Question / Help Cannot seem to Stream properly

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Rantzr

New Member
I'm super new to Livestreaming, and I'm not tech savvy so please bare with me. I use Twitch, and here are my specs:

AMD Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz Quad Core Processor
GeForce GTS 450
RAM 4GB
Windows 7 64bit
Monitor resolution: 1680x1050
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2704436498.png

I keep having an overlay issue, a resolution issue, and I'm not to sure what my settings should be.

Edit: Any advice on what my settings should be would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Rantzr

New Member
When I used Window Capture on a game the OBS client, and other (steam chat of instance), overlay it. As for the resolution issues, I do not know what to put the base resolution settings on.

Edit: I've also noticed that Game Capture sometimes does the same thing as Window Capture.
 
Jack0r

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
You will have to activate Windows Aero, that way OBS can capture Windows that are overlapped by others, or in the background.
Make sure you have Settings -> Video -> Disable Aero on startup unchecked!

For the resolution problem, what is your monitor resoltion, and what resolution do you want to stream at?
 
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Rantzr

New Member
Some how I just got the Game Capture to work, on Neverwinter, and the Disabled Aero on startup is checked?

My monitor resolution is 1680x1050, and I want to stream at whatever will run the best, and still look good.
 
Jack0r

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
For the Window capture you will have that option UNchecked please, then other windows overlapping, should not be shown.
Now to your resolution, your Desktop resolution has a 16:10 aspect ratio so you have the following resolutions available to stream:
860x524 D 2.00
960x600 D 1.75
1024x640
1120x700 D 1.50
1280x800
1344x840 D 1.25
1440x900
1680x1050
See, I marked some resolutions with a D *.** value, thats the downscale options of OBS. You leave 1680x1050 as your Custom resolution and select the correct downscale for this.

IF you want to use a resolution between those downscales, you set it one of the resolutions i listed as your Custom Resolution in OBS. (You might have to fit your gamecapture/windowcapture to the monitor, after setting a different custom resolution)
 
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Rantzr

New Member
Alright thank you very much, super helpful. Should all the default settings be good enough to start streaming with? Or should I be changing them as well?
 
Jack0r

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
You should tweak the bitrate according to your upload speed a bit, its standard on 1000, depending on what resolution you choose, you will want to use a bit more or less. (Please dont use your full upload, leave some room, also dont go much further than 3000-3500 kbit, for twitch.tv as an example) Do a test, watch the recording afterwards and see if you like the quality, feel free to ask further :)
 
Jack0r

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
I would do a test stream, check the VoD afterwards and if you feel something needs tweaks, post the vod here, or join our irc/live chat channel. (I have to go to university now ;))
 
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Rantzr

New Member
Well I did the test stream: http://www.twitch.tv/rantzr/b/402970575

I'm not sure if it is just me or not but the quality isn't too great. The sound seemed good thou. Not really sure how to make the quality better, any tips? Also the borders on the sides of the video, is there a way to get rid of them at all (replace with fullscreen?) or at least add two images on the sides to prevent it from being empty space?
 
Jack0r

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
Oki you streamed on 840x524 which explains the not so perfect quality. Pixelation and smoothness looked good. You can increase your streamoutput to one of the values I gave you. For example 1280x800 will look good, but may need a bit more bitrate to keep the pixelation away. It will also use more CPU power, so if you see your fps go down, you might wanna revert to a lower resolution again.

If you watch the VoD Fullscreen on your Monitor it should have no black borders on your 16:10 monitor. On a 16:9 or 4:3/5:4 monitor, it will have black borders on the top and bottom. But it will look better that way, than if you stretch your picture:
ip0PVOqDVo3ET.png


Or are you playing on a different resolution than your desktop resolution?
 
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Rantzr

New Member
The only options I have are: http://imgur.com/f5uzJpX which of those would look best? And how much more birate should I have? It is currently at 2000, because my upload speed varies between 25mbps-30mbps, and I wanted to play it safe. Also, how do I check my FPS?
 
Krazy

Krazy

Town drunk
Er, with uploads between 25 and 30 Mbps you don't really have to worry about bitrate lol. Do note that you really don't need much above 3500 for 1080p in most games, and the closer you get to 4k bitrate, the more viewers you will have be unable to watch due to lag.

Choose the highest resolution and FPS your hardware can handle encoding (no or very little lagged frames is what you are aiming for here)
 
dodgepong

dodgepong

Administrator
Community Helper
Bit rate, and maybe preset (though you should probably leave the preset at veryfast unless you know what you're doing).
 
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Rantzr

New Member
I'll be leaving preset at veryfast lol. As for bitrate, I thought it should be just a little under the upload speed? I have multiple stream videos now, all using the same bitrate (2000 for 840x524, the rest 2500), and they mostly look the same to me. I cannot tell the difference at least. But all I've been really testing is downscale resolution. If you think I should start to test the bitrate as well should I just test it at 3000, then work my way down 100 at a time, or 50 or less?

1.25 (1344x840) http://www.twitch.tv/rantzr/b/403588511
1.50 (1120x700) http://www.twitch.tv/rantzr/b/403634862
1.75 (960x600) http://www.twitch.tv/rantzr/b/403996845
2.00 (840x524) http://www.twitch.tv/rantzr/b/402970575

Also the game itself, Neverwinter, seems to be around the same FPS per zone I'm in, no matter what resolution I had (besides 2.00, didn't see the FPS on it). The Tutorial was always around 35-40, were the Town was 15-20, and the Dungeon was 40-50.

I was also wondering if it was possible to put up my past streams on Youtube, and if so how?
 
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