One of the main novelties that arrived with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 GPUs, and the list of them is quite extensive and excellent, is the support to encode and decode video in AV1 format in real time by hardware, that is to say, that we will not depend on the computer (and, therefore, on its performance at all times) so that the compression-decompression is carried out without problems in real time. This, for content creators, and especially for streamers, is a huge advantage over the previous options because, in any software coding scenario, any process that alters system performance will result in failures in this process and, therefore, therefore, in its result.
For its part, OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Studio is the most used application, to this day, by the streamers of the main platforms. It is a free and open source development that, in its more than 10 years of life, has undergone a more than remarkable evolution, partly as a result of the work of the developers who have been involved in the project, and also partly because of the possibility of “supplementing” it thanks to plugins of all kinds. This, added to the fact that it has been able to adapt very well to the needs of streamers, has caused it to be the favorite option for most today.
OBS Studio has just received the 29.1 update and, among its new features, one of the most notable is that, finally, it incorporates the expected hardware encoding support in AV1 format for all those users who have a GPT GeForce RTX 40. With this novelty, the entire encoding process in real time falls on NVENC (NVIDIA Encoder), which avoids the need for CPU intervention in it. In addition, since the operation is carried out in a part of the card specifically dedicated to this purpose, it will not affect its performance for other tasks that are being carried out simultaneously.
Additionally, and anticipating its implementation by the platform, This update also allows you to send videos encoded in AV1 to YouTube through Enhanced RTMP (enhanced real-time messaging protocol). Although YouTube is currently unable to play AV1 content, viewers will experience higher quality video when AV1 encoded data is sent. Thus, if you are an OBS Studio user and have an RTX 40 graphics card, you can start taking advantage of this encoding format that, in addition to supporting resolutions up to 8K, offers a compression level up to 50% higher than H.264. and 30% higher than H.265.
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