Best Video Quality Possible?

[NeedsZeebs]

So... I've been seeing on YouTube a bunch of people using the same OG DS Cap card as me, but getting worlds better quality (i.e. very sharp, clear and smooth gameplay). However, I find that no matter what I do, I simply cannot reach that level of quality and I thought maybe some people on here would know about that...

So far, I've noticed that the only thing that really makes this thing output 60FPS is when I plug it into my USB 3.1 port. The 2.0 ports display a really jumpy, just all around awful image on the software. The 3.0 ports seem to be marginally better, but not by much and the 3.1 ports are butter smooth. That being said, I can only plug one Cap Card (I have 3) in to the 3.1 port at a time (I have 2 3.1 ports on my mobo) because when I plug both in, I start getting white flashes, followed by harsh FPS drops on the DS Capture software. I purchased a USB hub on Amazon to see if I could better the quality... It connects to my motherboard through a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type C connection and has 3 USB 3.0 ports on it. Even though the hub connects to my mobo through a 3.1 connection, the hubs are still 3.0, so like there may be a minute difference in quality, but it is more likely my eyes playing tricks on me lol.

Changing the priority in my task manager doesn't really seem to do anything and more often then not, it simply freezes the capture software to the point where I have to restart it, which as you know, resets the task priority back to normal. I've tried running in compatibility mode, which also doesn't really seem to make a difference and I've also disabled windows DPI and tried using program DPI but again, I'm not seeing a real difference in quality (I also am not super knowledgeable about that).

The first thing I did when I got the capture card was try every single codec and for me, there wasn't a noticeable difference in quality between any of them. I downloaded and now use Lagarith Lossless codec, I have all the quality options as high as they can go, as well as the frame rate set to 60 and I use multithreading and YUY2 color mode. This seems to have made the quality marginally better, but it still can't hold a torch to some of the other videos I see.

At this point I understand a lot of people are probably thinking that the reason my video quality isn't up to snuff is because these people improve their quality either in post, or using point filters and sharpeners in OBS. I personally feel like that cannot be true. I have spent hours in OBS' settings tweaking and deliberating over what could possibly make such a difference in quality. Obviously, using a high bitrate is helpful (I use CQP rate control with a CQ level of 15), we record in 1080p60, presets are all set to highest/max quality, and I record in mp4. I use window capture for the DS software which I put a sharpener of 0.05 on (any higher and the video quality starts to dip quite hard), some mild saturation, as well as Lanczos scale filtering (I've tried them all [point, bicubic, bilinear, and area] and this is the sharpest). Most of what goes on in the settings sections of OBS seems to more so effect the background and other things I have in the scene. Generally, the window capture (the actual DS footage) is only effected by the filters I directly apply to it, otherwise I find the quality of the raw input straight from the DS software seems to be the main factor in determining the quality of the actual games in the final recording.

TL;DR

The gameplay doesn't run at 60fps, even when it is selected in the video settings of the software. The only time it does is when plugged into a USB 3.1 port, but I can't plug more then one DS in through the 3.1 ports because I start getting white flashes and frame rate drops in the software. The actual video quality is pretty much always blurry, no matter what settings, or codecs, or anything I try. The only thing that marginally improves this is using the Sharpen filter on OBS. I've attached two screenshots to show my quality (which honestly isn't awful but yea) and someone else also using a Loopy OG DS cap card (yes, I've asked him and all he said was he uses a point filter in OBS, lol fml) to show the difference I'm talking about.

If anyone can help me, or knows anything about this I would really appreciate it. I haven't actually tried buying new mini usb cables to connect the DS to my computer with, but that's next on my list...

[Tosh]

The second picture you posted definitely looks like its been sharpened to a very high level. Maybe that really is all it is.

[loopy]

Did you resize the display window in the DS capture software? Change it to point scaling (right click anywhere inside the window ... or just hit F4).

[auk]

Well, for starters, the bottom image is an emulator. And you should really be recording at native resolution or a linear integer scale of it with Nearest Neighbour scaling, and then use something other than Bilinear to scale up/down your image to your desired quality.

[NeedsZeebs]

Did you resize the display window in the DS capture software? Change it to point scaling (right click anywhere inside the window ... or just hit F4).

i absolutely cannot believe that out of all the things I tried this wasn't one of them. the point scaling has made the image much sharper for sure thank you so much.. as far as I know, the window hasn't been resized (if it has, I'm not really sure how to reset/ change that other then just dragging from the corner of the window).

[NeedsZeebs]

Well, for starters, the bottom image is an emulator. And you should really be recording at native resolution or a linear integer scale of it with Nearest Neighbour scaling, and then use something other than Bilinear to scale up/down your image to your desired quality.

That's what I thought as well, but he has insisted that it is a cap card by Loopy. I'll certainly have to look into Nearest Neighbour Scaling, as I'm not really sure what that is. Do you mean record through OBS at native (I record at 1080p) or 720p, or something, and then scale up in post? Sorry I'm kinda confused. Thanks for the response though!

[loopy]

i absolutely cannot believe that out of all the things I tried this wasn't one of them. the point scaling has made the image much sharper for sure thank you so much.. as far as I know, the window hasn't been resized (if it has, I'm not really sure how to reset/ change that other then just dragging from the corner of the window).

Yeah, that's all I meant. Dragging the corner to make the window bigger.

Well, for starters, the bottom image is an emulator. And you should really be recording at native resolution or a linear integer scale of it with Nearest Neighbour scaling, and then use something other than Bilinear to scale up/down your image to your desired quality.

That's what I thought as well, but he has insisted that it is a cap card by Loopy. I'll certainly have to look into Nearest Neighbour Scaling, as I'm not really sure what that is. Do you mean record through OBS at native (I record at 1080p) or 720p, or something, and then scale up in post? Sorry I'm kinda confused. Thanks for the response though!

Nearest neighbor is the same thing as "point" scaling. The simplest kind of resizing, duplicating pixels without any extra smoothing.

[NeedsZeebs]

i absolutely cannot believe that out of all the things I tried this wasn't one of them. the point scaling has made the image much sharper for sure thank you so much.. as far as I know, the window hasn't been resized (if it has, I'm not really sure how to reset/ change that other then just dragging from the corner of the window).

Yeah, that's all I meant. Dragging the corner to make the window bigger.

Well, for starters, the bottom image is an emulator. And you should really be recording at native resolution or a linear integer scale of it with Nearest Neighbour scaling, and then use something other than Bilinear to scale up/down your image to your desired quality.

That's what I thought as well, but he has insisted that it is a cap card by Loopy. I'll certainly have to look into Nearest Neighbour Scaling, as I'm not really sure what that is. Do you mean record through OBS at native (I record at 1080p) or 720p, or something, and then scale up in post? Sorry I'm kinda confused. Thanks for the response though!

Nearest neighbor is the same thing as "point" scaling. The simplest kind of resizing, duplicating pixels without any extra smoothing.

Awesome! Thank you a ton cause the game is super sharp and clear now! Now I just gotta figure out how to make the video in the window smoother... it's not terrible, running the game capture window in its smallest size produces the best results. The DS plugged in through 3.1 is exceptionally smooth and the 3.0 one is like cinematic 30. I kind of have to assume that simply can't be helped and there is no further way to improve frame rate for the 3.0 one since 3.1 ports simply have double the bandwidth.