Question / Help Bitrate question

[Shacks]

I am not sure how the biterate works and I have checked a few things about it and am still not understanding it.

First I looked at the section on here about what I have in my PC and have it give recommendations and it said my max bitrate should be 9 and the buffer should be 5, but I have been told by others that for live streaming I should have it around 3000-3500 and when I am just recording I could probably have it at 8000.

Now I don't get what any of this means, but I am most curious about having it at 9 and 5 or some crazy higher number in the thousands.

What is going on?

 

[Krazy]

Well, OBS bitrate is expressed in kilobits per second. Most times upload is expressed in megabits per second. 9Mbps is 9000kbps for example.

 

[Shacks]

So basically when it says 9 for one and 5 for the other it means 9000 and 5000?

 

[Krazy]

Er, no, the estimator only works with what you give it. You need to figure out what your actual upload speed is and give that to the estimator expressed in kilobits per second.

 

[Shacks]

I did that, my upload is about 10.24mbps. It said for fast paced games to have it at 9 and 5.

 

[Isegrim]

I'd suggest that you use a 2nd profil for local recording that uses crf, it allows you to have a variable bitrate. If necessary the bitrate will spike. In loading screens with low motion it will go down into the hundreds.
I'm not sure what you mean by 9 and 5 though. The bitrate recommandation for streaming to services like twitch in 720p with 30 fps is 3500kb. Remember that your viewers have to download what you upload. People with downloadspeeds below 3,5 mbs would experience chop or have a lot of buffer
If you are interested in local recordings take a look at this guide from JackOr.

 

[Shacks]

Thanks, I will check it out.
For live streaming I usually keep it at 3000.

The 9 bitrate and 5 buffer size is what the thing on here recommended to me.

 

[Jack0r]

Well, because you entered 10.24 instead of 10240. The estimator can only work correctly if you input the correct values. As explained by Krazy :)

My personal recommendation for streaming would be a bitrate around 2000-3500kbps (so you are good with the 3000 you used so far). More bitrate and your viewers will get problems, less bitrate and 720p will look bad with most games.

Edit: Oh yeah, and check the video, or this guide:
https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/
for very good Local Recording settings.