Bad pixelation on a 2 PC setup with "Slow" preset?

[Akairem]

Hey guys.

I am just trying to get some help as this issue is consistently bugging me. I have a 2PC setup. My main gaming pc playsat a resolution 1440p. My stream PC outputs it at 1080p 60FPS. The preset is set to "Slow" with a bitrate of 6000. My download speed is 900Mb and upload is 120.

If anyone can just watch a bit from this timestamp. You should be able to see the pixelation i am talking about. It centers heavily around my webcam and is easiest to notice there. - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1057960940?t=3h39m31s

Here is the log from that stream - https://obsproject.com/logs/lceS1cxFoPKSf5IB

Any help and advice would be amazing. Thanks.

 

[Akairem]

Tried adjusting bitrate to like 50000 and doing local recording. Didn't seem to make a difference

 

[FerretBomb]

You're streaming high-detail (lots of grass and brush) high-motion video at 1080p60@6000kbps. That's about half the bitrate needed to maintain a 0.1 bits-per-pixel density (the generally-accepted 'target' quality value).
The Slow preset is not a magic bullet. It'll improve an edge case, but not with high-motion video (which demands MORE than 0.1) already running at half the recommended rate.

Drop to 1080p30. 60fps frankly is a wasteful luxury when it comes to streaming, outside of things like retrogames where it's actually needed to correctly display the game.
You could also drop to 720p60 (or 30) as you're already downscaling from 1440, and will get a cleaner 2:1 full-integer downscale.
Getting lost chasing numbers is probably THE biggest new-streamer trap to fall into.

If you want to record locally, use CQP to define an image quality level to target, NOT a fixed bitrate.

 

[Akairem]

You're streaming high-detail (lots of grass and brush) high-motion video at 1080p60@6000kbps. That's about half the bitrate needed to maintain a 0.1 bits-per-pixel density (the generally-accepted 'target' quality value).
The Slow preset is not a magic bullet. It'll improve an edge case, but not with high-motion video (which demands MORE than 0.1) already running at half the recommended rate.

Drop to 1080p30. 60fps frankly is a wasteful luxury when it comes to streaming, outside of things like retrogames where it's actually needed to correctly display the game.
You could also drop to 720p60 (or 30) as you're already downscaling from 1440, and will get a cleaner 2:1 full-integer downscale.
Getting lost chasing numbers is probably THE biggest new-streamer trap to fall into.

If you want to record locally, use CQP to define an image quality level to target, NOT a fixed bitrate.

Thanks for the detailed information. I did actually try to set the output to 720p before to get it going. It actually looks genuinely disgusting quality though. So i just didn't see that as working for me.

https://gyazo.com/9ca7ee8d7ac9c0d3cac8e2963d321b34
This what my 720p output looks like.

Of course, as most people have probably mentioned, i get tied down cause i see similar spec streams and always feel like theirs is appearing more clean.

I don't know if the log was helpful or if you had seen it or anything, but would you happen to be able to tell from that if everything looks okay settings wise?

Also, for recording locally, i am on the Rate Control section but i don't see "CQB"? I only have CBR, ABR, VBR and CRF?

Thanks again

 

[FerretBomb]

You appear to be double-downscaling; going from 1440p to 1080p, then 1080 to 720. That will be a worst-of-all-worlds where you have two non-integer downscales, instead of one full-integer.

Again, chasing numbers. You *can* run at higher bitrate (the 6mbps recommendation is not a hard-cap; 8mbps is a generally known-good point) but it is a VERY bad idea for new streamers intending to grow at all. The higher your bitrate, the fewer people can watch you smoothly. And if someone can't watch smoothly, THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. They will just leave, and try another stream.
Partners can get away with it due to guaranteed transcodes (quality options), but it's still not great.

Much more important than your video fidelity is your audio setup. Having good-sounding mic audio, and a good balance between the mic and game. You don't need a super-expensive mic, but around 25-50% of Twitch viewers aren't even watching the video, just listening as background noise.
If someone can't stand to listen to you, they aren't going to watch your stream no matter how good the video quality is.

Apologies, different encoders will call it either CQP or CRF. That's the one to use for local recording though. Start with around 22, and going down raises quality (and file size, dramatically) with around 16 being visually lossless, and 12 only used if you intend to edit the video and re-compress it, to minimize re-encoding artifacts.

As a side-note, if you have a modern nVidia card (anything 10-series or newer), 2PC setups are pretty much dead as the dodo at this point. NVENC on the 20-series punches at the same quality as x264 Slow (per VMAF testing), with zero in-game impact (assuming all CUDA-using encoding options turned off). A second system is just added power draw and setup complexity at this point, for near zero gain outside of a very few edge-case scenarios.

 

[Akairem]

You appear to be double-downscaling; going from 1440p to 1080p, then 1080 to 720. That will be a worst-of-all-worlds where you have two non-integer downscales, instead of one full-integer.

Again, chasing numbers. You *can* run at higher bitrate (the 6mbps recommendation is not a hard-cap; 8mbps is a generally known-good point) but it is a VERY bad idea for new streamers intending to grow at all. The higher your bitrate, the fewer people can watch you smoothly. And if someone can't watch smoothly, THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. They will just leave, and try another stream.
Partners can get away with it due to guaranteed transcodes (quality options), but it's still not great.

Much more important than your video fidelity is your audio setup. Having good-sounding mic audio, and a good balance between the mic and game. You don't need a super-expensive mic, but around 25-50% of Twitch viewers aren't even watching the video, just listening as background noise.
If someone can't stand to listen to you, they aren't going to watch your stream no matter how good the video quality is.

Apologies, different encoders will call it either CQP or CRF. That's the one to use for local recording though. Start with around 22, and going down raises quality (and file size, dramatically) with around 16 being visually lossless, and 12 only used if you intend to edit the video and re-compress it, to minimize re-encoding artifacts.

As a side-note, if you have a modern nVidia card (anything 10-series or newer), 2PC setups are pretty much dead as the dodo at this point. NVENC on the 20-series punches at the same quality as x264 Slow (per VMAF testing), with zero in-game impact (assuming all CUDA-using encoding options turned off). A second system is just added power draw and setup complexity at this point, for near zero gain outside of a very few edge-case scenarios.

Maybe i need someone to actually go through the settings with me or something then, i am generally just confused. All i had done was set the Video output to 720p. I have no idea where a double downscale would be happening?

I have a 2080TI in my gaming PC which yes, originally i was running as a single PC stream. However i was still finding heavy artificating in my visuals. When i swapped back to using my 2 PC setup, my viewers even mentioned how much clearer it was on the same games etc. A setting must have changed or something somewhere because more recently i am seeing artifacts again. I've now even had a few people tell me they are "Stumped" or "Flabbergasted" as to why these artifacts are happening.

At this point i am kinda feeling like doing a reset on the 2nd PC and starting from scratch but yeah, honestly i feel like i need some help directly or something because i must be getting confused a lot or something.

 

[Akairem]

@FerretBomb
Hey bud, just wanted to tag and say that i've reset the PC and then set up my OBS all over again. Still seeing artificats in general but the main concern is how me setting my output to 720p is still looking absolutely terrible? I'm not sure what to do to fix this? You mentioned the double downscale but i have no idea at all how this is happening