Nvidia ShadowPlay Test
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:33 am
So as many of you already know, I can't reliably stream to Twitch.tv because it is way too taxing on my system to record video, encode it in real time and stream it out to Twitch. The biggest bottleneck here is the video encoding. Its just too CPU intensive while MWO is already using most of my CPU.
So I've been looking forward to ShadowPlay. It uses the built-in h.264 video encoder that is on all 6xx series and up Nvidia video cards. This does all the video encoding work that the CPU normally would have to do. Much to my dismay when the ShadowPlay beta arrived in a GeForce Experience update yesterday, I was locked out. No ShadowPlay button in the top right of GeForce Experience. Why? Because I had a Core 2 Quad and the minimum Intel processor supported is a Core i3 at 3.1GHz. Knowing my overclocked processor can handle just as much as that Core i3, I started looking for a way to force ShadowPlay on, and found it. Launching GeForce Experience's executable with the -shadowplay flag forces the ShadowPlay UI to open and you can then enable it. There is no CPU check on the enable switch.
So this morning since I woke up way too early, I started testing it. I've tested with Crysis 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and Mechwarrior Online. No framerate drop in any of the above. Videos recorded are smooth and clear. Their video encoding is crushing the colors a little, so some reds and oranges look a bit off. You'll see this in the example video below. Make sure to update the video playback on Youtube to 1080p. 720p looks okay, but any lower and Youtube's transcoder blew the compression quality pretty badly.
There is some hitching in the Youtube upload that wasn't present in my source video. Not exactly sure why that is.
Nvidia has already said they'll be adding Twitch.tv streaming in a future version. I should be able to finally stream without killing my in game performance. Until then I'll be making regular videos from time to time. I may finally start on that training video series.
So I've been looking forward to ShadowPlay. It uses the built-in h.264 video encoder that is on all 6xx series and up Nvidia video cards. This does all the video encoding work that the CPU normally would have to do. Much to my dismay when the ShadowPlay beta arrived in a GeForce Experience update yesterday, I was locked out. No ShadowPlay button in the top right of GeForce Experience. Why? Because I had a Core 2 Quad and the minimum Intel processor supported is a Core i3 at 3.1GHz. Knowing my overclocked processor can handle just as much as that Core i3, I started looking for a way to force ShadowPlay on, and found it. Launching GeForce Experience's executable with the -shadowplay flag forces the ShadowPlay UI to open and you can then enable it. There is no CPU check on the enable switch.
So this morning since I woke up way too early, I started testing it. I've tested with Crysis 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and Mechwarrior Online. No framerate drop in any of the above. Videos recorded are smooth and clear. Their video encoding is crushing the colors a little, so some reds and oranges look a bit off. You'll see this in the example video below. Make sure to update the video playback on Youtube to 1080p. 720p looks okay, but any lower and Youtube's transcoder blew the compression quality pretty badly.
There is some hitching in the Youtube upload that wasn't present in my source video. Not exactly sure why that is.
Nvidia has already said they'll be adding Twitch.tv streaming in a future version. I should be able to finally stream without killing my in game performance.
Until then I'll be making regular videos from time to time. I may finally start on that training video series.
