GPU,Encode,Storage warning signs in recording & MagicYUV settings question

[nocktwice]

Hey guys,
I'm new to dxtory. Been recording 1080p videos with no issues in performance until recently today I noticed these warnings popping up when I record. And they're not just popping in & out like most of my recordings in the past. They're more consistent and stay up longer periods during my recordings and does effect my recording FPS to go down. eg. Game FPS shows 50-60fps while recording fps shows 30-40 when Encode/GPU warning pops up. Sometimes storage warning pops up too but only for a few seconds then switches back to more gpu warnings.

My main question is - What do these warnings mean - GPU, Encode, Storage signs? And how do they affect my FPS recording?

Also if you guys could help me choose the best settings for these 3 codecs I'm currently using: Lagarith, MagicYUV, UTvideo. Out of the 3 Lagarith is the best quality but suffers in stuttery-low FPS recordings. I wish there was a way to fix that because all the games I tested with lagarith looks beautiful after renders but choppy to watch. I've been using UTvideo for most of my games. It's smoother than lagarith in my experience and produces similar lossless quality with a slight fade in washed out colours but hardly noticeable. I'm trying out MagicYUV for the first time in the past couple days but can't seem to set it up properly as it lags alot during recordings.

- I currently use the UTvideo codec: YUV422 BT.709 VCM (frame divide count: same as logical processors, optimize for decoding speed - predict left)
- Recording in 60fps, 100% scaling (1920x1080)
- Thread priority: Normal, uses all logical processors with all threads checked
- Using a 7200RPM HDD for recordings benchmarked at 117 mb/sec

Specs:
i7 6700k
GTX 980m 8gb
32gbram

The game I was testing is Witcher 3. I can run this game at 60fps in High settings but when recording it drops to 30-40.

Hope I can find a solution here. Thanks!

[Malix]

http://forum.exkode.com/index.php?topic=2.0 - rather than manually listing every setting, *always* post environment info.

but as for the warnings:

* GPU - the game isn't performing fast enough, ie. not producing atleast the amount of frames per second as you are trying to capture. "Basically": recording 60fps but game only performs 57fps. Lower game quality settings, disable vsync, or ignore the warning (see below)
* Encode - your codec isn't performing fast enough, it cannot process the frames per second you are trying to record. If this happens, consider upgrading your cpu, adding more threads to the codec OR switching codec to faster one OR record with lower resolution / lower framerate
* Storage - your harddisk isn't fast enough to store the recorded data. for example, the game image is so complex that the 60fps capture of it would require 200MB/s writing speed, but you only have 117MB/s capable harddisk.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the GPU warnings all that much if they are very brief & rare, or only happen during loading screens (since those tend to dip to 0-30 in all games). If it shows up rather constantly, lower your games' settings, disable vsync etc to get better  performance.

The encode & storage warnings on the other hand should be taken seriously, as those are the signs that you are dropping frames.

[nocktwice]

Cool thanks. This info will help me alot in the future of how I need to manage those 3 warnings. I didn't find much info about this particular topic when I searched this forum or google so I'm glad you explained it well

And yea I tested recording Witcher 3 in 30fps and there were less warnings. Also helped that I lowered a few of the gfx settings. So it's probably pointing towards my HDD write speeds being too low for 60fps records. As I have read the UTvideo codec is pretty fast & high quality.

Any Info/opinions about MagicYUV? I'll try and search around here for best HD settings to record but I'm having trouble at the moment setting it up without the damn thing giving my storage/encode warnings every second.

[Malix]

To me, MagicYUV has been the best choice for a while. Rec.709 + YUV420 + 3 threads produces good results and performance is rock solid. Eats diskspace like candy tho, but I have a 3TB raid0 to handle it

[nocktwice]

I'll give that a shot. Well update and see how it goes.

[nocktwice]

Update - Yea it works fine with those settings you mentioned (except the 3 threads - I wanted to see what would happen if I let it auto detect which usually is my 8 threads). Limited the recording to 30fps and little to no warnings. Large output files but it's no different to UTvideo so I can't complain.



About the mode conversion there's many other settings like YUV 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:0:0 & YUVA 4:4:4:4 - Why 4:2:0 & not 4:4:4? MagicYUV gives a tip in recommending 4:4:4 for better compression ratio.

[Malix]

the tooltip reads:


ie. YUV4:4:4 compresses better than RGB, not better overall (or better than 4:2:0

I'd recommend 4:2:0 as it produces smaller files than 4:4:4 and RGB while being *really* close in quality.

[nocktwice]

Ah ok makes sense. I'll stick to 4:2:0 then. Thanks for all the great info