Is the NVENC Encoder on the RTX 3080 Really That Poor?
Asked by
TechieNinja42
Hey folks, I've recently switched from an RTX 4070 to an RTX 3080 and noticed a significant drop in my streaming and recording capabilities. I can't stream or record at 3440x1440 anymore. On Discord, my Video Encode usage spikes to 100% in Task Manager, and the stream is only hitting about 10 FPS. I've tried OBS too, and even on lower than Medium presets, I get an 'encoder overloaded' warning. With my RTX 4070, everything was smooth sailing at 1440p, streaming on Discord without any hiccups and recording at 120 FPS using the slower preset.
For kicks, I tested on two friends' systems that have RTX 3050 and 3070 GPUs. They only have 1080p monitors, so I added a custom 3440x1440 resolution.During my tests, the same problems occurred, with video encode hitting 100% in Task Manager for both Discord and OBS. The only settings that worked were streaming Discord at 1440p@30, or recording with OBS at 3440x1440@60 (slow) or 3440x1440@120 (medium).
Just a heads up: if you want to test streaming on Discord, make sure someone is actually watching the stream to engage the encoder. Overall, it feels like the RTX 30-series NVENC just doesn't handle high resolutions as well as the RTX 40-series does, which is pretty disappointing.
Answers
It sounds like your software settings are being overridden. Are both OBS and Discord set to prioritize hardware encoding? Clearing their settings might help you troubleshoot what's going wrong.
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There might be a hardware fault with the encoder itself, though it’s unlikely. One way to check is by testing the encoder on other software to see if it behaves the same way.
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You definitely should be able to stream or record at those settings without a hitch. It’s clear something's off. I had similar issues after upgrading my GPU, and sometimes apps just hold onto old settings—maybe try reinstalling the system?
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It sounds like something's configured wrong. The RTX 3080 can definitely handle that output. Have you tried messing with your settings in OBS or Discord?
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You might want to consider using DDU to fully uninstall your GPU drivers. After that, do a clean installation of the latest drivers. Sometimes the old drivers can cause issues like this.
TechieNinja42: I did that, but nothing changed! Reinstalled drivers using DDU in Safe Mode and still facing the same problem. Here’s a link showing what I get: [Streamable Link](https://streamable.com/fycqbd)
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TechieNinja42: They are using hardware encoding for sure; I'm seeing 100% Video Encode usage in Task Manager. 1440p on OBS only works at Medium settings, and with Discord, I can barely do 1080p without issues.