Question / Help 50% Solved - Dual PC settings - Confirmation anyone?

[Jingoro]

Greetings !

I'm totaly new here, i'm usualy read some posts, and try to understand, but i'm still meet some issues, so here i'm.

I actually run some tests on differents games with a totaly new setup (dual PC) for a totaly new rookie (me). :)

My setup is :

Gaming PC :

- i7 4970k on Asus Z97-A
- Asus 980 Ti Poseidon
- 16Go DDR 3 Corsair 2400 (2x8)
- SSD

Streaming PC

- i7 4470k
- MSI 770
- 16Go DDR3 Corsair 2400 (4x4)
- SSD
- HDD storage 4To

Others :
- Capture card ; Avermedia Live Gamer LGX
- Monitors : Asus ROG Swift PG278Q - G-Sync (144Hz) for gaming + 2 others monitors
- Blackmagic intensity Pro (got one previously on my streaming pc, currently unused)
- Behringer XENYX q802 mixer & Audio Technica ATR2100.

* I'm lucky, i have a good connection and can upload to 20M/s (and i know, it's not really necessary for Twitch, sadly)

I run 2 OBS.

- One on my gaming PC (Preview, Display on 3rd monitor > Avermedia, to get the video on my Streaming PC)
- The second for streaming.

As far as i know, i need to keep a "low" bitrate as 2000-2200 for Twitch, as non-partner, in order to don't push away any viewers, or accept around 20-30 percent of ppl leaving, due of buffering.

On My PC Streaming, my setting are :

Quality 8
Bitrate : 2200/2200

Video 1920x1080 >> 1.50 (1280x720) - Filter Bilinear(fast) FPS 30

Adv settings :
Priority : High
x264 CPU Preset : fast
main + Keyframe : 2

Classic stuff i guess.

Buuuuut, on Arma 2, DayZ mod, Epoch, it's seems really grainy, not sure if its due of Arma 2 or what, but i cant figure why.

This is an example on Arma 2 : http://www.twitch.tv/ae_evolution/v/50942325

This is an example on Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain (my "perfect" settings atm) : http://www.twitch.tv/ae_evolution/v/49631948
Or even on Rise of Tomb Raider : http://www.twitch.tv/ae_evolution/v/51157786

(no sound, w.a.i, i'm still try to get the best setting possible here for the video, the sound should be "easy" after, even if i know it's a real pita ^_^)

My questions :

1 - For you, there is a way to easily upgrade the render of the video part? (pushing the CPU preset because "i can"? boosting a little bit something or lowering something?)

2 - Quality 8 ; this setting, i never changed it on every on my tests, should i change it or not?

3 - [solved] I'm playing on 144Hz monitor (1440p), that's not an issue, due of my current setup i guess? (regarding the video quality on stream)

If there is anything you should recommand, i'll be very grateful for your input.

/bow

 

[Sapiens]

The foliage in games like always ArmA looks bad when you're on the ground/in a ground vehicle. It's too much detailed motion covering a large area of the screen for the encoder to keep the quality up with streaming's bitrate limitations. Even if you took the preset to medium (which your 3770 should be able to handle at 720p30) and upped the bitrate to 3500 it still wouldn't look good when you're on the move.

The quality dropdown is irrelevant, that's for adjusting the quality target in VBR encoding (you should always use CBR for streaming). Playing on a 144 Hz monitor won't affect quality in your setup.

 

[Jingoro]

Ok, that's what I thought from my few searches for Arma 2.
So the only viable solution/alternative to be more "watchable", it's to lower the setting of my game client. (Still a good thing on PvP server ^_^). Thx for that. :)

Do you think there's a way to improve the quality actualy with theses setting, or i'm actualy "good" with that? I have hard time to judge it.

 

[Sapiens]

I don't see how lowering the settings in ArmA is going to help anything, unless you mean turning off the grass, which would just look silly.

 

[Jingoro]

Oh? Yet, it's still common use to lower your settin, to remove grass & stuff to get a better visibility on PvP server.

Yeah, it could be "silly" for you, but it's still very effective in fact (for the PvP aspect), so if by extension, it could be a way to get something more smooth, i'll give it a try, it's cost nothing to try at least. :)

 

[Sapiens]

No I'm sure it would be effective since the grass is what wrecks quality, it's just that the idea of ArmA without grass is silly to me as an ArmA player. I kind of associate it with stuff like maxing out gamma to compensate for darkness at night time, it just seems kind of cheesy. But I understand you're doing it as much for the stream quality aspect as anything else and it doesn't affect me either way so whatever. :P

 

[Jingoro]

:D
No worries, i know what you mean by that. :)

Do you think everything is "ok" regarding the setting on the initial post? Or i can tweak a little on something to get something more smooth? i'm not sure about the bitrate, most of the information i have found still talking about 2 / 2.2k bitrate, for most of the ppl, 2.5 is a real high cap?
If 2.5 is really to hard to reach for viewers, 2.2 with these settings seems optimized?

 

[Jingoro]

Editing title & editing the post itself, smallish bump to be sure or maybe getting another input/point of view. :)

 

[Sapiens]

I meant to follow up on this yesterday, sorry. Your streaming PC should easily handle the medium preset at 720p30, so that would help a little bit. I also use the following custom params in my ArmA 3 streaming profile, which you can try if you'd like but come with no guarantees of anything etc.:

aq-mode=2 bframes=16 deblock=-2:-1 rc-lookahead=60

Even at 3000 Kbps the grass still smears a bunch but hopefully this makes it slightly less bad.

 

[Jingoro]

That's not for Arma 2 (it was just for testing purpose only ^^), but for The Division mainly. :)