Quality Test - Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (DOS)

nXmaniac

Edit history:

nXmaniac: 2017-08-01 07:41:38 am

nXmaniac: 2017-08-01 07:41:21 am

nXmaniac: 2017-08-01 07:37:22 am

2017-08-01 07:34:01 am

Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (DOS)
Type of quality test: source file + final encode.
Your operating system: Windows 7
Played on Dosbox 0.74
Capture software: OBS
Capture video resolution 320x200 @ 60 fps
Final Encode: yua

I'm quite news to this. I used to capture this game with Dosbox but I recently discovered this causes slowdowns so I'm trying OBS now. Dosbox used to record at just over 70fps so I don't know if the 60fps I'm using with OBS is okay. I'm also worried about the colours which seem pale. Any advice on how to fix my setup is appreciated.

Thread title:

Attachments:

2017-08-03 10:40:52 am

encodes look fine.

color looks fine to me too, at least comparing the source and the encodes. you may be seeing loss of color detail as a result of capturing at reduced color resolution. try changing the capture color format from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 or even 4:4:4. unfortunately i won't be of much help in doing this with h.264 mp4 since i don't know what the obs settings look like. maybe try installing the lagarith lossless codec, changing the capture container to avi, and configuring lagarith to 4:2:2 (sometimes 4:2:0 is called "yv12" and 4:2:2 is called "yuy2"). could use rgb too.

and then be warned that, for compatibility reasons, only 4:2:0 is valid for sda LQ through HQ and yua automatically downsamples to that, so you will lose the color resolution again in all your final encodes unless you also encode IQ. encoding IQ (even though it's not red in yua) is standard procedure for old school input like this to preserve color resolution in at least one of the qualities. let me know if you have any questions.

encodes look fine.

color looks fine to me too, at least comparing the source and the encodes. you may be seeing loss of color detail as a result of capturing at reduced color resolution. try changing the capture color format from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 or even 4:4:4. unfortunately i won't be of much help in doing this with h.264 mp4 since i don't know what the obs settings look like. maybe try installing the lagarith lossless codec, changing the capture container to avi, and configuring lagarith to 4:2:2 (sometimes 4:2:0 is called "yv12" and 4:2:2 is called "yuy2"). could use rgb too.

and then be warned that, for compatibility reasons, only 4:2:0 is valid for sda LQ through HQ and yua automatically downsamples to that, so you will lose the color resolution again in all your final encodes unless you also encode IQ. encoding IQ (even though it's not red in yua) is standard procedure for old school input like this to preserve color resolution in at least one of the qualities. let me know if you have any questions.

nXmaniac

2017-08-04 09:41:59 am

As far as I can understand, OBS only supports x264 so I tried using Bandicam and Dxtory with lagarith. The colours looked right but I exeperienced lag or frozen frames during level transitions and death animations.

Then I noticed that the picture quality on my twitch stream seemed to be fine with OBS. It turns out I had been streaming at a higher resolution. For some reason, if I record the video at 1024x800 it looks better than my previous files, even though the game is supposed to run in 320x200. In any case, I am attaching the source file and the encodes with this new setup and if they are fine, I'll stick with it. Finally, the game runs at up to 70fps so should I try to record at this rate or is sticking to 60fps fine (as I have done in these files and the previous ones)?

Thanks a lot for all the help.

Attachments:

2017-08-06 09:02:15 am

60 fps is fine.

recording this game at a higher resolution is another way around the color resolution problem i didn't think of. cool.

even though yua indicates that all the qualities are required, you only need to submit LQ, MQ, and HQ for this game since its true resolution is so low. those encodes look good.