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Record a gameplay, then rerender it at higher resolution

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NiHaoMike

dBa Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Is there a way to record a modern 3D game while it's being played at a fairly low resolution like 1080p, then take the recorded data and rerender a video file at a much higher resolution like 4K or 8K? I'm aware that some game engines can do that, but for ones that don't, is there a generic way to implement it, including modding the game if needed? (Platform is PC, Windows or Linux.)

I asked elsewhere and the answer I got seems to be that it would involve a lot of data, but how much exactly? Adding a high speed (10Gbps or more) NIC to the gaming PC and another PC that's doing the work of compressing/filtering the data for storage can be considered.
 
It might help if you better describe the use case here.

If you want to upload lower resolution recordings to YouTube at 4k for example (so you get higher bitrate for viewers) pretty much any good video editing software will do that for you. Drop in the lower resolution file. Set export to 4k. YouTube recommend 50-70Mbps for 4k60 SDR content. I record games at 4k60 50mbit and that seems fine.
 
It might help if you better describe the use case here.

If you want to upload lower resolution recordings to YouTube at 4k for example (so you get higher bitrate for viewers) pretty much any good video editing software will do that for you. Drop in the lower resolution file. Set export to 4k. YouTube recommend 50-70Mbps for 4k60 SDR content. I record games at 4k60 50mbit and that seems fine.
Upscaling is not the same as rendering at the higher resolution. The use case is to generate video files of gameplay at resolutions higher than would be possible in real time.
 
It still isn't clear to me what your objective is. Re-reading OP you want to save the game state progression, then use that to render at higher resolution in non-real time? If that is the case, I'll have to drop out as I've not come across that.
 
He wants to upscale. No rendering is involved here. You’d need to do it on the fly and chances are if you don’t have HW to play in native 4k, you don’t remotely have the HW required to upscale on the fly.
 
It still isn't clear to me what your objective is. Re-reading OP you want to save the game state progression, then use that to render at higher resolution in non-real time? If that is the case, I'll have to drop out as I've not come across that.
Save whatever data is needed to allow making a video of the gameplay at a much higher resolution later on. The end goal is to post the videos online, just at a much higher quality than would normally be possible.
He wants to upscale. No rendering is involved here. You’d need to do it on the fly and chances are if you don’t have HW to play in native 4k, you don’t remotely have the HW required to upscale on the fly.
Not in real time, the rerender step is done after the gameplay. It's perfectly acceptable for that to take several times as long as the gameplay itself.
 
generally no matter what you do you can't add quality that isn't there from the start, 4k has 4x the data that 1080p has so you can upscale it all you want but it won't look anything close to if your footage was native 4k, I used to record gameplay at 1440p at 500(Mbps) bitrate which would result in a file over 150GB sometimes way more, after hours of up scaling it to 4k I would play both files side by side and the 4k would look marginally better but by the time youtube butchered it with it's compression it was obvious that it wasn't true 4k. The end result was it wasn't good enough quality to justify the time it took to upscale and upload.
 
Don't have any particular game in mind yet, but the most interesting ones would definitely be the ones that even the fastest GPUs struggle with at maximum detail and 4K or above. I'm trying to help out a friend who wants to get into making gameplay videos, it's just one of the ideas to have her stand out among all the other gameplay videos.
 
I'm trying to help out a friend who wants to get into making gameplay videos, it's just one of the ideas to have her stand out among all the other gameplay videos.
If this is for YouTube or similar, the value that is added to gameplay footage is far more important than the footage itself. Unless the goal is to specifically analyse the detail, no one is going to notice, especially after YT compression is done with it. Or if the recordings will be offered in a less compressed format off YT?

There are many graphics quality showcase style channels out there already. I think they just throw a 4090 at it and done. If it is possible at all it may be so difficult it isn't worth the time. Is there anyone else doing this already that could serve as an example? It would have to be advertised otherwise it would have little value.

Hope that doesn't sound overly negative but effort may be better applied elsewhere.
 
I'm thinking that the highest quality would be distributed by torrents, thus the viewers get bit perfect copies of the master files. That would also achieve the goal of making more content available on alternatives to Youtube.
 
People want to download full-length gameplay vids at '4K'??? With a torrent???

Have her multi-platform stream (YT, Twitch, Kick, etc.) for multiple revenue streams. The VODs from those are likely going to be sufficient for most users. I have to agree with Mack's assessment (sorry, lol).
 
What would it take to technically implement my idea? There's not much in the way of 8K gameplay videos out there, especially 8K native rendering.
 
What would it take to technically implement my idea? There's not much in the way of 8K gameplay videos out there, especially 8K native rendering.
As you originally posted, even if you could record the game state over time and non-real-time render it, you have to actually find a way to do that. Not saying it is impossible but I'm not aware of it.

Also, who has an 8k display to watch this ultra-resolution output? The value over 4k would be tiny, although it would be a niche I guess. You can manage decent 4k with a 4090 anyway.
 
Call it a "flagship", it's more for bragging rights than practical reasons. I'm sure the setup in itself can be the subject of a rather popular video.
 
i took the following snip from Steam Hardware Survey ( https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam ) to reference the percentage of users who use the most common resolutions.. as you can see, 1080p is by far most popular near 56%, 1440p is next just under 20%, and 4k is about 4%... 8k doesn't even really make the list, but is included in "Other" below 3% usage. (i snipped off the older lower resolutions, so other is probably the larger ones and widescreen monitors) How many users on Steam? i don't know exact numbers, but i've read estimates of well over 130 million active monthly users on Steam. so 4% of 132 million is maybe 5 million people who even have 4k monitors. (Assuming everybody on steam participates in the hardware survey) so i can see your entrepreneurial interest.

i'm not too familiar with streaming rigs... i understand they probably include an extra capture card, even if with mainstream apps like Nvidia App software, for example (not the drivers), Discord (started as a VOIP app), and Steam itself, you can stream / record 1080p easily enough. but for 4k videos.... i'm pretty sure you'll want to spend the extra for the separate capture cards with included software, mainly for the processing power while playing 4k AND recording it. However, if i understand correctly, you WILL have to give up adaptive Sync features (like FreeSync or G-Sync) because of how the capture card operates in-between the GPU and Monitor, requiring 2 cables.

a quick search under "how to record 4k video games" included the following (but contained much more info) "Capture Card (optional): If you’re using a PC, a capture card can help you record 4K gameplay from your console or PC. Popular options include Elgato HD60S, AVerMedia Extremecap U3, and Razer Ripsaw."
 

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Some additional ideas can be implemented. For example, smooth out the view changes so that viewers would be less likely to experience motion sickness. Or maybe even render a 360 surround video that viewers can look around wherever they want, although that can be glitchy as the view can be set in a direction the game developers never intended to be viewable.
 
What would it take to technically implement my idea? There's not much in the way of 8K gameplay videos out there, especially 8K native rendering.
Perhaps something like Topaz Video AI
Call it a "flagship", it's more for bragging rights than practical reasons. I'm sure the setup in itself can be the subject of a rather popular video.
Then it’s not if you’re not doing it natively. Depending on your starting point, you’ll get some artifacts.

I'm thinking that the highest quality would be distributed by torrents, thus the viewers get bit perfect copies of the master files. That would also achieve the goal of making more content available on alternatives to Youtube.

You’re upscaling. Bit perfect doesn’t apply as soon as you manipulate the original source. Doesn’t matter if your final product is “bit perfect” from that point, your source is no longer.

People want to download full-length gameplay vids at '4K'??? With a torrent???
Society is on a nice downward slope for any streamer effort. It’s gogglebox on steroids.
 
It's not upscaling, it's rerunning the rendering at a higher resolution. It's possible in theory, although how to do it in practice still has a lot of questions.
 
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