Question / Help Avoiding pixelation as much as possible

[ChronologicalGamer]

Hi. I seem to have an issue streaming in a good crispy 720p at 60FPS since I only have 6 Mbps upload, and I want to try to keep things pixel-free as possible. I'm not an Affiliate yet to reach that quality whatsoever. Just help me deal with the pixelation stress, please. Thank you.

Overwatch is the guinea pig for the stream test. Tried 2500 kbps, too pixely after I watched a two-hour video. Will be testing at 3500 kbps for lesser pixelation later,

I'd like to know what is the needed minimum bitrate for 720p @ 60FPS.

-My specs-
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 @ (Base: 3.2 GHz, Boost: 3.6 GHz)
GPU: GeForce GTX 970 @ 4 GB VRAM (EVGA FTW+ ACX 2.0+ variant)
Mobo: MSI B350M Gaming Pro @ BIOS Version 2.G0
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

[ChronologicalGamer]

I will also show my OBS Log via Pastebin as well.
https://hastebin.com/akemifuyip

 

[DEDRICK]

It's a combination of resolution, FPS, bitrate and CPU preset

Try 4000Kbps, 720p60, x264 CPU Preset Fast

The 1600 is a 6c/12t so try Fast and see how much it impacts your FPS in game. Also check your stats (View/Stats) to see if you skip any frames due to CPU usage.

 

[ChronologicalGamer]

It's a combination of resolution, FPS, bitrate and CPU preset

Try 4000Kbps, 720p60, x264 CPU Preset Fast

The 1600 is a 6c/12t so try Fast and see how much it impacts your FPS in game. Also check your stats (View/Stats) to see if you skip any frames due to CPU usage.

I will try that to see if it is non-pixel inducing and works. I'll keep an eye on stats.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

The visual difference between very fast preset and medium preset is pretty small.
720p 60fps will look fine with 3000kbit/s, as long as the game is encoding-friendly (League Of Legends, Hearthstone...), but it will look very pixelated in bitrate-hungry games like PUBG, Overwatch etc.

So in your case, you should try 5000kbit/s, to make Overwatch look decent. Reducing the stream fps to 30 will also help a good amount (viewers don't have input lag, so "only" 30fps should be good enough).

 

[ChronologicalGamer]

So 5000 is the sweet spot for fast games like Overwatch?

 

[BK-Morpheus]

You can try it with a local recording. In PUBG for my personal taste the video starts to look "okay" when I increase the bitrate above ~4500kbit/s. For some, this might still be too pixelated in some scenes, so they need to increase bitrate even further.

 

[ChronologicalGamer]

The visual difference between very fast preset and medium preset is pretty small.
720p 60fps will look fine with 3000kbit/s, as long as the game is encoding-friendly (League Of Legends, Hearthstone...), but it will look very pixelated in bitrate-hungry games like PUBG, Overwatch etc.

So in your case, you should try 5000kbit/s, to make Overwatch look decent. Reducing the stream fps to 30 will also help a good amount (viewers don't have input lag, so "only" 30fps should be good enough).

I tried 4000.......I get stutters ingame and caused my stream to dip around mid 30s.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

The stutter has nothing to do with that bitrate (at least under 10.000kbit/s, the increase in encoder load due to higher bitrate is negligible).
Can you provide a new log file with that recording test?

By the way, you might get an additional performance hit by having 20 game_capture sources and 7 window_capture sources all in one scene collection.
You know, that you can use only one game_capture source with auto detect, right?

For testing, you can leave your scene collection untouched and just create a completely new scene collection, where you only insert one scene which contains one game_capture and nothing else.

Your processor should be able to encode 720p 60fps very fast (ultra fast will look worse than NVENC), as long as the game is capped at 60fps (maybe even higher). If not, chances are, that other scene sources or device drivers are causing additional high CPU load.

 

[ChronologicalGamer]

So I'm just gonna have to make a whole new scene with only one game capture source and the overlays?

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Not a new scene and not with overlays. A new "scene collection" with one scene and only game capture source in it.
It's created fast and easy. You will be able to switch back to you normal scene collection, that contains all your actual scenes in it, with just two clicks.