

• Output Mode: Advanced. This gives you access to all the settings. Let'south start!
• Encoder: Select NVIDIA NVENC H.264 (new).
• Enforce Streaming Service Encoder Settings: Leave this checked, this will ensure that if you enter a wrong value by error it gets corrected.
• Rate Command: Select CBR. This determines the charge per unit at which frames are going to be encoded.
• Bitrate: Enter the bitrate appropriate for your Upload Speed, equally we discussed in the previous department. Proceed in listen that some platforms have a maximum bitrate (i.e. for Twitch information technology'south currently 6000 Kbps, for Mixer it'south 10,000 Kbps).
• Keyframe Interval: Set to 2. Streaming platforms may limit what y'all can select here, and most require a setting of two.
• Preset: Select Max Quality. This determines how much load we put on the encoder to get more quality. NvEnc is incredibly efficient, so most users can select the maximum setting. If you get encoder overload issues, change this back to Quality. Max Quality and Quality differ in that Max Quality uses two-laissez passer encoding.
• Contour: Set to High. Profile determines a group of settings in the H.264 Codec. It doesn't touch on performance and gives access to a ready of features that are key to streaming, so this should always be set up to High.
• Await-ahead: Unchecked for most content, checked for low motion games. This allows the encoder to dynamically select the number of B-Frames, between 0 and the number of B-Frames y'all specify. B-frames are great because they increase image quality, just they consume a lot of your available bitrate, so they reduce quality on loftier motility content. Look-ahead enables the best of both worlds, merely struggles with high motion content every bit it needs to modify as well ofttimes. This feature is CUDA accelerated; toggle this off if your GPU utilization is high to ensure a shine stream.
• Psycho Visual Tuning: Checked. This enables the Charge per unit Distortion Optimization in the encoder, which greatly optimizes the mode you use bitrate, improving epitome quality on motility.
• GPU: 0. If you have 2 GPUs in your system, y'all can select which one is used to encode. This is not recommended, as NvEnc is already very efficient and the petty gain you can get from using a second card is lost past having to re-create the frame to the second GPU.
• Max B-Frames: Set to ii. For low motion content (i.e. hazard games such as Tomb Raider) you can increase this to 4. B-Frames increment epitome quality but consume bitrate, which decreases image quality on movement. If you lot see pixelation or artifacting on your stream yous may want to reduce this.
  • Note: If y'all stream to Mixer using FTL, information technology is recommended to plow B-Frames off. Mixer relies on WebRTC to playback FTL streams; near spider web clients cannot handle B-Frames, then Mixer recommends using 0 B-Frames with FTL.

Recording Settings

• Type: Standard.
• Recording Path: This is the directory where the videos will be saved. Brand sure the hard drive you select has enough space!
• Recording Format: FLV; or MKV if y'all utilise multiple sound tracks.
• Sound Runway: Leave it at 1 for default; you can add together more than audio tracks if yous are using more sources.
• Encoder: NVIDIA NVENC H.264 (new).
• Rate Control: We recommend CQ, although VBR with high bitrates will besides produce good results but with larger file sizes.
• CQ Level (CQ): fifteen for CQ (or less if you want college quality).
• Bitrate and Max Bitrate (VBR): twoscore,000 Bitrate; 60,000 Max bitrate. You can increase these to 100,000 and 200,000 (respectively) for higher quality.
• Keyframe Interval: 0 or two.
• Preset: Select Max Quality. If you get encoder overload bug, modify this back to Quality.
• Contour: Fix to High.
• Look-ahead: Checked.
• Psycho Visual Tuning: Checked.
• GPU: 0. If you have 2 GPUs in your arrangement, you can select which one is used to encode.
• Max B-Frames: Set to two. For low motility content (i.east. adventure games like Assassin's Creed) you tin increase this to 4.

ABOUT NVENC

NvEnc

is NVIDIA'due south encoder. It'due south a physical section of our GPUs that is dedicated to encoding only. This means that your GPU can operate normally regardless of whether you use this region to stream or record. Other encoders, such as x264, employ your CPU to encode, which takes resource away from other programs such every bit your game. That's why using NvEnc allows you to play games at a higher framerate and avoid stuttering, giving you and your viewers a better experience.

In the last 2 GPU generations we accept made great improvements to NvEnc, helping evangelize best-in-class output quality. NvEnc in the GTX 10-series GPUs provides superior quality than x264 Very Fast, the near usually used x264 preset. And in the new RTX twenty-series, NvEnc performs improve than x264 Fast and on par with x264 Medium, a preset that requires an expensive dual PC setup.

I affair that is corking about NvEnc on the RTX xx-series is that all GPUs have the same NvEnc with the same performance and quality, from the RTX 2060 to the RTX 2080 Ti. NvEnc as well benefits from our own

NVIDIA Video Codec SDK

, an advanced ready of tools that help improve the encoded quality and that we constantly update to assistance you get the best out of your NVIDIA card.

Finally, if you are using an NVIDIA GPU you take access to

GeForce Experience

'southward Game Filters, which let you to further meliorate the image quality of your viewers via software by enhancing color, adding sharpness, or introducing cool effects.

Nigh THE GEFORCE-OPTIMIZED NEW VERSION OF OBS STUDIO
We have collaborated with OBS to improve support for NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. The new OBS Studio, version 23.0, volition leverage the

NVIDIA Video Codec SDK

, which volition greatly improve performance and reduce the FPS impact of streaming and recording. We have also tweaked some of the background settings of NvEnc to amend quality, especially for the RTX 20-Series GPUs.

HOW TO DEBUG Problems
Streaming can be very complicated, only it'due south especially hard to debug. In that location are many things at play when you stream, and so we are going to attempt to provide you some aid on how to identify what is going incorrect and how to fix it.

Components

• Streaming uses the following components:
• Your PC: This includes hardware and software.
• Local Internet: WiFi or cabled net + your Router.
• Your connection: To your service provider.
• The platform: Twitch, Mixer, Youtube, etc.
• Viewer'due south Net: Typically Wi-Fi, but tin can also be 3G/4G.
• Viewer's device: proceed in mind 35% of Twitch viewers are on mobile.

If something is declining, nosotros desire to kickoff identify what component may be failing, so we don't go crazy trying to prepare something that was never broken in the kickoff place. Typically, this means that the first test you should practice is a Speed Exam to brand sure that y'all don't take internet problems in your local internet or your connection. 2d, make sure the platform hasn't issued an alert that they are downward or are experiencing problems. Then based on what mistake you get, you get-go looking at one thing or another in your PC.

How to check what's happening to the encode
OBS Studio includes a very useful tool: the Stats Window. To bring it upward, click on View > Stats. This window will show you Lagged and Skipped frames, Dropped frames, and Encode FPS.

This window will show you:

• FPS at which you are encoding.
• Latency to encode each frame.
• Missed Frames - problems with GPU.
• Skipped Frames - problems with CPU.
• Dropped Frames - problems with network.

Mutual Error Types

Stream is missing FPS

. The stats window will show missed frames. While streaming and missing frames, pull upward the Chore Manager > Performance, Click on GPU and cheque the 3D load and Encoder load.

Solutions:

• If the 3D load is to a higher place 95%, especially at 1440p or 4K setups, Windows may be prioritizing the Game over OBS. To set this, we take a special mode inserted on OBS 24.0.3 where you can prioritize OBS above the Game. Just run OBS in Game Mode.
• If the Video Encode load is maxed out, we need to lower the load. NVENC can do upward to 8K30, then the just style to overload information technology is to do 2x4K60 streams. If you lot are encoding 4K60, make certain that your quality setting in OBS is set to Quality, not Max Quality. Max Quality does 2 pass encoding (i.e. encodes twice), which is too much for the encoder.

Paradigm looks very washed out. The well-nigh likely issue is trying to push too much quality with not enough bitrate. Consider reducing the resolution, and frame rate (if needed), and endeavour again. If quality improves, and so adjust until you find your sweetness spot.