[SOLVED] How to Reduce Pixelation in Youtube for Games like Star Citizen and Arma 3?

[gaberosenblatt]

So I've had an issue for awhile now where the videos are mostly ok except for pixelation in dark areas.
I use NVIDIA shadowplay or just the record feature on 50mbps 60fps but I can set it to 130mbps max. I use Vegas 14 to edit and render and my settings will be posted below hopefully.

https://imgur.com/a/PcglbUK

I'm wondering what causes this.
Here is an example if I can figure out how to add images properly, obviously I'm not the most informed person when it comes to editing and most things or I wouldn't be here.

https://imgur.com/a/5Q74fXY

Original Before Youtube Version Below

https://imgur.com/a/Bfn8cAM

My computer settings in a nutshell are GTX 1080, I7-8700k Liquid Cooled 1TB SSD/250GB SSD/1TB HDD

Just let me know if you need more info. I can also get a better example of the pixelation if needed.

(Also I realized that you will have to actually open the images since it appears they show up pixelated here) I would suggest opening side by side in tabs and clicking between them, it makes it very obvious.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Not sure why the template says 1080p, but your video size is 4k. Are you playing/capturing in actual 4K on a 4K display? If so, set capture to the max 130 Mbps and encoding bitrate to 53,000 to 68,000 (YouTube recommended) depending on how texture rich the game is. The best way to determine this is experimenting with short 1 min clips. Maybe try one at 53,000, one at 60,000, and one at 68,000.

I advise not using variable bitrate. Constant is much better, Average Bitrate is even better. I use Average Bitrate (Two pass) using Avidemux and it will actually fix minor flaws, it's incredible. The trade off is Avidemux can only do fade in/out, and no titles, which I don't care to use, but some may. As streamlined as it is though, it's definitely faster at encoding (I've used Vegas).

Your CPU isn't the best for encoding (same one I have), so that will take a while on 4K clips of any length. Also, are you able to maintain a constant 60 FPS while playing at 4K on your 1080? If not, that may be part of the problem.

Lastly, Variable Bitrate used to primarily assign bitrate by motion, the more motion in a scene, the more it gets. I recall a good while back they added a feature where it's also determined by light content in the scene, so that may be why dark scenes look pixelated. I always had a problem with it also looking pixelated at the start of a video you encode, but that may have been fixed since I used it, which was many years ago.

 

[gaberosenblatt]

The capture is not 4k, tbh I was trying that because it was recommended to me as a fix, which obviously it appears to not have made a difference. I will change it back to 1080, which is what I use. And I maintain 50-60 fps constant when playing. I can go over the clips and it tells me and it's actually like 59-60 usually. Also I will change it to constant and retry it. Thanks for the reply. I'll post the results after. And just a question, why does Nvidia have different MBPS settings. If it can go super high like 130 then wouldn't you logically always want to use the highest setting?

Edit: Retried it

https://imgur.com/a/eoMdrQp

with those settings. But there was no change, it was exactly the same. I can try with different settings though. The clip is recorded in 50mbps btw. Idk if that helps or not.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Yeah attempting a "fix" by trying to encode 4K with only 1080p worth of source pixels is your problem. I've had great results resizing a 1080p capture to 1440p using 30,000 bitrate via ABR, but the only reason it works so well is YouTube uses 3-4 times the bitrate to convert 1440p uploads as it does 1080p.

So I suggest maybe trying that instead, otherwise 1080p uploads on YouTube are at the mercy of YT's horribly low conversion bitrate for 1080p vids. It used to be you'd only have to resize to 2048x1152 to trick YT into using the higher bitrate, but now it has to be 1440p.

I would test anything from 20,000 to 30,000 bitrate though, as it really depends on how texture rich a game you're capturing. I've had great results using just 20,000 bitrate on The Evil Within, but Ghost Recon Wildlands needed 30,000.

Below are examples of the difference between a 1080p upload and a 1440p one. The escape driving on the road at the end of the videos is what looks most different due to speed and motion, particularly when viewed fullscreen. YouTube cannot make use of more than 12,000 bitrate for 1080p uploads, but 1440p will use up to 30,000 easily due to YT's very high conversion bitrate for 1440p.

1080p Upload

1440p Upload

 

[gaberosenblatt]

Oh ok, I can actually see it in those videos, the differences I mean. I will give it another try. I'll edit this section with the results when it's done.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Oh ok, I can actually see it in those videos, the differences I mean. I will give it another try. I'll edit this section with the results when it's done.

Yeah and don't use variable bitrate this time. In fact unless you're insisting on using lots of transition effects beyond simple fade in/out and titles, etc, you're better off using something like Avidemux with it's ABR and faster encoding.

 

[gaberosenblatt]

Oh also you were saying that for the bitrate, the reason people don't use the crazy amounts of like 130 always is because Youtube won't even use all of it? or maybe I'm not understanding right. I see the options for 240,000,000 in Vegas and then 130mbps in Nvidia. But it seems most people just use 50 all around the board. Ok also, update: I tried it at 50 and 130 constant and it didn't fix it. Maybe I just need to keep messing with it? It only seems to be in the dark areas, I'm wondering if it's something else. Maybe I need to record at the highest Nvidia setting?

 

[gaberosenblatt]

Ok so none of the current suggestions or anything worked sadly. (besides the Avidemux, which I will now be trying)

Will edit again with the results later.

 

[hang-the-9]

I can't tell the difference between the images really, but any time you encode, compress, change video things like that will happen. Usually things end up looking like banding when colors fade to others, especially black to grey. It can be an issue of the color bit amount and also compression in general.

 

[gaberosenblatt]

I can't tell the difference between the images really, but any time you encode, compress, change video things like that will happen. Usually things end up looking like banding when colors fade to others, especially black to grey. It can be an issue of the color bit amount and also compression in general.

hmm Alright, well thank you guys for the input. At the end of the day, I know that is isn't massively noticeable and won't affect things a lot. But I did notice it and wanted to explore it a bit. I was able to decrease the issue further by using Constant Bitrate instead of Variable. So thank you for the help.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Using images to show pixelation when the topic is videos isn't really the best way to compare, especially in very dark scenes. You really need video clips that can be zoomed fullscreen.

Also, yes, as I said, YouTube on each res used will only make use of so much bitrate, 12,000 for 1080p uploads, 20,000-30,000 for 1440p, and 53,000 to 68,000 for 4K.

If you have any trouble using Avidemux, let me know. A few things for me I had to figure workarounds on were, 1) when choosing a resize res, clicking the up/down arrows or using the up/down keys will not change the setting. Instead I highlight the current res, then type in the new one. 2) The view pane will not show raw capture clips large until you click the fullscreen tab ([]) a couple times. Oddly enough it shows edited/compressed clips large first time. 3) At times, Space will have a delay on how fast it stops the video when editing. You can however move several frames at a time using up/down arrows, or one frame at a time using left/right arrows.