Question / Help All I want is a smooth stream with 60fps

[Gremby]

Hi,

I'm really struggling over here. I can't get my stream to the quality and smoothness that I desire.
My game is CSGO and my resolution is 1440x1080. I preferably wan't to stream at this resolution, but 960x720 works as well.
I play with a consistent fps of 128 on my 120hz monitor and I want my stream to be in 60fps although it doesn't really feel like it. And as soon as I move the quality becomes shit. And I move a lot! XD

Specs:
3930k @ 4.4Ghz
GTX 680 SLI
8GB RAM
SSD's
etc...

My PC is pretty strong so streaming shouldn't be an issue, right? What about my broadband?
I live in Stockholm and I have the Stockholm/Sweden twitch server selected.

What do you guys think? Shouldn't I be able to produce a stream with decent quality and fps? I really hate when there's a lot of movement since I play fps and the quality drops to shit.
What I have been using so far:
1440x1080
60fps
Max bitrate 3500
Buffer size x2 7000
CBR on
Multithread on
Process Priority High
x264 Preset fast
x264 Profile main
CFR on

That's about it. Nothing else really tweaked. Really appreciate all the help that I can get.

Here's a test that I did:
http://www.twitch.tv/gremby/b/491320188
It looks smooth now but when I look at it live it doesn't seem like 60fps, but here it does as a VOD. As you can see, the quality is shit when I move.

 

[Krazy]

Pick one:
Stream at base resolution
Stream at 60fps

You won't be able to do both over RTMP/Flash. Bitrate and decoding requirements are too high. Flash performs really quite badly at high resolution + high framerate streams.

720p60fps @ 3500 bitrate CBR (no need for a custom buffer size) should be easily doable. Maybe not on the Fast preset without some CPU overclocking, though. If you can comfortable do the Fast preset without affecting game performance too much, then you can probably lower bitrate down to 3000, or even lower.

 

[Gremby]

I hear what you are saying, but what is the main reason for the bad quality when there's a lot of movement on the stream?
Should I remove CBR and lower the Quality Balance to 5 or have a Buffer size that is twice the Bitrate?

 

[Boildown]

We need log files to really see what your bottleneck is. That said, 1080p60 is said not to work for anyone, because of problems with Flash, not anything we can control. Because you're running 4:3 aspect ratio, you might be able to do a 1.25 downscale and stream 864p60 though. Try it, and then post a log file from your attempt from at least 5 minutes of streaming the highest complexity scenes from your game you can manage.

And don't increase your buffer to be larger than your bitrate. That'll just spike the connection and make your stream unviewable by your viewers, and probably make Twitch believe you're not running a Constant Bit Rate as they require. Personally I run 3000 bitrate with a 2000 buffer.

 

[Gremby]

Personally I run 3000 bitrate with a 2000 buffer.

So should the buffer stay the same or a bit lower as the bitrate? What's the reason for this?

Also, I'm still curious to why I have so many artifacts when moving in the game.

 

[Boildown]

Yes, I'd keep the buffer less than or equal to your bitrate. Because you don't want to be sending your viewers 3500 bitrate one second, 10500 bitrate the next second, in a worst case scenario. Also, Twitch won't like it. And its not needed to have a high quality stream.

I still don't see a log file to correlate to your Twitch channel so anything I might say about artifacts would be pure speculation.

 

[Gremby]

Here you go:
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=UfTk5vuC

 

[Boildown]

There's some duplicated frames, not a huge amount, but more than the 1% that is the max I like to see. Use a 1.25 downscale or go down to 30 FPS. Set your buffer to equal your bitrate. Stream for at least 5 minutes on high complexity scenes and post a new log file from that attempt.

 

[Gremby]

Here's a stream from tonight:
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=UWgnCpMr
http://www.twitch.tv/gremby/b/491349643

 

[Boildown]

Here's a stream from tonight:
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=UWgnCpMr
http://www.twitch.tv/gremby/b/491349643

Don't see a quality problem nor do I see an obvious way to improve it further. Your FPS is maxed out and you're streaming 960x720@60fps on Medium preset thanks to your Intel Extreme CPU. That's as good as it gets right there, and the stream looked great IMO.

The only thing you could do to improve it further is try 1.25 downscale instead of 1.5. And also, Twitch supposedly doesn't like it when you do 4000/4000 bitrate/buffer; 3500/3500 is supposed to be the max. Although you just did a 3 hour stream at that setting, so maybe you can get away with it.

To sum up, I think you're expecting too much and/or being overly critical of your own stream quality.

 

[Gremby]

To sum up, I think you're expecting too much and/or being overly critical of your own stream quality.

Perhaps I do >< Thanks for your help. I'll try 3500 bitrate with a 1.25 downscale.

Btw, how come there's a atleast 20sec delay on my stream? It used to be at 5sec.

 

[Krazy]

It's because of Twitch's switch to HLS for streaming. It adds quite a bit of delay, unfortunately.

 

[iaken]

I've noticed something. I use to stream with the fast/faster preset. And the playback on Twitch and hitbox was fine. Until a while back. Going back to veryfast seem to have fixed it. I've tried the different presets back and forth and it seem to be a solid solution to go back to veryfast. Cost is a bit of artifacts. I stream on a dedicated computer btw.

Has something changed in OBS that can have made this change? :)

 

[Boildown]

I've noticed something. I use to stream with the fast/faster preset. And the playback on Twitch and hitbox was fine. Until a while back. Going back to veryfast seem to have fixed it. I've tried the different presets back and forth and it seem to be a solid solution to go back to veryfast. Cost is a bit of artifacts. I stream on a dedicated computer btw.

Has something changed in OBS that can have made this change? :)

You didn't even say what your problem is. And you're probably hijacking this thread, unless you have the same issue as the OP.