How to Enable Psycho Visual Tuning in OBS Studio

This guide provides a straightforward, step-by-step walkthrough on how to enable Psycho Visual Tuning for the NVIDIA NVENC encoder in OBS Studio. By activating this feature, you can optimize your graphics card’s encoding capabilities to enhance perceived video quality, particularly during high-motion scenes, with minimal impact on system performance.

What is Psycho Visual Tuning?

Psycho Visual Tuning is a feature within the NVIDIA NVENC encoder that enables rate distortion optimization. It dynamically adjusts the bitrate allocation based on human visual perception. By prioritizing bitrate on areas of the screen where the human eye is most likely to notice compression artifacts and motion blur, it delivers a subjectively cleaner and sharper stream or recording.

Step-by-Step Guide to Enable Psycho Visual Tuning

Follow these steps to enable the feature in OBS Studio:

  1. Open OBS Studio on your computer.
  2. Click on the Settings button located in the bottom-right “Controls” dock, or go to File > Settings in the top menu bar.
  3. In the Settings window, select the Output tab from the left-hand sidebar.
  4. At the top of the Output menu, locate the Output Mode dropdown menu and change it from Simple to Advanced.
  5. Navigate to either the Streaming or Recording tab, depending on which settings you wish to modify.
  6. Locate the Video Encoder (or Encoder) dropdown and select an NVIDIA NVENC option (such as NVIDIA NVENC H.264, HEVC, or AV1 if your GPU supports it).
  7. Scroll down to the encoder settings section.
  8. Look for the checkbox labeled Psycho Visual Tuning and check it to enable the feature.
  9. Click Apply in the bottom-right corner, and then click OK to save your changes.