Question / Help Buffer Size Question

[PLEYA]

My question is; will a higher Buffer Size make my viewers require a better connection?

To explain more thoroughly I am streaming FPS games where the camera moves around A LOT and I've set my Bitrate to 3000 and Resolution to 720p. I don't want to set my Bitrate any higher because I want my stream to be watchable to as many people as possible. But my upload is 9MB so I wouldn't mind using more if it myself.

I've tried 3 different Buffer Sizes; 2250, 3000 and 6000. I read a streaming guide that said 0.75, 1 and 2 times the Bitrate would be the best Buffer Sizes and that you should try them all. I did try them all and 2250 looked bad, 3000 looked OK and 6000 looked the best, with 6000 the Stream stayed clear and didn't get as blurry when flicking the camera around a lot.

I didn't get any dropped frames at 6000 Buffer Size and it looked good, so I would really like to use it.
But I don't want to use it if my viewers are going to need a download speed of twice as much because I'm streaming at 6000 Buffer Size instead of 3000.

What I am trying to achieve is the best possible look of my stream while still making it viewable by as many people as possible.

Thanks!


INFO:

Game: Team Fortress 2 (good framerate)
OS: Windows 7, 64bit
CPU: Intel i5 2500k
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 560ti
Network Speed: 40 download & 9 upload

 

[Haliinen]

Set quality balance to 7 maybe 6 (just maybe), keep the bitrate and buffer size to 2808 and keep the audio bitrate to 192 using the AAC encoder.

 

[PLEYA]

Nah, Quality has to stay at 10 for some of the text to be readable. Haven't had any good experiences lowering it. And I don't need anyone telling me what audio bitrate to use. How would you know what the best is for me?

Your post is completely irrelevant to my question.

 

[dramabomb]

The Quality option is used to make sure that things don't get muddy/unclear during high motion scenes. Setting the quality option lower to something around 7 will definitely help readability during motion in FPS games. From what I understand, it has no bearing on text quality.

Also, you don't have to be so rude. We're just trying to help.

 

[PLEYA]

Thanks for the suggestions but my question was really about the buffer size only and nothing else.
I really don't want to sound rude but I don't need help with anything else.
So if there is anyone who could actually tell me something about that I would be really appreciative.

 

[paibox]

A buffer size of 6000 means that your stream might spike to 9000Kbps if the encoder feels the need for it, which will most likely be pretty often at quality 10.

 

[PLEYA]

paibox, does that mean I will have to upload 9000Kbps of data or that my viewers will need to download 9000Kbps to when watching the stream?

 

[paibox]

That would be exactly the same thing, now wouldn't it.

 

[PLEYA]

I don't know if it would paibox, I don't fully understand what Buffer Size does.
So having a Bitrate and Buffer size of 3000 means that my viewers only would have to download 2/3 the amount of files they would have to download if I was using Bitrate 3000 and Buffer Size 6000?

 

[TheRevTastic]

He was being sarcastic, he said it was the same thing.

 

[PLEYA]

Ok, that's interesting. I didn't know that the Bitrate and Buffer Size stacked to one.
I guess I will use 3000 for both then to make people with a worse connection able to watch the stream as well.

 

[Haliinen]

Nah, Quality has to stay at 10 for some of the text to be readable. Haven't had any good experiences lowering it. And I don't need anyone telling me what audio bitrate to use. How would you know what the best is for me?

Your post is completely irrelevant to my question.

oh shit im sorry, i thought you had your viewers in mind

 

[Krazy]

There's really very little reason to have your buffer size larger than your bitrate. It may help quality in fast motion scenes if you aren't being bottlenecked by your CPU not really being able to keep up, but honestly the spike potential is not really worth it, IMO.

As others have mentioned, it will almost certainly negatively impact viewers with less than stellar connections because they have to deal with large network spikes. What FPS are you playing that totally clear text is really important, though?