Question / Help Blurring and stream stuttering but no dropped frames

[Sniper_Kat_Six]

Hello. So I want to make one thing clear. I want to make my stream as good looking and smooth as possible, but still have it viewable for as many people as possible. I don't care about absolutely min maxing quality but I do like a stream to not be pixellated and run smoothly both on the stream's end and on my end, and I DETEST pixellation.

Unfortunately I have noticed that when I stream games like Skyrim, DayZ and Resident Evil Revelations 2, NO matter what I set my specs to, there's a lot of either pixellation or terrible framerate. I used to be able to stream in 60FPS but lately that's been causing issues and I have no clue why. Yes I am aware that RE Revelations 2 isn't an optimized port for PC but I have seen people with weaker rigs stream this in 720p 60fps, smooth as butter.

My rig is fine and my net is fine. People usually comment and say "Wow, you shouldn't have any issues whatsoever" after seeing my specs, so here they are...

Windows 8.1 with a 32bit OBS
intel i7 4770k 3.5ghz quad core w/ 8 threads.
8MB RAM
Radeon R9 280X 3GB tahiti edition GPU

...well, the rest is irrelevant. My net is on circa 80mb/down and 80mb/up so that's not the issue. I am not dropping frames either according to OBS. It says Frames dropped, 0. But occasionally when I check on the broadcast the green little box that marks connections flashes to yellow on and off.. not sure if this is a problem and not sure what it could depend on, if it is a problem.

my bit rate is 2000kb custom buffer size is the same as bit rate, figured 2000 or 2100 is a good balance, since most people won't have buffering issues with this bitrate.
Quality balance is set to 9
Use CBR and CBR padding both checked,
Minimize network impact unchecked

I play my games in 1080p but downscale by 1.5 to 720p,
My FPS...like I said, normally 30 if I stream off consoles etc, used to be 60 for FPS games but that doesn't seem to run well lately. Please tell me if you have any recommendations here...
Also, filtering is lanczos... Should I try to go back on this and just use bilinear? Even with Lanczos, Skyrim and a lot of other games look a bit choppy and pixellated. and I know Lanczos is supposed to smooth out the pixels and make the game look better...

Anyway, multithreaded optimization checked...
Process priority class Normal,
Scene buffering time = 700 miliseconds (heard somewhere to drop this to 400, but I dunno?)
Disable encoding while previewing is something I checked because I figured it'd make it lag a little less, since technically while you stream the preview is constantly up...but I've even tried streaming without this checked and still no difference.
X264 CPU preset veryfast
Encoding profile main
Keyframe interval in seconds = 2
Use CFR checked
Custom x264 settings unchecked
Encode in full range unchecked
60-120fps unchecked
Force desktop audio to use video timestamps checked because I was having some audio delay.. vid was going faster than audio
Low latency mode unchecked
Disable TCP send video optimization unchecked

Well...that should be it for the most important settings I think... I don't even know anymore... If you want to look at some of my vods you can visit www.twitch.tv/sniper_kat_six (Try to find the correct games, obviously some games will still look better....)

But yes, please help me out, ANY suggestions you can give me towards improving my stream quality based on the specs I posted, would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Foboh]

Twitch recommends checking the use CBR box so your bitrate is not dynamically decreasing and increasing it helps their streaming servers and your stream will be slightly less blocky or pixelated, especially when moving quickly.

Do some brave testing, try any x264 preset slower than veryfast. This will sacrifice CPU usage but will clear more pixelation and blockyness.

Scene buffering has nothing to do with your stream's quality, it just waits a few milliseconds to load the scene you want to switch to.

Disable encoding while previewing is just for when you click Stream Preview to set up your scene before you start streaming; it has no effect on the actual live stream.

Try the Community Chat for more help

 

[Sniper_Kat_Six]

Thank you, but I have use CBR checked already.

 

[dping]

Thank you, but I have use CBR checked already.

I think hes referring to you saying "Quality balance is set to 9" just note that that setting is irrelevant if greyed out.

Next time, instead of writing a essay, post your logfile from the help menu. copy the link and post it here. then just explain the issue you are having i.e. in game studdering, low fps in obs, low fps in game, stream is buffering for viewers, etc.