IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2003
- Messages
- 14,675
Plex or that type of streaming, is a different situation from game streaming. Game streaming is real time. Plex is not.
I get that real-time streaming is a goal, but I don't see it as a necessity. However, I'll admit to not being a consumer of gameplay streaming.
Plex can therefore buffer your stream several seconds and take the extra time to transcode the file, before it sends you the next bit. The "Slow" preset should be fine for Plex on my 7600k, becuase it can take 5 seconds to do it, before it sends it to me. With game streaming, there is no pre-existng file. You are recording the game as it is happening. there is no 5 second buffer time to transcode before the stream.
I use a 7600k too, but I also dropped in a 1050Ti 4GB card to help. Both are overkill for my uses for the moment, but the 1050Ti can obviously do more than transcode.
Even with plex, it still remains that CPU transcoding should have greater quality at lower bitrates. The image quality considerations do not change. I would say the big advantage with GPU encoding on Plex, is possibly lower power usage. Or, the server better able to handle multi-tasking, because the video streams are on qucksync. and other server work is free to use the main CPU cores. Also, GPU encoded streams on plex seem to have faster seek times.
This really depends on the hardware and how it's utilized. Current hardware seems a bit fixed, but we should see improvements from Intel with their next GPU generation. Software wins from a logical standpoint because it can be adjusted beyond whatever limits exist in hardware, however, it's 'good enough' for many things, and will likely be 'good enough' for others in the future.
It also seems like a GPU doesn't necessarily offer more simultaneous streams from Plex, than a quad core CPU. Therefore, more CPU cores would probably enable more overall streams from Plex, than a GPU.
This is more of a software thing. Near entry-level Quadros are usually favored for this as they don't have limits set and can support a dozen+ concurrent streams. For the Geforce variants, one needs to run Linux with a driver patch, which I am.
Beyond all that, it does seem that the bar for gameplay streaming (as opposed to game streaming a la Google's Stadia, now we have to be more specific...), is that the recording from gameplay needs to be in its final form at the time of recording. I don't really see this as a necessity as much as a convenience. Typically recording will be done with a higher bitrate, lower compression, higher dynamic range / lower noise codec and then edited and output for specific targets such as Youtube.
So when we're talking about gameplay streaming, we're talking about a subset of functionality that's likely more software limited than anything. Further, if one is serious about it, a second machine optimized for the purpose would be the best solution for many reasons, not the least of which being that frametime disruptions due to recording affecting various systems should be avoided.