[SOLVED] Recording in 1080p in games even though its a low res?

[danny009]

is it possible to record games in 1080p even though game itself is in 1280x720 or 1440x900? or my final recorded raw video will have messed up res? I'd like to play in low res to reduce the temps however I still like to have a sharp nice crispy video in 1080p, is this possible? I own a 1080p screen of course and my recording software have the 1080p record option. Thanks in advance

 

[Frag Maniac]

Please clarify if this is primarily a problem after uploading to YouTube, or the raw video itself after capture, or only after compression?

As a rule of thumb you cannot record at a higher res than you're playing at. Even if you can manage to play a game at say 1440p DSR, the recording will always be limited to the res of your display. That means you only have the option of a lower res than 1080p if you chose something other than the native 1080p.

If you happen to display them on YouTube, the reason a lot of 1080p vids look blurry on YouTube is YT doesn't allot very high bitrate when converting 1080p vids to a streamable format. They literally give 1440p vids 3-4 times as much bitrate, which is very disproportionate to the .78% higher pixel density it actually is.

So what I do to get around this, is stick to a 1080p capture (I have 1080p display too), then instead of alloting the max 12,000 bitrate 1080p vids can use, I give them 20,000 - 30,000 (depending on graphic detail of game, how fast paced they are, etc), and resize it to 1440p while compressing. I use Avidemux to compress, which has an excellent two-pass Average Bitrate compression option.

Here's video proof of the difference.

This is captured and uploaded at 1080p with the max 12,000 bitrate YT 1080p vids can use.

This is the same mission captured at 1080p, resized to 1440p, with the max 30,000 bitrrate YT 1440p can use.

To be honest, GRW is the only game I've needed to use 30,000 bitrate with, mostly because it has very detailed and dense ground foliage that can look blurry when traveling fast over it.

This is a level of The Evil Within played with it's heavy glare filter disabled, which makes textures sharper and colors less muted. Even though it's a level with lots of fog, it is not pixelated at all even using 20,000 bitrate. It has a lot to do with your movement in the game being at a much slower pace and the world textures not having the intricate foliage detail some games have.

This was captured at 1080p, and resized to 1440p, using 20,000 bitrate.

The difference between the first two videos is most noticeable during the drive while escaping. Of course it's also best to view them fullscreen using the max player res, not Auto.