NVIDIA Nvenc Obs Guide

The objective of this guide is to help you understand how to use the NVIDIA encoder, NVENC, in OBS. We have simplified some of the concepts to make this accessible to a wider audience. If you think we can improve any part of this guide or find any issues or mistakes, please post below and we will be happy to update it.

Encoding is all about compressing images. The smaller the size of the image, the less we must compress it and the more quality it keeps. While the same applies for framerate, a viewer can really notice a drop in FPS but not so much in resolution, so we will always try to stream at 60 FPS.

First, run a speed test to determine your upload speed (e.g. Speed Test). We want to use around 75% of your upload speed, as the game and other programs such as Discord will also fight for bandwidth.

Then, we will determine the resolution and FPS that we can use for such bitrate. Most streaming sites have recommendations (Twitch, Youtube, Facebook Gaming) on what to use. These are ours:

Upload Speed

Bitrate

Resolution

Framerate

3 Mbps

2,500

1024×576

30

4 Mbps

3,500

1280×720

6 Mbps

5,000

60

8-10 Mbps

6,000

1920×1080 *

15+ Mbps

12,000 (Youtube)

1920×1080

20+ Mbps

15,000+ (Youtube)

2560×1440

40+ Mbps

30,000+ (Youtube)

3840×2160

* Important Note for High Motion Content. If you are going to stream high motion scenes (i.e. Racing games, some Battle Royale games, etc.) we highly recommend reducing your resolution. High motion content cannot be compressed as much, and can suffer from more artifacting (encoding errors) that make your stream look “blocky”. If you reduce the resolution, you reduce the data being encoded, and the resulting viewer quality is higher. For example, for Fortnite, many streamers decide to stream at 1600×900 60 FPS.

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

These are our recommended settings for OBS Studio 23.0 and up. You’ll want to test and adjust these settings by proceeding with a local recording to verify you’re happy with the results.

To access the settings, click on the Settings button on the bottom right.

If you want an easy, out of the box configuration, then do the following:

There are 2 other things you want to configure to ensure a smooth stream:

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

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

If you want to mess around with all settings, here are our in-depth recommendations.

Streaming Settings

Recording Settings

If you want to stream with HEVC, you will also have to adjust your Stream settings. Note that HEVC live streaming is currently only supported by YouTube. To stream to YouTube with HEVC, navigate to the Stream tab and change the Service to YouTube – HLS. You may need to click Show All… to find this option.

With OBS version 28, you can stream with HEVC to platforms that support it. HEVC is an improved codec that provides 15% better encoding efficiency than H.264 (i.e. it provides quality as if you streamed with 15% more bitrate). HEVC – and OBS version 28 – also allow you to record and stream HDR content.

HOW TO RECORD AND/OR STREAM WITH HEVC

If you want to record or stream with HEVC, in OBS navigate to your Output window and change the Encoder to Hardware (NVENC, HEVC) for the Streaming or Recording settings, as needed.

Now you should be able to connect your YouTube account. Finally, navigate to your YouTube Live settings on YouTube.com, and make sure that your Latency setting is set to Low or Normal (do not use Ultra Low as it is not compatible).

HDR – or High Dynamic Range – allows you to increase the range of light of your content. You can record and/or stream with HDR.

Note that:

In order to enable HDR, we’ll need to make sure that:

Next, open the game you want to record or stream, go to the settings and make sure HDR is turned on. In Windows 11 there’s a feature called Auto HDR that enables a virtual HDR mode for any game. This is also a valid option.

OBS Settings

In OBS, start by going to the Advanced tab and changing the Color Format to P010 and the Color Space to Rec. 2100 (PQ).

Next, we need to adjust the Game Capture source. Double click it (or right click it and go to Properties), scroll down find the RGB10A2 Color Space. Make sure this is set to Rec. 2100 (PQ).

Your content should now be ready to be captured and/or streamed in HDR! But remember, in order to record and/or stream in HDR you need to change your encoder from H.264 to HEVC. You can visit the How to Record and/or Stream with HEVC section above to adjust this.

NVENC is NVIDIA’s encoder. It’s 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, use your CPU to encode, which takes resources away from other programs such as 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 two GPU generations we have made great improvements to NVENC, helping deliver best-in-class output quality. NVENC in the GTX 10-series GPUs provides superior quality than x264 Very Fast, the most commonly used x264 preset. And in the new RTX 20 and 30-series, NVENC performs better than x264 Fast and on par with x264 Medium, a preset that requires an expensive dual PC setup.

One thing that is great about NVENC on the GeForce RTX 20 and 30-series and GeForce GTX 1650 Super and up is that all GPUs have the same NVENC with the same performance and quality, from the RTX 2060 to the RTX 3090. NVENC also benefits from our own NVIDIA Video Codec SDK, an advanced set of tools that help improve the encoded quality and that we constantly update to help you get the best out of your NVIDIA card.

Finally, if you are using an NVIDIA GPU you have access to GeForce Experience’s Game Filters, which allow you to further improve the image quality of your viewers via software by enhancing color, adding sharpness, or introducing cool effects.

NVIDIA Broadcast transforms your gamer den into a home broadcast studio, upgrading standard webcams and microphones into premium, smart devices through the power of AI. Improve the video and audio quality of your livestream through AI capabilities such as virtual background or webcam auto frame, and microphone noise removal. With dedicated AI processors called Tensor Cores on GeForce RTX GPUs, the AI networks are able to run high-quality effects in real-time.

NVIDIA Broadcast features include:

When not broadcasting, these features can also enhance your video conference calls and voice chats, making NVIDIA Broadcast a perfect AI companion for broadcasters and gamers alike.

NVIDIA Broadcast is compatible with a wide range of broadcasting, video conferencing and voice chat apps. These include OBS Studio, Streamlabs, Xsplit, Discord, Skype, Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and more.

We have collaborated with OBS to improve support for NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. The new OBS Studio, version 23.0, will leverage the NVIDIA Video Codec SDK, which will greatly improve performance and reduce the FPS impact of streaming and recording. We have also tweaked some of the background settings of NVENC to improve quality, especially for the RTX 20-Series GPUs.

Streaming can be very complicated, but it’s particularly hard to debug. There are many things at play when you stream, so we are going to try to provide you some help on how to identify what is going wrong and how to fix it.

Components

Streaming uses the following components:

If something is failing, we want to first identify what component may be failing, so we don’t go crazy trying to fix something that was never broken in the first place. Typically, this means that the first test you should do is a Speed Test to make sure that you don’t have internet problems in your local internet or your connection. Second, make sure the platform hasn’t issued an alert that they are down or are experiencing problems. Then based on what error you get, you start 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 up, click on View > Stats. This window will show you Lagged and Skipped frames, Dropped frames, and Encode FPS.

This window will show you:

Common Error Types

Stream is missing FPS. The stats window will show missed frames. While streaming and missing frames, pull up the Task Manager > Performance, Click on GPU and check the 3D load and Encoder load.

Solutions:

Image looks very washed out. The most likely issue is trying to push too much quality with not enough bitrate. Consider reducing the resolution, and frame rate (if needed), and try again. If quality improves, then adjust until you find your sweet spot.