Inside OBS sits one setting that shapes your entire streaming experience: the encoder. The two names you will see most are NVENC and x264, and picking the right one decides whether your gameplay stays buttery smooth or stutters under load. This is a plain-English breakdown of what each does, how they differ in quality, and which one you should actually run.
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Top 3 picks at a glance
What an encoder does
An encoder compresses your raw gameplay into a manageable video stream in real time. Raw 1080p60 video is far too large to send over the internet, so the encoder squeezes it down to a target bitrate — say 6,000 Kbps — while trying to preserve as much detail as possible. NVENC and x264 are two different ways of doing that squeezing.
The core difference
| Aspect | NVENC | x264 |
|---|---|---|
| Processed by | GPU’s dedicated encoder chip | CPU cores (software) |
| Performance cost | Very low, frees the CPU | High CPU usage |
| Quality (modern gen) | Excellent, near-parity | Slightly better at low bitrate |
| Needs | Recent NVIDIA GPU | Many spare CPU cores |
| Ideal setup | Single modern PC | Dual-PC or high-core CPU |
NVENC: the modern default
NVENC is NVIDIA’s hardware encoder, a dedicated block on the graphics card that does nothing but encode video. Because it is separate from the cores rendering your game, it costs only a few percent of GPU performance and leaves your CPU almost untouched. The latest NVENC generations produce image quality so close to x264 that most viewers cannot tell the difference at typical streaming bitrates. For a single gaming PC, this is the recommended choice.
x264: the software veteran
x264 encodes on your CPU and offers a range of presets from “ultrafast” to “veryslow”. Slower presets analyze each frame more carefully and can eke out slightly better quality per bitrate than NVENC — valuable if you are stuck at a low bitrate. The price is heavy CPU usage; a demanding preset can consume most of a mainstream processor, so it usually needs abundant cores or a dedicated encoding PC.
Does the quality gap still matter?
Years ago x264 clearly beat hardware encoders on image quality, and that reputation persists. But modern NVENC (Turing generation and newer) closed most of the gap. At mainstream bitrates around 6,000 Kbps for 1080p, the difference is marginal and rarely worth the CPU cost of x264. The gap only widens at very low bitrates, where x264’s careful analysis pulls ahead — relevant mainly if your upload speed forces a tight bitrate.
The dual-PC scenario
Serious streamers sometimes run a second PC dedicated to encoding, fed by a capture card. That machine can run x264 on a slower, higher-quality preset without touching the gaming PC at all, delivering top-tier quality with zero impact on gameplay. If you are on a single PC, though, NVENC gives you nearly the same result for a fraction of the hassle.
How to choose
If you own a modern NVIDIA GPU: use NVENC. It is the simplest path to smooth gameplay and clean video on one machine. If you own an AMD GPU: use AMF (the equivalent hardware encoder). Only choose x264 if you have a CPU with many spare cores, a dedicated stream PC, or an upload so limited that you must maximise quality at a very low bitrate. When in doubt, hardware encoding wins for the vast majority of streamers.
Frequently asked questions
Is NVENC quality good enough for a professional stream?
Yes. Modern NVENC on recent NVIDIA cards delivers quality close to x264 at normal streaming bitrates, and countless professional streamers use it every day. Unless you are constrained to a very low bitrate, viewers will not notice a meaningful difference.
Will x264 ruin my game’s performance?
It can, because x264 runs on your CPU and competes with the game for cores, especially on CPU-heavy titles or demanding presets. On a single PC this often causes stutter or dropped frames, which is why NVENC — offloading the work to the GPU’s dedicated chip — is the safer single-machine choice.
Bottom line
NVENC encodes on a dedicated GPU chip with minimal performance cost and near-x264 quality, making it the right pick for almost every single-PC streamer. x264 encodes on the CPU and can look marginally better at low bitrates, but only makes sense with spare cores or a dedicated stream PC. Choose hardware encoding first, and reserve x264 for the specific cases that truly need it.
