Question / Help Dropping frames since Twitch Beta update started

R

Rand118

New Member
Hello there!

I'm not sure if others have noticed this, but I've been getting intermittent frames dropping for the last 2 weeks and it seems like it started when the twitch beta update started going live. It's strange because, as a streamer, I've never had frames drop this consistently while still being an off and on occurrence. My OBS connection will be a steady 2500-3000 kb/s and then dip down below 100-200 kb/s fairly frequently, which causes dropped frames. I was worried that it was my connection, so I contacted my internet provider and had them check my connection during my stream. While I was running a speed test to confirm my connection was good, I had a steady 100ms download, 10ms upload while seeing OBS studio drop frames and have connection speed reductions, all while the tech support reported no packet loss in my connection. I only have a bit rate of 2500 at the moment to try and make sure I'm not over-taxing my system or anything. Here's a log file from my latest stream:

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/d146d6ce6809e0a3380676a6d49e26ea

I do see one line in the log file that said "deprecated pixel format used, make sure you set range correctly" and "warning: data is not aligned, this can lead to speedloss" but I don't know if that is related to my issue of connection slow down and dropped frames.

Actions I've taken to try to remedy the problem include changing twitch servers (didn't seem to change anything), checking my task manager to make sure I wasn't maxing out my cpu (that has happened in the past when I raised the fps and bit rate too high), and running speed tests to verify my connection is consistent.

Thanks for any help!

Rand118.
 

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Thanks for the reply, Fenrir. I've done a few things on the guide you listed, I'll do a more thorough checklist of every one of those suggestions when I have time this weekend. I'm streaming today for about 6 hours, I'll lower the bit rate some more to 2000 to see if that has any effect on my dropped frames. Can you clarify what the connection numbers on the bottom right of OBS studio are telling me? The numbers next to the red/yellow/green bar that say, for example, 2100 kb/s. Are they telling me my current upload speed, the speed of my connection to the twitch server, my general internet connection speed? I'd just like to know if that number is specific to a certain aspect of my connection.

One other issue I've had for the past week or 2 is that OBS studio will not open the first time I double click the program. I have to open it once, go to task manager and end OBS once, then open OBS AGAIN before the actual program will come up. I'm not sure if that's just a "run as administrator" thing or a common problem with OBS. I do remember encountering this issue before, but I don't remember if I did anything to fix it or it was fixed by some OBS update.

Thanks again for your help!
Rand118.
 
As an update, I just ran Twitch Test as mentioned in the guide, and most of the "quality" results I'm getting are "0". I live in Dallas, and the Dallas server results are 6329 kb/s, RTT of 15 ms, and quality of 0. The guide says that a baseline quality for a stable stream is around 80. The highest quality of any servers I'm seeing is from San Jose, CA with a quality of 32. Do these low quality numbers mean my connection is bad? That the twitch servers are overloaded? I don't know if there's anything I can do to improve my connection to those twitch servers unless it's something I need to work out with my ISP. Here's an image of the test results: https://i.imgur.com/32No24G.png
 
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Yep that's something you need to work out with your ISP. Inside your home about all you can do is make sure you are using a wired connection not wireless to your router and double check your cables for damage. It's very likely an ISP problem :-(
 
Are there any tips for what I can tell my ISP to convince them there's a problem? I have a connection, I'm just getting really inconsistent speeds. When I talked to my ISP a few days ago, the "support" person I talked to pinged my modem and said there was no packet loss, so everything was good on their end. How do I convince an ISP that although I have a connection, it is not consistent or nearly as fast as the speed of internet I'm paying for? Is this a universal problem that people just have to switch internet providers until they get one that is consistent for them?
 
To be honest I can't think of anything, it's only really streaming that requires this level of consistency and your ISP probably won't care. So long as you can watch YouTube they think their job is done.

Only piece of advice I can give is try the Twitch subreddit and see if you can find other streamers in your area with the same ISP who are also having problems.

Sorry I know it's not much help
 
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