Question / Help Can't stream @60fps

[Rodrigo Esteves]

Copying from twitch cause that's what they told me to do :v)

Hello,

I have always streamed at 720p60 with no problems, but a few weeks ago (3 or 4) there was that issue where the channel wouldn't go live even though you started broadcasting and the stream itself said Live, although it would be stuck at offline image and no sound at all.

Since that issue got fixed, I have never been able to stream at 60FPS again. For some reason if I try to stream at any framerate that is LOWER than 60 (even 59) it works just fine, but if I try to stream at 60 my channel won't go live.

I'm using OBS 0.622b x64.

My computer specs and stream settings are as follows:

i7 3770k
GTX770 amp
asrock z77 extreme6
g.skill 16gb 2033mhz

CBR at 1500
buffer size 1500
max keyframe interval 2 sec
AAC at 160
using nvidia NVENC encoder (swapping to x264 won't solve my problem)
res: 720p

link: 35mbit/3mbit

Any ideas on what could be causing this? It worked just fine a few weeks ago, and whenever I try to broadcast at 60 my stream just hangs in offline image. Streaming at anything lower than that is choppy, just like as if I was streaming @30fps

 

[AndehX]

I wouldn't stream at 60fps on twitch anyway. Twitch's flash player butchers the streams fps when viewed live, but looks fine when played back later. Your viewers wont be getting a smooth 60fps viewing experience, so you might as well lower to 30fps as it wont look any different to your viewers anyway.

 

[Timothy003]

Have you tried setting the encoder to x264?

 

[Rodrigo Esteves]

I wouldn't stream at 60fps on twitch anyway. Twitch's flash player butchers the streams fps when viewed live, but looks fine when played back later. Your viewers wont be getting a smooth 60fps viewing experience, so you might as well lower to 30fps as it wont look any different to your viewers anyway.

Honestly, it does look way smoother at 60fps when I watch on a second screen.

Have you tried setting the encoder to x264?

I have when there was this issue. I'd prefer to keep using Nvidia encoder though. There's not really a reason to force x264 on my CPU if my GPU has the physical encoder for that

 

[AndehX]

Honestly, it does look way smoother at 60fps when I watch on a second screen.

Hmm, well you're in a minority then. What browser are you using?

 

[FerretBomb]

Just saying... even on h264, a 720p@60 stream on 1500kbps is going to look like a dog's dinner. Being generous. With NVENC's poor quality tossed into the mix? Well... a used dog's dinner would probably be pretty generous.

You do not have the bitrate to run 60fps even on h264, much less the FAR higher bitrate required to avoid having NVENC look like complete and utter crap. 1500kbps is the 'bare minimum' for 720@30fps with h264. Running 60fps on h264 would require at least 2500kbps. Add on NVENC, and you pretty much need 3500kbps to even be remotely watchable. Add in the unnecessary 160kbps for audio (really, most people won't notice a difference on AAC even if you drop to 96kbps, and it'll save you a slice of bandwidth) and you have a recipe for a problem.

Your stream may simply be poor enough quality that Twitch is simply rejecting your ingest outright. Be aware that the preview/projector-mode is not indicative of what anyone watching on Twitch will see; it's pre-encoding.

 

[Sapiens]

Telling someone they're in the minority when they can tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS is, well, pretty silly. Ignoring the [citation needed] nature of that statement, just how visible the difference is depends quite a bit on the type of content being streamed. Fast-paced first person shooter games for example are obviously smoother on a 60 FPS stream assuming things are working right (e.g. no late/skipped/dropped frames, stream resolution isn't too high for Flash to decode it properly, etc.). Historically Twitch's live player does just fine with 720p60, it's the VOD player that does a poor job of playing that type of content back.

To actually address the OP's question instead of preaching about frame rate, NVENC has been having issues streaming at 60 FPS lately. I don't know if this is something related to the OBS implementation of it, or a system-specific thing, or what. However, unless your 3770K isn't able to keep up you would be better served by using x264. It's more efficient, producing better quality at the same bitrate compared to hardware encoders like NVENC and Quick Sync, and doesn't suffer from the type of blank stream output issue you're currently having. Hardware encoders should be used as a fallback when you don't have enough CPU power to maintain both game and stream performance, not as a first choice.

Your stream may simply be poor enough quality that Twitch is simply rejecting your ingest outright.

Are you under the impression that this actually happens? Twitch somehow monitoring/evaluating stream quality and terminating streams that don't meet some type of minimum quality standard? I would love to see some supporting evidence of this, it sounds totally bogus.

 

[AndehX]

Telling someone they're in the minority when they can tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS is, well, pretty silly. Ignoring the [citation needed] nature of that statement, just how visible the difference is depends quite a bit on the type of content being streamed. Fast-paced first person shooter games for example are obviously smoother on a 60 FPS stream assuming things are working right (e.g. no late/skipped/dropped frames, stream resolution isn't too high for Flash to decode it properly, etc.). Historically Twitch's live player does just fine with 720p60, it's the VOD player that does a poor job of playing that type of content back.

You misunderstand me. I can quite clearly tell the difference between 30 and 60fps just as well as anyone. What I was trying to say was that twitch's flash player (the one used when viewing a live stream, as opposed to a recording) does a horrible job of displaying 60fps. It's very evident if you go watch a 60fps stream on hitbox.tv and then compare it to a 60fps stream on twitch. Hitbox's live player does a MUCH better job of displaying 60fps.

 

[Rodrigo Esteves]

To actually address the OP's question instead of preaching about frame rate, NVENC has been having issues streaming at 60 FPS lately. I don't know if this is something related to the OBS implementation of it, or a system-specific thing, or what. However, unless your 3770K isn't able to keep up you would be better served by using x264. It's more efficient, producing better quality at the same bitrate compared to hardware encoders like NVENC and Quick Sync, and doesn't suffer from the type of blank stream output issue you're currently having. Hardware encoders should be used as a fallback when you don't have enough CPU power to maintain both game and stream performance, not as a first choice.


Are you under the impression that this actually happens? Twitch somehow monitoring/evaluating stream quality and terminating streams that don't meet some type of minimum quality standard? I would love to see some supporting evidence of this, it sounds totally bogus.

Thanks for the answer, way more helpful than the rant about 30fps vs 60fps. And no, it's not a heavy load for my 3770k, I was just wondering whether the quality of the encoder would look better so I gave it a try for a few days. I guess your answer also covers that. I will try x264 tonight when I stream and see if I can broadcast @60.

Thanks!

 

[AndehX]

Thanks for the answer, way more helpful than the rant about 30fps vs 60fps. And no, it's not a heavy load for my 3770k, I was just wondering whether the quality of the encoder would look better so I gave it a try for a few days. I guess your answer also covers that. I will try x264 tonight when I stream and see if I can broadcast @60.

Thanks!

just trying to offer some advice based on my own experience. By no means was it a rant. Sapiens simply misunderstood me, thats all.