Question / Help Dropped Frames (Spikes to 0kb/s)

[iOrganic]

My stream will randomly freeze and experience a lot of frame loss. There have been a few times where I've managed to stream rather smoothly for 20 minutes, but it'll start happening again. It happens across all servers, and it might just be a hardware issue. 0 lag ingame/on the OBS screen.

Internet is a solid 50/30 line.

Log example (lots of them..):
http://pastebin.com/NKmKv4nW

 

[Kharay]

http://testmy.net/upload -- Be sure to pick a server near you. Thing is, you're dropping quite a number of frames. So I'm thinking your line may not be as solid as you think or you have been streaming to a remote or poor Twitch.tv server.

So, just run the upload test to a server near you and then double-check OBS to make sure you're streaming to a server as close to you as possible as well.

Secondly, you also have some laggy frames. What have you been trying to stream?

You also may want to consider enabling OpenCL, to give your CPU some breathing room. Go into Advanced, Custom x264 Settings. Add opencl=true.

 

[iOrganic]

http://testmy.net/upload -- Be sure to pick a server near you. Thing is, you're dropping quite a number of frames. So I'm thinking your line may not be as solid as you think or you have been streaming to a remote or poor Twitch.tv server.

So, just run the upload test to a server near you and then double-check OBS to make sure you're streaming to a server as close to you as possible as well.

Secondly, you also have some laggy frames. What have you been trying to stream?

You also may want to consider enabling OpenCL, to give your CPU some breathing room. Go into Advanced, Custom x264 Settings. Add opencl=true.

I have best luck with the VA server ping wise, even though I live 15 min away from Dallas. Issue presents itself on both, though.

I feel like my upload line might just be dying every once in a while or something?

I've been streaming Dawngate on highest settings minus shadows.



That's what speedtest gives me.

 

[Kharay]

Doesn't look like your line can really support 3000 Kbps. Which browser are you using? Or did you use for Testmy.net anyhow...

Regarding Speedtest vs TestMy... neither tells the complete picture but TestMy is a more rigorous test that fits our purposes (streaming) a bit better. It's a more appropriate test for this circumstance.

 

[iOrganic]

Doesn't look like your line can really support 3000 Kbps. Which browser are you using? Or did you use for Testmy.net anyhow...

Regarding Speedtest vs TestMy... neither tells the complete picture but TestMy is a more rigorous test that fits our purposes (streaming) a bit better. It's a more appropriate test for this circumstance.

What would be a good bitrate to start messing with? |: I used firefox. I got 2.9mbps upload second time testing with chrome.

 

[Kharay]

Unfortunately, ~2Mbps is fairly little. It leaves very little room to maneuver in. You could try VBR 600 at Q-0 for a bit and see what happens. It may not end up looking brilliant but it might be supportable. Just try it and see if the frameloss improves.

 

[iOrganic]

Unfortunately, ~2Mbps is fairly little. It leaves very little room to maneuver in. You could try VBR 600 at Q-0 for a bit and see what happens. It may not end up looking brilliant but it might be supportable. Just try it and see if the frameloss improves.

I might call Verizon and ask them to check out the line and see if maybe my router or something needs an update. I don't enjoying paying for that 30mbps upload if it's not going to do me any good.

 

[ThoNohT]

600kbps is quite drastic.

Regarding connection only, with 2Mbps available, you should be able to use 1500kbps as a starting point, if it works, try increasing in small steps of 100, probably not advisable. If it doesn't work try decreasing in steps of 100 until you have a stable connection. But yeah, you could give your provider a call and see if you could get some more speed out of that line. Note that routers too may be bottle necks for such cases. And do make sure you are not on wireless.

Quality wise, quality 0 seems... drastic again. Your quality of 5 seems fine, you did change your preset to fast, maybe put that back to the default, veryfast. But the encoder really isn't that much burdening your CPU. I think the problem might be more in the game settings being too high, and the GPU not keeping up.

 

[Kharay]

Yes, Q-0 is quite drastic... but, it was only to confirm that there is a baseline at which he can stream reliably.

 

[iOrganic]

Going to go ahead and test with the tweaked settings. Thank you so much for all of your help!

Edit: OpenCL is magic... 4 (.01%) dropped frames on League on high settings atm. quality is still 5, might bump it up.

 

[FerretBomb]

Again, using Q0 as a test is terrible advice. Just go to CBR instead if you want to stick more closely to the set bitrate. Q0 is like cutting off your foot for a stubbed toe. It also looks like complete crap, even if it 'saves on bandwidth'.

I'd agree with ThoNohT; 1500 would be a good starting point. Lower it further if you're still dropping frames, or raise it by 100 or so if not and continue testing, then back off when you start dropping again to give yourself more of a margin for error and keep things stable.
It appears your connection is extremely bursty, which dead file transfers can use (speedtest tests dead-file speeds); effectively, your constant throughput (the important part for streaming and in-game communications) is low, but your ISP allows it to burst WELL above your rated speed, so file transfers average out at your 'rated' speed. Livestreaming can't take advantage of the speed bursting through; it relies on constant rate to work well. Will need to contact your ISP to get this one sorted out; likely you'll need to figure a way to get to tier 2 or 3 support at least, and even then you may just get the 'best effort!' spiel unless you're on a business-class connection.

 

[Kharay]

Q-0 vs Q-10. No one is going claim Q-0 looks as good as Q-10 does. However, it is not unwatchable. The Q-10 however is unwatchable if the viewer in question has a poor Internet connection and/or is routed through a slower Twitch.TV server. I lost no frames on either but I actually had trouble re-watching the Q-10 myself. Simply because Twitch.TV is not the flawless service people would have it make out to be. It literally had nothing whatsoever to do with my Internet connection.

Do not omit the Twitch.TV falibilty factor, please. There is a reason why it is advised not to go over 3500 Kbps. Their infrastructure has immense trouble dealing with the traffic as of late.

 

[ThoNohT]

Qualiy balance is not used to control the bitrate. Therefore, it should not be used when testing bitrate. The only thing quality balance should be used for is to reduce the overall quality a bit if using your current settings, the video gets pixelated during high motion scenes. You will then sacrifice some quality and reserve some extra bandwidth for those high motion scenes.

Using quality balance 0, you might well be streaming below your set bitrate during low motion scenes, and your bandwidth tests will not provide accurate results, you might falsely think a current bandwidth setting is stable for you, when you were actually using less during your test. That's where CBR is extremely useful. First: you can't mess with quality balance. Second: you will stream at the bitrate you set, if you don't need it, it will get padded. So whatever you set it to, you will be testing.
If when actually streaming, you want to go back to VBR and use quality balance, fine, but Quality balance 0 doesn't work when testing what bitrate you can handle.

 

[Kharay]

Good luck with that.

 

[iOrganic]

Thanks for all the help! What exactly does enabling opencl do?

 

[Kharay]

Thanks for all the help! What exactly does enabling opencl do?

Divert some more of the encoding process away from the CPU towards the GPU; the point of my suggestion was the following -- to deal with the laggy frames you had. Frame-lag is your PC falling behind a bit, frame-drop is the connection falling behind.

 

[alpinlol]

frame lag is literally a gpu problem only ... had the same but i was running an i7 2700k@4 and 7870xt and i had at least 10-30% frame lagged every time i streamed since i got my gtx 770 i got like 0.00-0.1% frame lagged out of like a 3 hours stream

 

[Kharay]

That does not mean it's solely a GPU issue; it just means that the combination of the i7 + 7870xt was not enough and the combination of the i7 + 770 is enough. By the way, what were you streaming? ;) Because my i5 never has an issue, just in GW2. But even then I can drop it down to 5% framelag at the most; no, that's not my GPU falling behind because I've streamed more GPU heavy things than GW2 without a problem. GW2 is just poorly optimized.

 

[alpinlol]

i never had an issue before it came with one of the last 5 or 6 versions of obs .... and im literally streaming every game css/csgo/wow/dota/bf3/lol everything fun to play never had ingame issues only the stream had lagged frames in the logfile and a lot logs lately which i saw from different people mostly with the 7800 series cards have a bunch of lagged frames while everything from gtx 560+ performs just fine for a 60 fps stream in case of lagged frames.

 

[Kharay]

Still makes me wonder just what you're doing. Because not even my GPU is anywhere near yours. ;) It's an HD 6870 and honestly, GW2 really is the only game that sees me lagging frames in a substantial amount.