Xsplit streaming settings

[.Nensec]

Hey,

I'm having some issues with setting up my streamin/recording. The FPS looks fine but the quality keeps dropping before going back up again, which makes me think it is an encoding issue? Video which shows it clearly:



These are my settings:

[the boar]

pc specs??

edit: oh damn i didn't even notice the lil twitch watermark, assumed they had streamed it to youtube! non-partnered bitrate above 2500 is likely the issue

[.Nensec]

Intel i5 6600K
Asus Z170-A
2x Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16 GB DDR4-3000
Sapphire NITRO R9 380X

Windows 10 Home version 1607

Anything else you want to know?

[Mythbredor]

The quality drops and goes back up again? Are you watching it on the same pc you're streaming because that's pretty normal.

[.Nensec]

The quality drops and goes back up again? Are you watching it on the same pc you're streaming because that's pretty normal.

Did you watch the video?

[Mythbredor]

Did you watch the video?

Upon closer inspection your bitrate is way too high for what you're doing. You should be streaming at 2500ish and 720P 60FPS or 1080P 30FPS as a unpartered streamer.

[.Nensec]

Upon closer inspection your bitrate is way too high for what you're doing. You should be streaming at 2500ish and 720P 60FPS or 1080P 30FPS as a unpartered streamer.

The thing is I would understand if the stream wasn't great, but this is what xsplit is sending to twitch before it passes their servers. I have my xsplit set up as you can see that it saves the encoded output to disk as well as to twitch. This video is uploaded based on that raw footage, not from the twitch footage

[Fascinate]

Have you given OBS a shot? I used xsplit when it first came out years ago could never get it right, obs all i did was change bitrate and resolution and it worked perfectly out of the box. The less stuff you change with these types of programs the better usually.

[Mythbredor]

The thing is I would understand if the stream wasn't great, but this is what xsplit is sending to twitch before it passes their servers. I have my xsplit set up as you can see that it saves the encoded output to disk as well as to twitch. This video is uploaded based on that raw footage, not from the twitch footage

I did some digging because I was curious and I came up with this. You need to lower your bitrate

"Please take note that the recorded stream will be a duplicate of what you sent to the streaming service, which means that if you experience any bandwidth problems, this will also be reflected in the recording."

https://www.xsplit.com/gamecaster/fa...-the-same-time (source)

[Fascinate]

I did some digging because I was curious and I came up with this. You need to lower your bitrate

"Please take note that the recorded stream will be a duplicate of what you sent to the streaming service, which means that if you experience any bandwidth problems, this will also be reflected in the recording."

https://www.xsplit.com/gamecaster/fa...-the-same-time (source)

Almost every streamer i watch sets 3500, then again every streamer i know also uses OBS.

[Mythbredor]

Almost every streamer i watch sets 3500, then again every streamer i know also uses OBS.

3500 is bad as a unpartnered streamer because you don't yet have quality settings which prevents some people from watching you. But more importantly, at 3500 you aren't guaranteed the bandwidth from the twitch servers, if a bigger streamer needs the bandwidth your quality will suffer. And yes alot of people that don't know what bitrate to set run at 3500 because "it improves quality" which is semi true. It also taxes your system harder. But twitches "bitrate cap" is 3500 and going over that is "considered an abuse of their systems" even for partnered streamers

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/port...t-requirements

Sidenote for this research his audio bitrate is also too high.

[Cilraaz]

3500 is bad as a unpartnered streamer because you don't yet have quality settings which prevents some people from watching you. But more importantly, at 3500 you aren't guaranteed the bandwidth from the twitch servers, if a bigger streamer needs the bandwidth your quality will suffer. And yes alot of people that don't know what bitrate to set run at 3500 because "it improves quality" which is semi true. It also taxes your system harder. But twitches "bitrate cap" is 3500 and going over that is "considered an abuse of their systems" even for partnered streamers

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/port...t-requirements

Sidenote for this research his audio bitrate is also too high.

In addition, partnered streamers have the ability to have Twitch's server to put out multiple quality levels. A non-partnered streamer doesn't have that. As such, a non-partnered streamer only puts out the "source" quality feed. If a viewer can't handle your bitrate, they'll stutter and leave. I've found the sweet spot is around 2000 bitrate as a balance of quality and "viewability" for the user.

[Fascinate]

Wouldnt you need to be on DSL or something to be below a 4mbps download? Even regular 4g phones (not even lte) can do much more than this.

I just dont think bitrate is his issue here, 3500 is very common setting on twitch i think he needs to give OBS a try.

[Cilraaz]

Wouldnt you need to be on DSL or something to be below a 4mbps download? Even regular 4g phones (not even lte) can do much more than this.

I just dont think bitrate is his issue here, 3500 is very common setting on twitch i think he needs to give OBS a try.

I'm just speaking from experience. My viewers had nothing but problems when I was at 3500. I did a few days of testing at different levels and found 2000 was best for them. Also, he's encoding in H.264, which is purely CPU based. Higher bitrate means more CPU stress, which can lead to quality fluctuations. Outside of that, I would also suggest OBS, if only because I have no troubleshooting experience with Xsplit.

[.Nensec]

I tried lowering it to 2500 and it didn't seem to have any effect, though I only tested it in Dalaran and not in a raid environment. I have a 500/500mbit fiber connection so bandwidth won't be my issue :P

As for why xsplit over obs, I have a lifetime subscription for xsplit and have been using it since closed beta. So I'd rather fix the issue in xsplit than OBS. Plus this appears to be an encoding settings issue, which wouldn't be solved by moving to OBS.

[Mythbredor]

I tried lowering it to 2500 and it didn't seem to have any effect, though I only tested it in Dalaran and not in a raid environment. I have a 500/500mbit fiber connection so bandwidth won't be my issue :P

As for why xsplit over obs, I have a lifetime subscription for xsplit and have been using it since closed beta. So I'd rather fix the issue in xsplit than OBS. Plus this appears to be an encoding settings issue, which wouldn't be solved by moving to OBS.

Again it wouldn't be YOUR bandwidth you aren't reading my posts. You aren't a partnered streamer I assume? You won't get TWITCH servers bandwidth consistently. What are you trying to stream at? 1080/30 720/60 etc etc? Did you also lower your audio bitrate? Because you're too high according to twitch which could be part of your issue. Also I assume you have the "x264" setting in your video encoding? Try that aswell.

Edit: It could also just be your pushing your CPU too hard depending on what settings your trying to raid at and stream. WoW is hard on the CPU (core) generally not sure how that would affect H.264 encoding.

[.Nensec]

I got an old HD7870 laying around and my motherboard does support 2 graphics cards, though lacking the power cable requirement atm would it be worth it to look into dedicating the 7870 for hardware encoding?

[Cilraaz]

I got an old HD7870 laying around and my motherboard does support 2 graphics cards, though lacking the power cable requirement atm would it be worth it to look into dedicating the 7870 for hardware encoding?

Does Xsplit have a hardware encoding option with AMD? I haven't used Xsplit in years, but don't remember one. I know with OBS and an Nvidia card, the NVENC encoder is an option. If there is a hardware encoding option for AMD, you wouldn't even need the second card. GPUs are much more efficient at the encoding process compared to CPUs. If you do have the option, then I would definitely go with hardware encoding.

Also, as Myth said, your bandwidth wouldn't be the problem. If you're not partnered, Twitch can tend to do nasty things to your stream in favor of partnered streamers. Have you tried capturing a local recording at the same time as the stream? I'm assuming Xsplit has that option. If so, that would answer whether it's server/Twitch based or encoder based.

[.Nensec]

Does Xsplit have a hardware encoding option with AMD? I haven't used Xsplit in years, but don't remember one. I know with OBS and an Nvidia card, the NVENC encoder is an option. If there is a hardware encoding option for AMD, you wouldn't even need the second card. GPUs are much more efficient at the encoding process compared to CPUs. If you do have the option, then I would definitely go with hardware encoding.

Also, as Myth said, your bandwidth wouldn't be the problem. If you're not partnered, Twitch can tend to do nasty things to your stream in favor of partnered streamers. Have you tried capturing a local recording at the same time as the stream? I'm assuming Xsplit has that option. If so, that would answer whether it's server/Twitch based or encoder based.

That is what the video in the OP was uploaded with, a local recording copy of what was send to Twitch

[Cilraaz]

That is what the video in the OP was uploaded with, a local recording copy of what was send to Twitch

And I have to assume that the artifacts are visible in the local recording? Can't tell from our end, since YouTube is known to add artifacts

I looked into it a bit more and apparently VCE is AMD's hardware encoder, so you're already using hardware encoding. Frankly, I'm at a loss. WoW and stream encoding shouldn't max out an R9 380X. I have no experience using VCE. Hopefully someone else will be able to be of more help than I am at this point.