Question / Help Dual PC NDI stream lower frames than Single PC stream

MrForestt

New Member
hey guys brand new here so sorry for my formatting or missing information or repost

GOAL: i would like to stream to twitch using a 2 PC set up with OBS v23.0 and NDI at 720p60fps while playing at 144fps in my games

SETUP: i am currently trying to run a 2 pc set up, one for streaming and one for gaming.

The gaming PC has 2 monitors, one 60hz where my OBS/chat/twitch/youtube/w.e is on and the 144hz monitor where i game from but frequently alt tab from fullscreen.

The streaming pc has a 60hz monitor

all 3 monitors are 1920x1080

Problem: the frames next to my CPU% in obs are not always 60fps and my streams do not look 60fps when i stream using NDI from my streaming PC however it looks okay when i stream and game on the same gaming rig.
All games look 40-50fps when using NDI
anthem and diablo look 60 fps when gaming and streaming from single pc however anthem does not run as well as id like to (70fps)
apex always looks 40-50fps regardless if i am on NDI or not

Specs: Streaming PC
Microphone: Blue Snowball
Monitor: BenQ RL2455
Mother Board: MSI H310M Arctic
GPU: GTX 1060 6G
CPU: I5 8600
Cooler: Deepcool gammaxx 400wh
PSU: Thermaltake smart pro RGB 650W
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 (8x2)

Specs: Gaming PC
Microphone: Blue Yeti
Monitor: MSI Optix G24C 144hz
Monitor2: benQ GL2460 60hz
Mother Board: MSI z370m
GPU: GTX 2060 6G
CPU: I7 8700K
Cooler: 212 evo
PSU: HX850i
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 (8x2)

OBS SETTINGS:
Ive posted output and video settings from both of my pcs as attachments. i hope this helps or is useable

OBS LOGS: The apex ones seem the worse despite streaming with NDI or no NDI, Anthem and diablo3 streams very nicely from my single pc but it looks like 45-50fps when on NDI

NEW LOGS
Gaming PC anthem: https://obsproject.com/logs/BWRTK9AzRQlmuxEr
Streaming PC anthem: https://obsproject.com/logs/eXlK7XPUd3Y9aqvW
no NDI gaming PC anthem: https://obsproject.com/logs/GddxMnpkh1_TgW0f

Gaming PC apex legends: https://obsproject.com/logs/I__Hiqrm8579rEPO
Streaming PC apex legends: https://obsproject.com/logs/0CdwoiVq7iqKuvhR
No NDI gaming PC apex legends: https://obsproject.com/logs/PJXCgFeZ8WDVrfcr

i hope this is enough information, please let me know if you require more info. If you would like to watch any of the vods, i have some poorly named ones streamed from today on my test account twitch.tv/Foresttest
 

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Sir_Manbeard

New Member
And have you tried using the OBS Log analyser? It's helped me out on numerous occasions, and have pointed out my exact issues 90% of the time. I don't know the link offhand but it can be found in the OBS discord
 

MrForestt

New Member
And have you tried using the OBS Log analyser? It's helped me out on numerous occasions, and have pointed out my exact issues 90% of the time. I don't know the link offhand but it can be found in the OBS discord
I will give your suggestions a try after work today and report back, if you have any thing else to try let me know! Thanks for the replies!
 

Agamemnus

Member
Hey mate, your first session seemed to go fine, but the second session that went for like 3 hours had network lag. Try lowering your output bitrate? Also, it says your network card is connected at 100Mbps. NDI between your computers can be crazy data on your local network, are you able to get it to register 1Gbps? It could just mean changing the cable. Do it on both PCs.
 

MrForestt

New Member
Hey mate, your first session seemed to go fine, but the second session that went for like 3 hours had network lag. Try lowering your output bitrate? Also, it says your network card is connected at 100Mbps. NDI between your computers can be crazy data on your local network, are you able to get it to register 1Gbps? It could just mean changing the cable. Do it on both PCs.

i checked and my gigabitswitch is only 10/100, i'll be buying one that can get up to 1gbps! would this fix all my issues? will update when i can
 

Agamemnus

Member
It might!. NDI does use a lot of network data.
https://support.newtek.com/hc/en-us/articles/217662708-NDI-Network-Bandwidth

It's also possible that you are just going too high for your Internet upload. It's only 3% dropped frames so it's not far off. To me, it looks like either it's dropping over your internet connection, or it's your internal network that is congested since it is trying to put the stream out on the cable that has NDI coming in. You could try lowering your output bitrate to 5Mbps and see if that helps? 5Mbps is plenty for a 720p stream.
 

MrForestt

New Member
gave nvenc a shot today and it was still weird, gunna wait for the new gigabitswitch to get here in 2 days and do some tests with x264/nvenc and lowered bit rates! get back to you guys when i can
 

Agamemnus

Member
Have you thought about just streaming straight from your gaming PC? It's a pretty good system. In terms of actual stream, there's no improvement using dual PC setup unless you actually have an additional purpose for your second system?

https://unrealaussies.com/tech/nvenc-x264-quicksync-qsv-vp9-av1/

This test shows that H.264 on a Turing GPU outperforms any other common H.264 encoding. You have to step up to HEVC or VP9 to beat it and Twitch doesn't support those (yet). Your NVENC encoder doesn't rob you of any resources, it's currently an unused chipset in your game PC.

There is a chance however, that Apex might suffer. Technically, you already have OBS open and it's compositing the game image, but then you transfer it over NDI. If you add a webcam and transparent alerts to the scenes, your render section of the GPU will require more power. You MIGHT just exchange network dropped frames for render lagged frames. But for most games it's fine, and when Apex gets FPS limiters this problem will go away.

Worth a shot? Either way, if that solves your problem, or the new switch solves it, be sure to let us know.
 

MrForestt

New Member
so i was able to improve my speeds from 100mb/s to 1gb/s and ran a few settings. here are the log files for those tests all done on Apex Legends. i think i'll be using no ndi x264 5000 bitrate on faster preset. id love to get better quality if possible for my rigs but im not sure and pretty okay with the results so far. If you guys need any more information let me know! thanks for the help i would not have noticed the 100mb/s if not for you guys. also i dont know how to upload logs.. i hope these are sufficient.


no ndi x264 6000 bitrate faster preset log https://obsproject.com/logs/IHULI7GiNt8Qvx7K
NDI x264 6000 bitrate medium preset gaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/pGFhY00hgdynvSvs
NDI x264 6000 bitrate medium preset streaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/eIXCGiaKS99q88yj

no ndi x264 5000 bitrate medium preset log https://obsproject.com/logs/BvyJxQNgVergXDiz
no ndi x264 5000 bitrate faster preset log https://obsproject.com/logs/vhZbRDFEbeaffnnJ
NDI x264 5000 bitrate medium preset gaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/eJBX5HAl7K3wuo0f
NDI x264 5000 bitrate medium preset streaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/fyIZ60kKosMo3ysk

no ndi nvenc 5000 bitrate log https://obsproject.com/logs/k2P8bgmMQvWELLt5
NDI nvenc 5000 bitrate gaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/ayhrdj0r2dHibg0Z
NDI nvenc 5000 bitrate streaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/DTcc_AGVLvVtUHxI

no ndi nvenc 6000 bitrate log https://obsproject.com/logs/hqXjvezrKSFHw5u9
NDI nvenc 6000 bitrate gaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/M84yWJtYooiB9y41
NDI nvenc 6000 bitrate streaming pc log https://obsproject.com/logs/GLNT1FFPZL6uQqcb

no ndi x264 5000 bitrate faster preset log https://obsproject.com/logs/vhZbRDFEbeaffnnJ
no ndi x264 5000 bitrate faster preset log https://obsproject.com/logs/QV89YOqkDKwnYhJD

Again the vods will be on Twitch.tv/foresttest however they might not exactly be named appropriately...
 

Agamemnus

Member
Good to hear the gigabit switch fixed it! NDI just wanted too much of your network after all.

NVENC straight from your gaming PC (with the 2060) will be the best quality on average. However Apex Legends specifically is notoriously difficult to use without capping the frame rate (which isn't easy to do either).

If you're streaming Apex Legends, go for the NDI x264 Medium 6000. Your setup seems to be coping just fine with that.

If you're streaming anything else that doesn't have render problems, you can get a better image with Turing NVENC. Take a look at these:
https://unrealaussies.com/tech/nvenc-x264-obs/
https://unrealaussies.com/tech/nvenc-x264-quicksync-qsv-vp9-av1/
 
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