OBS Studio, the popular online content streaming program, has received the 29.1 update. Among the novelties included in the new version, the support for encoding via hardware in AV1 stands out if you have a GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card. This is possible thanks to the eighth generation of NVENC (NVIDIA Encoder), a feature of NVIDIA GPUs that performs video encoding, offloading the work of the CPU to a dedicated part of the graphics card, and now allows the use of the AV1 format. .
Using the AV1 codec is a great advantage for anyone streaming content via OBS. Powered by a GeForce RTX 40-series GPU, it’s up to 50% more efficient than H.264, with an average improvement of 40%, delivering better visual quality than competing graphics cards.
This update also allows AV1 encoded videos to be sent to YouTube via Enhanced Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), although YouTube is currently unable to play AV1 encoded content. However, viewers will experience higher quality video when AV1 encoded data is sent.
GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card users who want to stream AV1 format content with OBS Studio can refer to the following guide.