I'll be honest I can't really see a difference in "smoothness" between videos except the first one has motion blur on (gross!).

If you're already recording at 60fps, I can't imagine that upping to a higher rate (i.e. 120) then downgrading would improve "smoothness". Not a videography expert but that doesn't sound like a thing that happens.

I have to agree with CaptainZidgel. I don't really notice any difference in smoothness. I feel like the only reasons why one would perceive one of the videos as being smoother than the other is that in the first video: A: Motion Blur is being used. B: It's a lot darker (and it some weird filter is applied) C: That the mouse movement is a little bit smoother.

i guess motion blur would explain the smoothness, but I also notice a difference in the quality. i.e.: https://imgur.com/a/SJx4xyh

maybe im being a little too nit-picky but i definitely feel a difference between the quality of the two videos -- maybe the quality translates into the perception of smoothness

The first video being perceived as smoother is mostly because of motion blur, yes. In some instances (honestly way too many in my experience) the "quality" of the demo can also be a factor. By that I mean, sometimes if your connection is a bit iffy your POV demos might look kinda shit and stuttery, and if the server you were playing on hasn't been restarted in a while or anything like that the STV demos might be kinda shit and stuttery. Those you can't help too much from my experience.The best I've been able to do to minimize it is to set your interp to 0.1 and set cl_smooth to 1 when watching demos. Change it back before you actually play though if it isn't already in your autoexec.

In the first video you linked, if you go to 1:14 you can see that snakewater demo looks buttery, and the process clip right after looks pretty stuttery. Sometimes it be like that.

If you want to be a true chad and go whole hog, I'm 99% sure there's a way to convert STV demos into SFM scenes and record from there, but I haven't looked into that too much because I absolutely cannot be fucked.

Also on motion blur really quick: I stan motion blur in frag videos if done right, because it really can make your shit look clean. Using the in-game motion blur is a hard no for me though, and if I ever add any motion blur I do it in post with RSMB in After Effects. It's kind of a pain, but at the very least this might be able to help alleviate the fuckign dog shit inconsistent demo experience in this god forsaken piece of shit fucking game.

I recommend SDR. This shit has really clean motion blur option and by far records the fastest. Its also just easier to use than lawena imo. Heres a yt video i made using the full motion blur option and it recorded it in like a minute on my old shitty pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAycu5Zn8Js

there's no motion blur being applied in game or in post, its just recording with lawena at 480 and having premiere pro frame blend when u export it to 60 fps lol, also the smoother ur aim is the smoother ur video will look too. i don't think the colour correction i use makes a difference either when i compare it to the non filtered video

recording at 240 fps in lawena -> 60 fps final export is also smooth enough but i am a stupid man so i record at 480 fps instead because i cannot be bothered to change my workflow

u can use sdr or avi recorder to automatically convert the higher frame rate output into 60fps with pretty clean frame blending but i do not because i rather keep source frame rate for slow motion and i have the storage space to do so

the video quality is also nicer because i am gaming the yt system to get the better vp9 codec applied to my videos by upscaling to 1440p. the avc codec applied to smaller channels by default is terrible, which causes shit to look pixellated with high amounts of movement

hope this helps : )

thank you guys, a lot of help received and very much appreciated :)