# Unstable bitrate for no reason



## Mivina (Jul 25, 2020)

Hey.
In the past 2 weeks streaming has become impossible for me because of the bitrate spikes. I can't really trace them to anything because my internet connection is quite stable otherwise. I haven't had any problems with my connection while playing online games or doing anything else connected with internet. I use a router, but the same problem occurs when i try streaming with direct connection. It mostly happens when i try to stream games like Arma 3 or DCS, but I also tried streaming some youtube videos (for some rapid picture changes) and I've noticed the same as soon as the video starts playing. I tried streaming from my laptop which has intel i7 (can't remember the model, honestly) both directly and via NDI as a streaming PC, same result. I think this has something to do with my PC but I can't understand what exactly, OBS only shows dropped frames due to bad connection. And most of the time my GPU and processor are not even half-loaded, so I don't think this has something to do with the hardware. I have tried both x264 and NVENC, with different bitrate, quality settings etc. Before this I managed to stream consistently at 6000mbps and higher. Now no matter how low I go with the bitrate settings, it keeps going even lower and spiking, resulting in dropped frames.
I don't want to contact my ISP just yet because other than my streams the connection is stable and fast, so I want to try everything else in advance.
I also tried GeForce Experience and tried to stream to different services (Twitch, Youtube, Restream) and different servers.


			https://obsproject.com/logs/Q-v_uyM_R808jbD7


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## Mivina (Jul 26, 2020)

https://obsproject.com/logs/WruVttLs9SmZHrsC
		

In this case nothing was happening on the screen at all. It was a stationary capture of my display, no game or anything in the background. I'm completely lost at this point.


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## sarahbitethis (Jul 26, 2020)

I had a similar issue for over a month and it was a PC problem. I ended up just having to change my MTU, so simple yet impossible to find out lol So heres what I did: 

Open cmd as admin and type *netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces*
Check the number on the same line as your network adpater (Ethernet/Wi-FI), usually its1500
If its not 1500, change it to it because its the most accurate baseline. You can do this by using *netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “Name of Adapter” mtu=1500 store=persistent* (Name is under Interface of the first command)

After thats established follow the steps in this article https://hide.me/en/knowledgebase/how-to-find-correct-mtu-values/
After that (make sure you add 28) change the MTU using the same command *netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “Name of Adapter” mtu=(number) store=persistent*
Once thats set you can go ahead and type *netsh winsock reset *and *netsh int ip reset* then reset the PC. Not required but kind of a full refresh of the network, so just a mention
I tried just about everything to fix the problem and this ended up doing it. I did change some other things as well so it IS possible this in combination of something else worked, but I did this after I fully reinstalled Windows. There are some network adpater changes that could help a little like:

Unchecking the box under Power Management
Changing DNS on both IPv4/IPv6 if you havent done so already 
8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 - IPv4 
2001:4860:4860:0:0:0:0:8888 / 2001:4860:4860:0:0:0:0:8844 - IPv6

Alot of thorough info in this article https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727946014 
But as far as the MTU stuff, I didn't find that anywhere until i found a post that said he changed his to 1400 and was able to stream again. 

Hope this helps bud, good luck!


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## Mivina (Jul 30, 2020)

Sorry for late reply, but I did contact my ISP, they came over and checked my cable and it was fine. However, when i contacted the administrator, they found out that there were some losses on the line between my house and the neighbouring one, so they fixed it and my bitrate is stable again.
This kind of stuff, as they told me, can only affect demanding types of connection such as video streaming, and everything else can still run smooth. Thought this would be useful for someone else, and thank you to the person that tried to help, much appreciated.


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