Way less FPS with NVENC encoder

[VicePrey]

Hey everyone.
So i've been using OBS Studio for a while now to stream and it works pretty well overall...
But theres one problem. Using the NVENC H.264 encoder i've around 40 to 50 fps less
in the games i stream...
I've attached screenshots of my OBS settings!
Im running OBS as an admin.
I was just wondering if thats normal because people have been saying that
the NVENC encoder doesn't use a lot of GPU power...
BTW im using Windows 11

My PC Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5900x
Asus ROG Strix 3070Ti OC
Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB 3600mhz
Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming Mainboard
H150i Elite LCD (with 3 ll120 fans) + 7 ll120 fans
Seasonic Prime GX-850W
Samsung 970 Evo 1TB
Samsung 980 Pro 1TB
SanDisk 250GB for windows

 

[Squirting]

Hey everyone.
So i've been using OBS Studio for a while now to stream and it works pretty well overall...
But theres one problem. Using the NVENC H.264 encoder i've around 40 to 50 fps less
in the games i stream...
I've attached screenshots of my OBS settings!
Im running OBS as an admin.
I was just wondering if thats normal because people have been saying that
the NVENC encoder doesn't use a lot of GPU power...
BTW im using Windows 11

My PC Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5900x
Asus ROG Strix 3070Ti OC
Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB 3600mhz
Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming Mainboard
H150i Elite LCD (with 3 ll120 fans) + 7 ll120 fans
Seasonic Prime GX-850W
Samsung 970 Evo 1TB
Samsung 980 Pro 1TB
SanDisk 250GB for windows

You could set the base resolution to 1080p instead of downscaling it to 1080p. EDIT: This way you don't have to have a downscale filter.
Also, keyframes should be set to 2 (per Twitch/YouTube recommendations).

Probably set the P level lower?

 

[Ligico]

hi i have a problem with obs when i add broswer sources my cpu and gpu load without going live increases by 22/30 percent for no reason

 

[VicePrey]

You could set the base resolution to 1080p instead of downscaling it to 1080p. EDIT: This way you don't have to have a downscale filter.
Also, keyframes should be set to 2 (per Twitch/YouTube recommendations).

Probably set the P level lower?

So my base monitor resolution is set to 1440p but ill try setting the base resolution to 1080p in twitch.
Im going to stream and see, if it does change the perfomance.

 

[VicePrey]

You could set the base resolution to 1080p instead of downscaling it to 1080p. EDIT: This way you don't have to have a downscale filter.
Also, keyframes should be set to 2 (per Twitch/YouTube recommendations).

Probably set the P level lower?

So sadly that didnt change anything for me xD...
In games like MW2 i'll lose 20 to 30 fps and in games like minecraft i'll lose 50 to 60 fps.
Changed my resolution in obs to 1080p but like i said... That didnt change anything.

 

[PaiSand]

In games like MW2 i'll lose 20 to 30 fps and in games like minecraft i'll lose 50 to 60 fps.

That's normal behaviour.
In games like those two you need to cap the framerates to 60.
One is poorly optimized and the other one is coded in Java. Changing the base resolution in OBS does nothing unless you change it on windows/game too.

I only played the beta of MW2, and it was a bad experience. You had a maxed out quality (for GPU's like yours) and pure crap quality settings (for everything else). If you have better quality options on the release, then lower the quality so it free resources needed by the encoder.
You can also try using 900p as output resolution, or the 936p many people use. Most people don't watch the stream full screen, so you don't need the full resolution. And lowering the output resolution makes the result slightly better in quality.

It's adviced to use simple output mode instead of advanced unless you need to record several separated audio channels to edit latter.

 

[DayGeckoArt]

NVenc does use a lot of GPU power, although 1080p NV12 should be pretty efficient. I think what's using a lot of computing power is the bicubic downscale. Try bilinear

 

[Harold]

NVenc does use a lot of GPU power, although 1080p NV12 should be pretty efficient. I think what's using a lot of computing power is the bicubic downscale. Try bilinear

nvenc uses DEDICATED components of the video card. it does NOT use a lot of gpu power.

People using the 526.47 game ready drivers have been encountering an extremely high number of problems with them.

 

[DayGeckoArt]

nvenc uses DEDICATED components of the video card. it does NOT use a lot of gpu power.

People using the 526.47 game ready drivers have been encountering an extremely high number of problems with them.

That's what Nvidia claims and it's false. I've tested recording games at 4K 4:4:4 and it uses about 50 watts with those settings on my RTX 2080 Ti. Here are pictures I just took comparing World of Warcraft WOTLK Classic with and without recording

 

[sandrix]

This is not a lie, Harold is right. Before drawing such conclusions, you should at least understand how NVENC works and study the Video Codec SDK technical documentation.

For example:

Encoder Features using CUDA​

Although the core video encoder hardware on GPU is completely independent of CUDA cores or graphics engine on the GPU, following encoder features internally use CUDA for hardware acceleration.
Note: The impact of enabling these features on overall CUDA or graphics performance is minimal, and this list is provided purely for information purposes.

• Two-pass rate control modes for high quality presets
• Look-ahead
• All adaptive quantization modes
• Weighted prediction
• Encoding of RGB contents

 

[DayGeckoArt]

This is not a lie, Harold is right. Before drawing such conclusions, you should at least understand how NVENC works and study the Video Codec SDK technical documentation.

For example:

Encoder Features using CUDA​

Although the core video encoder hardware on GPU is completely independent of CUDA cores or graphics engine on the GPU, following encoder features internally use CUDA for hardware acceleration.
Note: The impact of enabling these features on overall CUDA or graphics performance is minimal, and this list is provided purely for information purposes.

• Two-pass rate control modes for high quality presets
• Look-ahead
• All adaptive quantization modes
• Weighted prediction
• Encoding of RGB contents

Would you call 50 watts "minimal"? That's 1/4 of the TDP of my graphics card, and even more for lower power cards like my RTX 1650 S. The bottom line is that Nvenc encoding uses a significant amount of graphics card computing power

 

[sandrix]

So sadly that didnt change anything for me xD...
In games like MW2 i'll lose 20 to 30 fps and in games like minecraft i'll lose 50 to 60 fps.
Changed my resolution in obs to 1080p but like i said... That didnt change anything.

It won't change anything. Moreover, this will only worsen the clarity of the picture, because. the scaling filter does not work on the input resolution. In general, never change the input resolution in OBS.

- You should optimize Windows or find someone to do it.
- Downgrade video driver to GeForce Game Ready Driver | 522.25 because 526 will cause a lot of problems.
- Limit in-game fps or enable vertical sync to provide some GPU resources for the encoder. By default, OBS (since 24.0.2) reserves GPU resources for itself, but don't allow the GPU load to reach 100%.
- Disable preview in OBS.
- Disable the NVIDIA Shadowplay, Nvidia Ansel overlay if you don't use it.

It's also best not to use NVIDIA Broadcast, as it can cause serious performance problems.

 

[sandrix]

When you start the OBS, it takes up to 5-10% of the performance in the game, because. as I said earlier, the program reserves a certain amount of GPU resources for itself. When you start recording / streaming, it takes a little more performance. So if you had 200 fps in Call of Duty, and it became 180 when streaming / recording, then this is not a problem at all. Everything is relative.

 

[VicePrey]

It won't change anything. Moreover, this will only worsen the clarity of the picture, because. the scaling filter does not work on the input resolution. In general, never change the input resolution in OBS.

- You should optimize Windows or find someone to do it.
- Downgrade video driver to GeForce Game Ready Driver | 522.25 because 526 will cause a lot of problems.
- Limit in-game fps or enable vertical sync to provide some GPU resources for the encoder. By default, OBS (since 24.0.2) reserves GPU resources for itself, but don't allow the GPU load to reach 100%.
- Disable preview in OBS.
- Disable the NVIDIA Shadowplay, Nvidia Ansel overlay if you don't use it.

It's also best not to use NVIDIA Broadcast, as it can cause serious performance problems.

Didnt change much for me between different drivers. Had this thing going on since i started streaming (months ago). I dont know. The fps loss isnt that bad. I was just expecting to be able to stream at high settings with more than 144 fps in most of the games. Seems like that this isnt the case.

 

[VicePrey]

NVenc does use a lot of GPU power, although 1080p NV12 should be pretty efficient. I think what's using a lot of computing power is the bicubic downscale. Try bilinear

Can use a different filter. I've put the both resolutions to 1080p.

 

[VicePrey]

Those are the stats that i have while streaming and playing mc e.g. I guess that isn't so bad because it's zero percent everywhere and nothing goes red.