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Oct 30, 2023

New OBS feature lets you stream better video for less bandwidth

OBS 29 adds AV1 encoding support for new AMD and Intel GPUs, among other

OBS 29 adds AV1 encoding support for new AMD and Intel GPUs, among other improvements.

If you ever use OBS to record footage or stream to Twitch, odds are you're using H.264, a video codec that's been in use for most of the last two decades. H.264 is everywhere. If you're streaming a show from Netflix or another service, it's probably H.264, too. It's basically the JPEG of video: there are now far more efficient and better quality compression methods available, but it's hard to dislodge a format that's so entrenched. Streaming video is starting to do just that, though, with an open source codec called AV1. Netflix has been dabbling with it for a couple years, and now OBS Studio version 29.0 has jumped in with native support for AV1 encoding on AMD and Intel GPUs.

It's an exciting step, though not one that we're all going to be able to take advantage of right away. There are two basic types of video encoding: software (which fully relies on your CPU, and is very CPU intensive) and hardware, which uses your GPU to accelerate the encoding process. Hardware encoding is way faster and more efficient and won't spike your CPU to 100% usage, and is how most of us record footage or stream to platforms like Twitch today. But it's also typically lower quality.

AV1 comes with the advantage of looking much better than H.264 at lower bitrates, which is especially helpful for streaming on Twitch where your bandwidth is limited. This new version of OBS adds AV1 encoding support for some specific GPUs: AMD's RX7000 series and Intel's Arc cards. Back in November OBS added support for Nvidia cards, but only the 4000 series GPUs which have a new encoder on board. Anyone with an older Nvidia card sadly can't take advantage.

If you own a brand new AMD GPU, though, you can test out AV1 encoding now. This recent video from Linus Tech Tips offers an overview of AV1's advantages and disadvantages and also makes the case for buying a cheap Intel Arc GPU like this one specifically for video encoding.

There are some other additions and improvements in the full patch notes, which you can read below on the OBS Github.

Features

Tweaks and Improvements

Bug Fixes

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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

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