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Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 2:12 am
by mikk
I evaluated some game recording programs with Quicksync support recently. Bandicam and Mirillis Action produced the best (fastest) results. Some things I want to mention.

I can choose between MPEG-1 L2 and PCM as Audio Codec. MPEG-1 L2 appears to be CPU heavier resulting in a 2-3 fps drop while recording compared to PCM. PCM is uncompress of course but AAC or AC3 should be a better match than MPEG-1. Mirillis Action uses AAC afaik and it's faster (about as fast as Bandicam with PCM audio). Would be nice if Bandicam could do AAC/AC3 in the future.

About Quicksync video parameters. VBR quality based is recommended from Bandicam. Quality 100 appears that it records with 10-12 Mbps while CBR can go up to 20-30 MBps. VBR bitrate mode with higher bitrate support and on Haswell with mbbrc or extbrc support would give much better results regarding video quality, especially on Haswell as long as mbbrc/extbrc is supported. Lookahead might be even better quality wise on Haswell but it uses more CPU and system memory which is not wanted in a game.

I forgot one thing to ask, which Target usage is Quicksync using while recording? About target usage here is a good overview: http://newsroom.intel.com/servlet/JiveS ... s-4200.pdf

edit:
Just tried a different game and quality 100 recorded the game with 93 Mbps, looks like it depends on the game. I noticed Bandicam records in baseline profile. Is this intended because of device compatibility? I know from Quicksync tests that the high profile is noticeably better regarding video quality.

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:43 am
by Bandicam Company
I forgot one thing to ask, which Target usage is Quicksync using while recording? About target usage here is a good overview: http://newsroom.intel.com/servlet/JiveS ... s-4200.pdf
We use Target Usage 7 to increase the recording speed.
Just tried a different game and quality 100 recorded the game with 93 Mbps, looks like it depends on the game. I noticed Bandicam records in baseline profile. Is this intended because of device compatibility? I know from Quicksync tests that the high profile is noticeably better regarding video quality.
Yes, you're right! We records in baseline profile to increase the recording speed and the device compatibility.

Thank you for your test.

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:43 pm
by mikk
We use Target Usage 7 to increase the recording speed.
You don't increase the recording speed but the encoding speed. Important for a game recording is the lowest CPU load while recording as possible, TU7 doesn't improve in that matter. 1080p @60 fps is no challenge for Quicksync, there is no need to use TU7 because it cannot speed up a recording. It causes an unnecessary video quality regression. Bandicam should offer an option for the user to use TU4 or higher improving the video quality of the recording. In MSI Afterburner I can choose between different target presets.

Yes, you're right! We records in baseline profile to increase the recording speed and the device compatibility.

Thank you for your test.

Lower H264 profiles don't improve the speed, it's usually for device combability. As above Bandicam should offer an option to use High profile in order to improve the quality of the recorded video.


What about the sound?

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 3:51 pm
by Bandicam Company
Hi,

It sounds good.
We will consider the option in the future.

Thank you for your informative post.

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:32 am
by mikk
Just tested again in Afterburner, no performance difference between TU7-TU2 recording. TU1 was 2 fps slower. Difference between TU2 and TU1 is trellis quantization enabled in TU1 which can be helpful for a higher bitrate encoding. Maybe it requires more CPU or system memory. That just shows how much quality potential is existing at the same performance. TU7 has a much much worse video quality than TU4. To illustrate it:

http://s7.directupload.net/images/131008/ssp8oh4p.png


The performance advantage from TU7 isn't usable for a recording. TU4 Quicksync for example is easily capable of 30 or 60 fps 1920x1080 encoding in real time. In fact on my Haswell i5 in VBR bitrate mode without mbbrc or extbrc I reach roughly 150 fps @1920x1080 60 fps video encoding in Handbrake.

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:06 pm
by mikk
Is this still running on TU7?

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:48 pm
by Bandicam Company
Hello again,

Your suggestion is on our TO DO LIST.
We will consider the option in the future.

We're sorry for the delay.

Re: Bandicam 1.9.1 Quicksync and Audio

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 6:41 pm
by mikk
And if you won't just use Intels default implementation-->TU4 Balanced

TU4 is recommended in general.