RedCat's guide to recording in PlanetSide 2 (dxtory/ffsplit/obs)

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by RedCat, Jan 16, 2013.

  1. RedCat

    This is a re-re-re-post from the APB/SoV/PS2EU forums, let me know if anything is wrong with the bbcode and I will fix it.

    My PC specifications etc:
    Motherboard: AsRock Extreme3 Gen3
    CPU: i7-2600k @ 3.40ghz
    RAM: Corshair Vengeance 8GB @ 1600Mhz
    VIDEO: GTX460 1GB

    Now my guides will be based on my PC specs, which are pretty high, anyone with similar specs should be able to record at full HD with no fps drops at all just like me, I will include some tips for people with lower end PC's, and how they can record with Dxtory while maintaining decent quality.

    My guides:

    Dxtory setup:

    1) Download Dxtory (google is your friend) - I'm using Dxtory 2.0.114 & install it.
    2) Open dxtory and go to the folder tab:

    [IMG]

    Now click on the green + button, and add a folder - this will be the folder all your recordings will be saved to.

    3) Now go to the hotkey tab:

    [IMG]

    Click on the start/stop movie capture button and add whatever button you want to start recording in-game.

    4) Now go to the advanced tab and make sure processing threads is set to the max:
    [IMG]

    5) Go to the movie tab and copy these settings:
    [IMG]

    You don't have to select a codec yet, just make sure the frame rate is set to 30, and the size set to whatever your desktop resolution is, in my case 1920x1080. And, select file format: AVI and select file output.

    ================================================================

    Codecs:

    x264, high quality, almost no fps drop, but editing in Sony Vegas can cause problems (e.g slow preview window)

    1) Download both of these 264 codecs http://www.digital-digest.com/software/x264_VFW_Codec.html - install them (BOTH are needed!)

    2) Now go back to the video tab and select the "x264vfw H264/MPEG AVC Codec" in the drop down menu, and then select the pen tool next to where it says "codec: x264vfw H264/MPEG AVC Codec", it will open the following window:


    [IMG]

    Copy these settings EXACTLY, then open the "analysis & encoding" tab:

    [IMG]

    Again, copy these settings exactly.

    Make sure to triple check all settings as, one mistake can mess things up pretty badly - for example, bigger filesize, less FPS while recording etc.

    I spend a lot of time on these settings and this is the best possible settings you can get - setting the quality lower or higher makes absolutely ZERO difference, it will only create a smaller or WAY bigger filesize and the quality will only get worse or stay the same.

    Here is an example of a recording I did a while ago:




    ================================================================


    Matrox VFW Codec, good quality but a little pixelated around texts and such, hardly any fps drops, editing in Sony Vegas works flawlessly


    1) Download: http://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/windows/vfw_software_codecs/downloads/softwares/version1.0/
    2) Open dxtory and go to the video tab, and select Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame HD
    3) Change your size under scaling in the video tab to whatever you want it to record at, and you're done.


    ===============================================================


    ffdshow codec pack, haven't tested it out much, but by default settings it gives my FPS drops and I can't open the files I recorded in Sony Vegas



    1) Download http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/
    2) Select "ffdshow Video Codec" in the video tab


    ================================================================

    Now that you've selected a codec, you can go in-game and start recording by pressing whatever button you set to make it start recording.

    The best thing you can do is record at the same size you have your desktop and game at, if your resolution is not 1920x1080, you can change the size at the video tab to whatever your resolution is.

    If you experience lag while recording, you could try lowering the size to 1280x720 or 1152x648, next to that you can also go in the advanced tab and ENABLE:

    "Enable synchronized surface lock"
    "Wait for available buffer"

    And set your processing threads for example from 8 to 4, or from 4 to 2.

    If you would like to record your own microphone or any other audio source in Dxtory you can go to the audio tab, press the + button and add another audio stream, you can extract this audio stream by right clicking on the file you've recorded and press on "extract audio stream" - programs such as Sony Vegas should automatically find the second audio stream and show it to you, but if not, you can extract it.

    [IMG]

    ================================================================

    Open broadcaster recording tutorial:

    As some of you might know x264 is nice, however ones does not simply edit x264 in Sony Vegas or any other video editing program for that matter. However I have managed to find a way to fix this, basically the problem is that the file output is .avi which prevents Sony Vegas (etc) from reading it properly, it needs to be .mp4

    So here are the steps:

    1) Download Open Broadcaster from http://obsproject.com/
    2) Install it, and start it up.
    3) Add a new scene to the scenes list:


    [IMG]

    4) Add a new game capture to the sources list:

    (Note that: you need to actually start the game first,
    if it's a 64 bit program use C:\Program Files (x86)\OBS\64bit\OBS.exe)

    [IMG]

    Again note that: you need to actually start the game first and if it's a 64 bit program use C:\Program Files (x86)\OBS\64bit\OBS.exe - also make sure you right click and fit to screen.

    5) Go to settings > encoding

    [IMG]

    Lower bitrate = less quality, higher = better quality.
    Lower buffer = more pixelation, higher buffer = less pixelation.
    Audio = 128 AAC, anything higher is NOT needed.

    5) Go to settings > broadcast settings

    [IMG]

    Mode: file output
    File path: select whatever
    Start/stop key: choose whatever

    7) Go to settings > video and select your desktop resolution (which SHOULD also be your game resolution)

    Resolution downscale: none
    FPS: 30
    [IMG]

    8) Go to settings: audio - select your microphone and other options you want

    9) Go to settings > advanced and copy these advanced settings:

    [IMG]

    ==============================================================
    • Up x 1
  2. RedCat

    Now you are ready to record, the filesize will be around 120mb a minute, one hour should be around 5gb and you can now edit these files flawlessly in Sony Vegas or similar.

    Current bug (something OBS developers are fixing in the next version):

    If the audio track does not show in Sony Vegas or similar, download YAMB (http://yamb.unite-video.com/download.html), start it up > go to editing > extract streams from avi/mp4/mov/ts files > select the audio track, extract it (will take 1 second), drag it into your video editing program below the video.

    Preview at 1920x1080, Q10, BR12.500/B25.000, AAC128, preset ultrafast, 30FPS:



    (is actually lower quality then what I'm using right now which is 1920x1080, Q10, BR12.500/B25.000, AAC128, preset ultrafast, 30FPS as explained in the tutorial above).

    WARNING: IF YOU HAVE INSTALLED THE X264 CODECS FROM THE PREVIOUS POST THIS WILL NOT WORK.

    ================================================================

    Setting up dxtory with XSplit (for streaming purposes):

    This one is fairly easy:

    Setting up dxtory for streaming:

    1) Make sure you have dxtory and xsplit downloaded and installed.
    2) Make an account at your preferred streaming website, I will use twitch.tv in my case
    3) In dxtory's video tab instead of having it set to "file output", tick on "directshow output" instead and tick off "file output" (unless you want to record everything to your HD also, but xsplit can do this too), like so:


    [IMG]

    4) It does not matter what codec you use, xsplit will handle all that, the onlything that matters is that you select directshow output, what I also like to do is set the size at the same resolution I'm streaming as (I honestly don't know whether this matters but I like to keep everything the same). What is also important is the FPS you set it at, if you're going to be streaming at 25fps or 30fps (which is usually enough for streaming), make sure you set the fps at 25 or 30 in dxtory also, like so:


    [IMG]

    5) The next thing is very important, click the following button:

    [IMG]

    And you will see the following window:

    [IMG]

    And change Output1 to whatever resolution you are going to be streaming at, in my case this is 1920x1080, and then press OK.

    ================================================================

    Now that we've setup dxtory correctly, we can start configuring xsplit:

    Setting up xsplit for streaming:


    http://www.xsplit.com/

    1) Startup xsplit and login to your xsplit account, if you don't have one I suggest making one.
    2) The first thing you want to do is set the resolution and framerate exactly the same as in dxtory, go to the VIEW menu, select RESOLUTION, then select whatever resolution you put in dxtory (in my case 1920x1080):

    [IMG]

    3) You want to be doing the same for the framerate (FPS), if your framerate is 30 in dxtory you want to set it to 30 also in xsplit:

    [IMG]

    You might've noticed that when changing the resolution in xsplit, the xsplit window becomes either bigger or smaller depending on what resolution you've chosen. To make the xsplit window smaller or bigger, depending on what you like, go to VIEW > SCALE VIEWPORT, to change the size:

    [IMG]

    This has NO effect on your streaming quality.

    Now before we continue, I would like to point out that the resolution I've chosen is extremely high for streaming and that most computers will not be able to handle this, you most likely want to turn the resolution down, to 1280x720 for example or even lower depending on how powerful your processor is - make sure you do this in both dxtory and xsplit - as we want to keep the resolution the same everywhere.

    I also like to point out that xsplit free users can only stream at a framerate of 25, so you want to change it to 25 in both xsplit and dxtory.

    4) Now that the resolution and framerate is the same in both programs, we want to add dxtory to xsplit, this is very easy. Simply go to the bottom menu of xsplit, go to ADD > ADD CAMERA > and select Dxtory Video 1 - as you might've guessed "dxtory video 1" is the same as "Output 1" in dxtory:

    [IMG]
    [IMG]

    Now if you hover your mouse over the xsplit window you might notice a white border, you want to select this border and drag it all the way to a corner so it fills the whole window:

    [IMG]

    5) Now that we've got dxtory added to xsplit, the only thing remaining is to add your streaming channel to xsplit, in my case this is twitch.tv, go to BROADCAST > EDIT CHANNELS > and press ADD on the right side > and select Justin/TwitchTV:

    [IMG]

    * Input your TWITCH.TV username and password there, your channel will be automatically found.
    * Next select a streaming server close to you (LOCATION), in my case this is EU: Amsterdam; NL

    Now the rest is up to you, it will take a lot of TESTING to get the stream settings which are right for you, because everyones computer specifications are different and everyones bandwidht is different I can't tell you the perfect settings which are best for you, the onlything I can tell you is the following:

    Preset: the SLOWER the preset the MORE cpu it will use, so if you have a powerful PC but a low upload speed you will want to use a slower preset

    Quality: I personally keep this at 10, which is the best quality, the lower the quality the worse it looks

    VBV Max Bitrate: This is depened on your upload speed, and also for the most part determines the quality of your stream, a good way to see what your limit is, is by going to www.speedtest.net and see what your max upload speed is, you want to be setting the VBV Max Bitrate at 75% of your upload speed, so you still have room for other things (such as APB, games require some upload speed, broadcasting your position and other things to the server).

    1000 kbps = 0.9765625 Mbps, so if speedtest.net reports you have a 2Mpbs upload, you could safely set your bitrate at 1500. For easy conversion, go to google.com and type in "1000 kbps to Mbps" and it will tell you exactly.

    VBV Buffer: To be honest I am not sure what this does, but from what I understand this decreases pixelation, I personally set this to double of my VBV Max Bitrate

    Resolution: Do not touch this, keeping it on default will use whatever resolution you've chosen.

    Audio: audio takes up bandwidth too, lower this for worse quality but less bandwidth usage.

    Again, I can't tell you exactly what settings to use, since everybody their PC and bandwidth is different, you will have to find out yourself what the best settings are for you. You can lower the resolution and increase the bitrate, or higher the resolution and increase the bitrate, or lower the quality and increase the bitrate... you will have to find out for yourself.

    Just keep in mind, if you do change the resolution or framerate (FPS), make sure you do it in both xsplit and dxtory, you want both to be the same. Also keep in mind that it doesn't matter what codec you use in dxtory, this has no effect.

    To start broadcasting go to BROADCAST > and select your channel.

    TIP: You can also test your bandwidth in xsplit when editing your channel, GREEN IS GOOD!


    ================================================================

    Setting up dxtory with FFSplit (for streaming purposes):

    I won't go too much into this, most settings are basically the same as xsplit, it just looks different, it's lightweight and very easy to use, however to make it work is a little different then xsplit as you will need a streaming key:


    1) Download and install FFSplit: http://www.ffsplit.com/
    2) Go to twitch.tv/broadcast - and press on "VIEW KEY"
    3) Find the server which is closest to you, from this list:



    Simply take the link of whatever server is closest to you and add your key at the end, for example:

    rtmp://live-ams.justin.tv/app/live_293252_dU0dfsaJGAERTfs23EerT44SOwkb

    You want to copy this link into ffsplit where it says "stream", simply tick that on and put the link there:

    [IMG]

    As you can see all the other settings are very much like xsplit, you got your video source called "dxtory video 1" (which is Output1 in dxtory), your audio source (what people will hear), microphone source (if you want to broad your microphone), and all the other things which have the same meaning as in xsplit.

    However, note that: FFSplit is still very much in beta stage, it might crash a lot or make your stream go offline randomly, but the quality is MUCH better then xsplit, and.... it's FREE!


    ================================================================

    Setting up dxtory with Open Broadcaster (for streaming purposes):
    Simply follow this tutorial:


    However, I would reccomend using 30FPS unless you have a really powerful computer.



    I hope this helped, and if anyone needs help or has tips to record with Dxtory post here! Feel free to post codecs, video tests and others thing, let's help each other!
  3. RedCat

    Or... alternatively you can use the in-game recorder!

    But it sucks... no offense devs :<
    • Up x 1
  4. BenYeeHua

    Wow, so loooong.
    I has bookmark this for using it if I will record the game.
    Thank;)
  5. RedCat

    Yep I had hoped for a SPOILER tag but it doesn't exist sadly, anyway thanks :)
  6. BenYeeHua

    Because it need installed as a mod for some forum system.:)
  7. RadioActiveLobster

    There is supposedly a way to improve the editing performance of x264vfw encoded files by changing the keyint command, but it will affect the compression and FPS hit. I don't fully understand it, just going of what I've read.
  8. RedCat

    I have no idea, all I know is that if you change it from .avi to .mp4 it works :D
  9. BenYeeHua

    lol.
    So why not changing it to RMVB.:D
  10. Charlie

    Great info here!

    One issue I've seen though, when recording, the footage at the end looks a little washed out compared to actual in-game visuals. Any idea how to fix that?
  11. RedCat

    Thanks.

    Depends which codec you are using, I find that OBS with x264 is the best quality. But remember most of these codecs aren't losless, if you want pure quality you would need to use something like Fraps (or another lossless codec in dxtory), though that will drop your FPS by a lot and the file-size will be much bigger.

    If you are using Sony Vegas you can right click the video clip > go to properties and "disable re sampling" this will remove any blur.
  12. Charlie

  13. RedCat

    No problem I hope it helps!

    Also bump!
  14. Bardock-Sama

    Very nice post, will definitely try this.
    Cheers man!
  15. the pestimist

  16. RedCat

    Thanks. Try out OBS, it's really nice apart from not having different audio channels for mic and speakers.


    Hello o_O!
  17. RedCat

    Bumpity bump.
  18. BenYeeHua

    So you still at here.:)
  19. RedCat

  20. ManDraKEarg

    • Up x 1