Stream Issues

[Emaias]

Hey guys, so I hope this is a decent spot to put this, in not really sure. I recently got a new computer and tried my hand at streaming, but the quality of the stream seems to be garbage.

I'm running the following:
I7-7700k 4.2ghz
16gb DDR4 Ram
Nvidia GTX 1080
I have a 300 up 100 down connection
Using OBS with my bit rate set to 3500.

Honestly I'm just not sure why my stream seems laggy and choppy. I've seen streamers with worse builds that have very good quality. Am I missing something here? Thanks!

[Thunderball]

If you're using Twitch and dont have a partnership agreement (which most people dont), you're limited to 720p and 2500 bitrate.

[Arbiter]

If you're using Twitch and dont have a partnership agreement (which most people dont), you're limited to 720p and 2500 bitrate.

Not true. 1080p is perfectly doable (just not recommended for fast paced games) as well as up to 3500 bitrate (it's just that people with slower internet may have trouble watching depending on speeds).

To answer OP, have you gotten someone else to watch the stream? Sometimes when watching your own stream it can seen worse in quality than it actually is. Are you only streaming WoW or are you streaming other games? WoW can handle looking decent in 1080p but most games need 720p to avoid massive compression. If the 3500 bitrate is actually causing problems, try lowering it to somewhere between 3000-3300. Also make sure that you're using the closest stream server.

[Emaias]

If you're using Twitch and dont have a partnership agreement (which most people dont), you're limited to 720p and 2500 bitrate.

Understandably so, but what doesn't make sense is when other none partnered streamers with lesser equipment in their rigs seem to have no issue. A guildie of mine, feiyt isn't partnered, we have near identical rigs (I have a slightly better CPU) and identical Internet. We run our streams using the same settings and the difference is night and day. His stream is smooth at 1080p60fps and mine states it's 1080p60fps but looks like it runs sub 30fps.

His: https://m.twitch.tv/feiyt?desktop-redirect=true

So I'm just curious if I'm missing something here or what because it honestly makes no sense.

- - - Updated - - -

Not true. 1080p is perfectly doable (just not recommended for fast paced games) as well as up to 3500 bitrate (it's just that people with slower internet may have trouble watching depending on speeds).

To answer OP, have you gotten someone else to watch the stream? Sometimes when watching your own stream it can seen worse in quality than it actually is. Are you only streaming WoW or are you streaming other games? WoW can handle looking decent in 1080p but most games need 720p to avoid massive compression. If the 3500 bitrate is actually causing problems, try lowering it to somewhere between 3000-3300. Also make sure that you're using the closest stream server.

I asked a buddy and he did say it seemed choppy and laggy as well. I don't think the Internet is the issue since we are streaming using only a fraction of what our internet is providing. I've tried going down to 2500 but rate even and it doesn't even look like a difference was made. I'm pretty sure I'm using the closest server too. I'm in San Diego and streaming to LA.

Is there anything else that could be messing with it? Maybe how I'm capturing the stream itself? You'd figure OBS forums would have a step by step guide on what to set your stream at for certain settings, but nope

[Mythbredor]

Thunderball is half right, you can go higher but you "should" stay at 720p 2500 bitrate until your partnered because your "bandwidth" to twitch will get throttled if a bigger streamer streaming to the same server needs it. Also streaming at 720 lets you reach more people to grow being that as a non partnered streamer you don't get quality options. Also if you're watching the stream on the same computer you're streaming from you'll notice some quality drops that's normal. Also 720-60 or 1080-30, 1080-60 generally won't go too well non partnered.

And to the OP what I said above, if your friend is streaming at a different time when that bandwidth is not needed that could be why his stream runs better. You're also streaming to the LA server apparently when there's a ton of streamers that stream to the LA servers that might be causing some issues as well. However you should make sure you're not running anything intensive in the background while streaming, keep all your background processes to a minimum. Make sure you tweak ingame settings to be optimal to stream at, if you aren't hitting 60 fps in a game and staying there the stream will be choppy as well.

As for your settings the best thing to do is to just to screenshot your advanced and output streaming tab and post them here so we can get a better idea what might be causing your issues. Also while your here tell us what your audio bitrate is under the output audio tab.

[Arbiter]

I asked a buddy and he did say it seemed choppy and laggy as well. I don't think the Internet is the issue since we are streaming using only a fraction of what our internet is providing. I've tried going down to 2500 but rate even and it doesn't even look like a difference was made. I'm pretty sure I'm using the closest server too. I'm in San Diego and streaming to LA.

Is there anything else that could be messing with it? Maybe how I'm capturing the stream itself? You'd figure OBS forums would have a step by step guide on what to set your stream at for certain settings, but nope

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/port...aster-software

Here's a guide that twitch put out for OBS. Could be a good start for some settings but I'm not sure how outdated the guide is so try to use common sense for some of it.

That said, while 3500 was always the highest recommended I'm actually seeing a post from Twitch 3 months ago recommended 3000-6000. Doesn't mention specifically partner or non partner though so it's either recommendations for partner or it's just updated since average internet speeds are on the rise. It's under the beginner broadcasting section so I'd like to believe it's aimed at non partners. Supposedly there's no limitation to 3500 like before though from what I gather. It's just still the age old problem of other people being able to watch it without transcoding.

[Mythbredor]

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/port...aster-software

Here's a guide that twitch put out for OBS. Could be a good start for some settings but I'm not sure how outdated the guide is so try to use common sense for some of it.

That said, while 3500 was always the highest recommended I'm actually seeing a post from Twitch 3 months ago recommended 3000-6000. Doesn't mention specifically partner or non partner though so it's either recommendations for partner or it's just updated since average internet speeds are on the rise. It's under the beginner broadcasting section so I'd like to believe it's aimed at non partners. Supposedly there's no limitation to 3500 like before though from what I gather. It's just still the age old problem of other people being able to watch it without transcoding.

From what I understand anything over 3500 is considered "an abuse of the system" according to one twitches older guidelines and to my knowledge they at least still encourage following that. They could have changed it and probably did while I wasn't looking. However from a purely efficient point of view. 2500 720-60 is the sweet spot for a growing streamer that isn't partnered. You'll be able to reach more devices than if you were streaming at 1080-60. Also will be easier to run and keep smooth.

[Emaias]

Thunderball is half right, you can go higher but you "should" stay at 720p 2500 bitrate until your partnered because your "bandwidth" to twitch will get throttled if a bigger streamer streaming to the same server needs it. Also streaming at 720 lets you reach more people to grow being that as a non partnered streamer you don't get quality options. Also if you're watching the stream on the same computer you're streaming from you'll notice some quality drops that's normal. Also 720-60 or 1080-30, 1080-60 generally won't go too well non partnered.

And to the OP what I said above, if your friend is streaming at a different time when that bandwidth is not needed that could be why his stream runs better. You're also streaming to the LA server apparently when there's a ton of streamers that stream to the LA servers that might be causing some issues as well. However you should make sure you're not running anything intensive in the background while streaming, keep all your background processes to a minimum. Make sure you tweak ingame settings to be optimal to stream at, if you aren't hitting 60 fps in a game and staying there the stream will be choppy as well.

As for your settings the best thing to do is to just to screenshot your advanced and output streaming tab and post them here so we can get a better idea what might be causing your issues. Also while your here tell us what your audio bitrate is under the output audio tab.

I'll get that screenshot tonight when I get home, as for now I'll just answer some of the questions here:
1) We were both streaming at the same time. Granted it's a time zone difference.
2) I'll try giving the Phenoix AZ port a go
3) The only things I'm usually running is MSI, OBS, WoW and Discord
4) I play at 7 in game setting with a few tweaks and cap my FPS at 60 and never really dip down. Even when I'm streaming and the stream is choppy/laggy I'm still at 60 FPS in game
5) I'll get those settings for you tonight. Thanks again!

- - - Updated - - -

https://help.twitch.tv/customer/port...aster-software

Here's a guide that twitch put out for OBS. Could be a good start for some settings but I'm not sure how outdated the guide is so try to use common sense for some of it.

That said, while 3500 was always the highest recommended I'm actually seeing a post from Twitch 3 months ago recommended 3000-6000. Doesn't mention specifically partner or non partner though so it's either recommendations for partner or it's just updated since average internet speeds are on the rise. It's under the beginner broadcasting section so I'd like to believe it's aimed at non partners. Supposedly there's no limitation to 3500 like before though from what I gather. It's just still the age old problem of other people being able to watch it without transcoding.

Thanks I'll give that guide a look tonight.

- - - Updated - - -

From what I understand anything over 3500 is considered "an abuse of the system" according to one twitches older guidelines and to my knowledge they at least still encourage following that. They could have changed it and probably did while I wasn't looking. However from a purely efficient point of view. 2500 720-60 is the sweet spot for a growing streamer that isn't partnered. You'll be able to reach more devices than if you were streaming at 1080-60. Also will be easier to run and keep smooth.

So 2500 nitrate will give me 720p60FPS?

[Aurimas]

The new OBS Studio gives me hell too. I set it up for recording (with the idea of maybe streaming one day).

Similar high-performance parts to you. Some people seem to get very choppy and some don't. I'm assuming it's a hardware / driver thing. They don't seem to acknowledge it. Lots of people comment about the choppyness but they blame it on hardware not being strong enough. I didn't have a problem with the old OBS on an even weaker rig recording 1080p60, and task manager never showed my cpu above 50% even while gaming and recording.

For me it was 60fps. I could catch 30fps all day... at any resolution and any insane bitrate (I tested up to 10K). I could not get 60fps without choppiness even low resolutions or bitrates (1000).

I had some success turning the CPU utilization up one notch from default. I forget what those "notches" are called, and I'm at work. "Above normal" or something like that. That allowed me to capture at 60, but only barely. I sitll had to play with other settings. Turning the CPU priority all the way up didn't provide any additional benefits.

I suggest recording video while playing with those numbers. You can still see the problem, but don't have to be streaming. You also take the internet out of the equation (but add the hard drive). 15 seconds of video was good enough for me to see how it was going to come out. I just did a lot of running and jumping and casting and spinning the camera to see how smooth it was.

See if you have the same problem (fps). Leave everything alone but turn it down to 720p30 (or just 30fps at whatever you currently use). See if the choppyness goes away. Then try to catch 720p60. See if it's the FPS causing choppyness. Turn up the cpu utilization and see if you can get 720p60. Then just play around with resolution and quality until you get it where it's acceptable.

[Arbiter]

From what I understand anything over 3500 is considered "an abuse of the system" according to one twitches older guidelines and to my knowledge they at least still encourage following that. They could have changed it and probably did while I wasn't looking. However from a purely efficient point of view. 2500 720-60 is the sweet spot for a growing streamer that isn't partnered. You'll be able to reach more devices than if you were streaming at 1080-60. Also will be easier to run and keep smooth.

If it's shown directly in a recent post from Twitch as being "recommended" themselves it wouldn't be considered abuse as shown in the second link I provided. 2500 bitrate at 720/60 is going to lead to compression though in fast paced games. It would need to be higher.

I agree though it could actually be that the time and server he's hosting it to. Didn't really register that it's LA he's using.

[Emaias]

@Mythbredor @Aurimas @Arbiter
So here's the some pictures for clarification:

OBS


Settings:




Speed Test:


Link to my stream that I'll leave running for a while in case anyone wants to dip in:
www.twitch.tv/emaias

Normally my internet speed is about 270-300 and 60-100 but TWC is kinda crap and it's "Prime Time" right now.

[Arbiter]

1) You really don't want to stream at 1080p60fps. Especially at 3500. And if you're playing Overwatch you're also going to want 720p because 1080p needs a lot of bit rate to not compress it self.

2) The NVENC encoder uses the GPU instead of the CPU to encode your stream. While efficient, it's the worst quality and you will deal with compression and all. May consider using x264 with a "veryfast" CPU preset and with profile set to "main". The "High Quality" preset for NVENC might be causing some performance issues to try and maintain quality.

3) If you're not downscaling the stream (playing at 1080p and streaming at 720p) set the downscale filter to Bilinear. If you are streaming at 720p choose Bicubic. The least amount of filtering the better. Lanczos could also be causing you problems.

4) Set Keyframe Interval to 2.

Try that and see how it goes. I'd personally never go above 1080/30 or 720/60 for the stream though. Even with 720/60 you have to be careful on games like Overwatch because compression will likely still be present.