Technical
x264
Software encoding on your CPU. Its slower presets can beat hardware quality, but cost serious CPU — mostly a dual-PC-setup choice now.
Related terms
- Encoder
The software or hardware that compresses your video to send it online. 'x264' uses your CPU; 'NVENC' uses an NVIDIA GPU.
- NVENC
NVIDIA's dedicated encoding chip on GeForce GPUs. Streams with almost zero game performance cost — the default choice if you have RTX.
- Dual-PC setup
Using one PC to game and a second to encode the stream. Once the standard for high-end quality; modern GPU encoders (NVENC) make it unnecessary for most.