Using NVENC for streaming..why does no one use it?

[imaheadcase]

So nvidia cards for awhile now let you do the video encoding, i noticed popular software for streaming lets you use it. But its not very popular with people. Anyone know the reason?

I tried it out on twitch, other than using very little more bandwidth, it seemed to work great.
Most tests i see show it doing a lot better than Quicksync or x.264.
Is it just because its tied to nvidia cards or something?

 

[TheRyuu]

So nvidia cards for awhile now let you do the video encoding, i noticed popular software for streaming lets you use it. But its not very popular with people. Anyone know the reason?

I tried it out on twitch, other than using very little more bandwidth, it seemed to work great.
Most tests i see show it doing a lot better than Quicksync or x.264.
Is it just because its tied to nvidia cards or something?

Because it's terrible. The quality is far worse at streaming bitrates than either quicksync or x264. You should really only consider using it if your CPU is so terrible that x264 with extremely fast settings still won't work. It may have limited use in local capture where you can crank the bitrate up extremely high to compensate for how terrible it is but even then, if quicksync is an option I would consider using that if you want reduced CPU overhead as it should be far better than NVENC.

 

[imaheadcase]

Mmm not what i've noticed. Quality seems the same as the others.

 

[Techhog]

Mmm not what i've noticed. Quality seems the same as the others.

You must have vision issues, then. It's like somebody took your video, put it behind one of those prison windows, and then smeared vaseline all over the window. 2000kbps looks more like 500, and that might be generous.

 

[SPBHM]

because normally people have low upload speed, so CPU encoding is the only way, it gives far better quality for the bitrate.

all the AMD, Intel and Nvidia accelerated stuff produces a clearly inferior result.

 

[Techhog]

because normally people have low upload speed, so CPU encoding is the only way, it gives far better quality for the bitrate.

all the AMD, Intel and Nvidia accelerated stuff produces a clearly inferior result.

The issue is more that people want to have a stream that can actually be watched by most people than it is that upload speeds are low, at least in my case.

 

[Zodiark1593]

As with most hardware streaming solutions, image quality at a bitrate you can feasibly upload is pretty terrible.

It's a decent enough solution if you're just doing gameplay videos as you can do 50 mbps at pretty good quality and compress down via x264 to something like 1.2-2 mbps without it looking terrible. Unless your cpu is too weak otherwise though, better to stick with software solutions due to quality and reliability (as in, a driver update won't break it suddenly).

 

[SPBHM]

The issue is more that people want to have a stream that can actually be watched by most people than it is that upload speeds are low, at least in my case.

true, basically if you are using twitch is good to stream at a low bitrate because you can help more people avoid using the twitch transcoded video (terrible quality) if you have those, and if you don't you allow more people to watch you, but I as I said, I think most people streaming still have low upload speeds compared to for example in-house streaming stuff which makes sense to use accelerated encoding, also if you are not a partner I think the limit is around 3Mb/s or something anyway (and 3Mb is actually to high for most people watching, so if you don't have twitch transcoding, running your stream at a high bitrate is probably a very bad idea if you want more people watching, I think around 1-1.5Mb/s is ideal for non partners, and it's where the CPU encoding will probably show a big advantage)

 

[imaheadcase]

Side by side it looks exactly the same. Where are you getting info from? The only "issue" is it uses more bandwidth.

So yah i get the low upload speed can't use it, maybe that is why. But for pure visual i streamed both, looked at videos and looks fine.

That is why I asked, because its almost a %40 CPU savings when I stream games vs .264, plus looks the same..even though I put bitrate 1000 more.

 

[TheRyuu]

Side by side it looks exactly the same.

What about when moving around (or doing anything with motion). It's the rate control which always seems to go to shit the fastest with nvenc and is the most noticeable.

 

[Techhog]

true, basically if you are using twitch is good to stream at a low bitrate because you can help more people avoid using the twitch transcoded video (terrible quality) if you have those, and if you don't you allow more people to watch you, but I as I said, I think most people streaming still have low upload speeds compared to for example in-house streaming stuff which makes sense to use accelerated encoding, also if you are not a partner I think the limit is around 3Mb/s or something anyway (and 3Mb is actually to high for most people watching, so if you don't have twitch transcoding, running your stream at a high bitrate is probably a very bad idea if you want more people watching, I think around 1-1.5Mb/s is ideal for non partners, and it's where the CPU encoding will probably show a big advantage)

There's a soft limit of 3.5Mb/s for everyone, though putting it higher will still work.