Analyze your thoughts while playing PC games carefully.
Analyze your thoughts while playing PC games carefully.
I’m considering capturing gameplay for later review. Sometimes my actions seem correct, but the system disagrees. I plan to share edits on YouTube in the future, but not for live streaming. The game is FFXIV, which isn’t very taxing on graphics cards, though I play at a non-standard setting close to 1440p at 60 Hz (about 3440x1440 ultra-wide, with a 16:9 window). I’m weighing my choices for reasonable recording quality without overloading the setup, and without hurting gameplay. My current hardware is a 6700k processor; from a CPU standpoint, it might not be enough to record smoothly while keeping performance stable.
Option 1: Move gaming to a Ryzen machine. I already own an older one (1700) and could upgrade to a newer NVIDIA GPU, using their recording tools. The CPU would need overclocking, as it’s been running stock during gameplay while I tweak BIOS and RAM settings. I’m unsure if NVIDIA Capture works well with Windows games. Past tests show my 6600k (after optimization) handles the game better than mine (before), but I haven’t checked low frame rates.
Option 2: Continue playing on my current system, but use a second PC for capture. My monitor only supports DP input via HDMI 1.x, which limits me to 60 Hz at native resolution. I need a cost-effective DP passthrough card that can handle higher resolutions. Do there exist budget options that support 1440p? I’m not sure yet, but I’ve seen older capture devices struggle with high bitrates.
Disk space is a concern—I recall using Frapper in the past and it used up storage quickly, even at lower resolutions. Modern codecs should be more efficient, but I’m not certain. What resolution do we really need?
You're experiencing an issue with the aspect ratio of your video. The 21:9 recording appears stretched because the display or player doesn't match the intended 16:9 format. Check your monitor settings or video player options to ensure it's set to 16:9. If the problem persists, let me know!
The game includes cutscenes displayed in 16:9 format with borders when the screen size doesn't match. I've been looking further after posting this. It seems all affordable HDMI recorders only offer 1080p output. The only model claiming higher support would automatically reduce quality to 1080p. I'm not playing at that resolution! This year is 2017, correct? I haven't found any DP capture devices at all. Not saying they don’t exist, just that they’re probably not available for consumer use. It seems this pushes me toward software solutions. Shadowplay can handle higher resolutions and windowed capture, though it may capture the whole screen. Not perfect, but I could manage it. The main questions are CPU usage and whether a Skylake-X is actually available. Maybe upgrading my X99 Xeon would help. ThreadRipper tools like Ryzen won’t work here. For now, the best fix might be adding more cores without lowering the clock speed. Before spending much, I should probably test it out...
shadowplay leverages the NVENC hardware encoder, minimizing CPU usage. i consider NVENC suitable for recording. it performs poorly at low bitrates, but if you're just capturing, aim for the highest quality available and the software-hardware difference becomes less noticeable.
I may have misunderstood the idea that the CPU restricts software performance. If it’s using GPU resources, would that affect gameplay? I’m not seeing GPU limitations at the moment, and since video encoding has its own processing area, it probably won’t matter. For storage, I have a mechanical HD for large files but could switch to another SSD if needed.
NVENC is a dedicated module on the GPU designed specifically for video encoding. Using it doesn't take away from the game's processing power, so your performance impact should be negligible. I often run NVENC and wouldn’t be sure whether encoding was active without adjusting it myself. It’s similar to how HDDs work—slower than SSDs, but still sufficient for most modern games unless you have an extremely old drive.
Looks like you're ready to try it out after work. Just double-check if it's really more CPU-focused or if it's something else like xsplit or obs. I know it's a 1TB 2.5" WD Blue, so it's not a premium option. You added it mainly for extra storage since SSDs were filling up. You still have a 512GB SSD available after replacing a failed one, so you can move that in whenever you're ready. #firstworldproblems
I'm able to run at 100Hz on my PG348Q, so it shouldn't feel too laggy. (100Hz is the panel limit)
It hasn't been played in years, sorry. The idea was great, but the combat felt very slow compared to other MMOs. I went back to SWTOR and WoW, which are both single-threaded and have CPU limits, though they still manage 100 FPS. I'm not sure if it's better because I don't disable G-Sync and the extra frames beyond 100 aren't much help. The feel difference between 60-100 is clear, but 100-144 isn't as big.