A lot of the time when I’m standing in town square heralding the graces of recording with
OBS Studio and Nvidia NVENC encoder, people laugh, throw a few rotten tomatoes, and - erm,
uh, I mean…
They ask why anyone would want to deal with OBS’s complicated setup process when Nvidia
Shadowplay works just fine with only a few clicks?
Well….
There’s a lot of reasons, actually, depending on your needs.
Let’s dive in.
Who.. what..
Orisa, where?
HUH?!
I just see a Rein...
Oh.
Cool.
DUDE will you just get a ModMic already?
It attaches to any headphone so you can use that good pair you like, but I'll actually
be able to understand your call-outs.
It also has a mute switch so I don't have to hear all those conversations with your
grandma.
We gotta get serious to get out of Plat.
Yes, just order one tonight.
Head on over to https://antlionaudio.com/ to learn more and check it out.
I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and welcome back to my OBS Studio
tutorial course.
I have many, many more videos on the software in the playlist linked in the description.
Check that before asking questions, and check the introduction video to learn how this course
works, if you get confused.
So don’t get me wrong - Nvidia Shadowplay, or Nvidia Share, is great.
It allows you to record gameplay up to 4K 60 FPS at high bitrates with virtually no
performance impact - and it even has a “flashback recording” option like the Elgato capture
cards where you can record up to the past 20 minutes after they happen.
If you just play games and want the ability to quickly and easily save a video clip or
screenshot sometimes to share with friends - Shadowplay is perfect.
Proceed as you are.
But if you intend to actually “make videos” with a deliberate purpose prior to hitting
record, adding your voice or face with a microphone or webcam, perform video editing, and so on
- Shadowplay has some issues.
Shadowplay uses special video encoding capabilities of your Nvidia graphics card to record video
footage without significantly impacting your game’s performance as other options do.
But that doesn’t mean it can always record full speed.
Frequently you may run into a situation where Shadowplay has recorded your video to a “variable
frame rate” - meaning that the framerate of the video file changes throughout the video
instead of staying to a locked 30 or 60 FPS.
When playing it back in most media players or uploading to social media, this isn’t
a problem.
But many video editing programs don’t like VFR, and thus you can end up with major audio
de-sync issues from Shadowplay-recorded videos.
This can be fixed by re-encoding the video with a program like Handbrake to lock the
framerate.
This is a time-wasting, annoying extra step - and sometimes it doesn’t fix the issue,
or if you are not familiar enough with Handbrake you might end up severely hurting your video’s
final quality.
With OBS Studio, this is not an issue.
You can capture, record, and so on using the Nvidia Nvenc Encoder with the same performance
benefits, but a locked constant frame rate.
No de-sync!
If you do have audio de-sync issues in OBS, it’s due to USB driver issues of your webcam,
microphone, or something else, NOT VFR.
Cool.
Another favorite feature that has me using OBS Studio for almost everything is its ability
to record multiple audio tracks.
That is to say you can record a video and have your game audio, microphone input, and
so on to separate audio recordings within the video file.
This allows you to edit and balance your levels separately in editing - giving you much stronger
control and a better final audio mix.
I have other videos on this subject in the course playlist.
This is an extremely important feature to many recording workflows, and only two main
programs utilize it - Dxtory and OBS Studio.
Nvidia Shadowplay doesn’t do this.
If you want to record your microphone in Shadowplay, you need to crank down your game volume or
system volume and do test recordings to make sure anyone can hear you.
You don’t have a whole lot of control here and I don’t like that.
Also, OBS let’s you record a lot higher bitrates with the Nvenc encoder, and even
a lossless mode, which you can’t do directly in Shadowplay.
Again - Shadowplay is great for recording after-the-fact or just grabbing clips to share
online.
I still use it regularly purely to record game footage on the fly.
BUT for direct video content creation, it pales in comparison to what you can do with
OBS Studio and I recommend creators learn the ins and outs of OBS Studio with the Nvenc
encoder to get the best video creation experience.
I hope this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course has been helpful for you.
If it was, drop-kick that like button and subscribe for awesome tech videos.
If you like game streaming, come follow me on Twitch and drop a message in chat.
Until next time, I’m EposVox, Happy Streaming!
Thanks for watching this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course.
More videos like this and a full master class are linked in the playlist in the video description.
Click to learn more.
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Go to Patreon.com/eposvox to sign up.