Question / Help Curious how I could improve my stream quality.

[PsiKoTiK]

Current Log

https://gist.github.com/849c309afaa64288ca61

Most recent stream

http://www.twitch.tv/psikotiktv/v/36305917

Sometimes it just appears grainy to me when watching it back compared to some other streams. I build a new PC last year to stream with and not sure if I am taking full advantage or not.

 

[Boildown]

Try using Faster preset instead of Very Fast, and switch to High profile instead of Main unless your viewers complain of not being able to watch on their mobile devices. Every actual PC will be able to view High profile encoded video, only older mobile devices need it to be encoded in Main.

You're not gaming on this PC too are you? I would expect to see a bit better performance with that CPU, preset, framerate, and resolution. Make sure nothing but OBS is running. If you're using a capture card on the same PC you're gaming on, then don't do that, remove the capture card and use Game Capture instead.

 

[PsiKoTiK]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I am gaming on this PC and I stopped using the capture card and switched to game capture. When I try and watch the stream the following day it takes forever on a phone or tablet. Should I be playing in 1280x720 or just stick to down scaling to that resolution and 30 fps? I feel like 30 looked very choppy but 60 sometimes causes lag on my PC when playing Rocket League.

 

[Boildown]

I would definitely play at the native resolution of your monitor. Then use OBS' downscale to shrink it to something that is streamable at 2000 bitrate or less, which means no bigger than 1280x720 on any action game. If you're not duplicating frames at > 1% or so, then the only other way to make it look less choppy is to increase the framerate. Maybe try an intermediate value like 40, 45, or 48 FPS. The more fps on the stream, the smoother it will look, but the more prone to compression artifacts it will be.