Question / Help Intense Frame dropping

[DarkPopulous]

Live stream http://www.twitch.tv/darkpopulous
example of issue : http://www.twitch.tv/darkpopulous/b/409007335

The Issue
I stream absolutely fine with no lagg complaints, until around 1hr and 30mins (estimate) into the stream every time! I get an insane amount of frame drops and people start to complain about lagg. However they do say the audio is fine and that is is just the video that's bad. I have been having this issue for a couple of days now and i have been trying to solve the issue myself, but i am all out of ideas and was hoping you guys could help me.

What i tried to do to solve this
I tried reducing the stream quality and bit rate without success. I also restarted the stream, my internet and the games i was playing however the problem still consisted. People said Skse_loader for skyrim was a possible cause but i tried playing the game with no mods and also tried playing different games only to have the same issue happen again.

Originally i used xsplit but, when this issue started i was told that skyrim wasn't compatible with xsplit so i moved over. eventually i tried using dxtory to record skyrim however the problem is still continuing to accour. I am starting to believe my internet is the problem but i have been able to stream perfectly fine until recently.

My specs & Settings

PC Specs
Manufacturer : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.7GHz
Memory : 8192MB RAM
Hard Drive : 500 GB
Motherboard : Winfast
Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Sound Card : Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Speakers : Logitech G930 gaming wireless headset

Speedtest
http://speedtest.net/result/2735206678.png

Audio settings
Audio Encoding: AAC
bitrate: 128

Video Encoding: x264
fps: 30
width: 1280, height: 720
preset: veryfast
CBR: no
CFR: no
max bitrate: 2600
buffer size: 2600 (also tried 2000 then 1500. Still having issues)
quality: 6
Server: EU: London, Uk (also tried secondary which also didn't fix the problem)

I will also attach a recent log to this post.

Any ideas what i can do to fix this issue? Thank you in advance for your time.

P.S I apologise if this is in the wrong thread, i'm new to this website.

 

[DarkPopulous]

Heres a local recording uploaded to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZJ4zUyv7m0
It's looks fine.

 

[lody]

some ISP's induce a bandwidth limiter after a user has uploaded a certain amount over a specified time
(like 1GB in 1 hour).
http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-manag ... holds.html
this is an example of what my ISP does when I stream for over an hour at certain times.

i'd go find out if your ISP has a policy like this and make sure its not that affecting your stream

 

[DarkPopulous]

Is there any settings i can change in xsplit or somewhere for this? I use virgin too. Or maybe upgrade my internet from 60mb to 100mb perhaps?

 

[dodgepong]

Can you run ShaperProbe and post the results? http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~partha/diffpr ... probe.html

 

[DarkPopulous]

DiffProbe release. January 2012. Build 1008.
Shaper Detection Module.

Connected to server 217.163.1.100.

Estimating capacity:
Upstream: 2869 Kbps.
Downstream: 92098 Kbps.

The measurement will take upto 3.0 minutes. Please wait.

Checking for traffic shapers:

Upstream: No shaper detected.
Median received rate: 2800 Kbps.

Downstream: No shaper detected.
Median received rate: 62794 Kbps.

For more information, visit: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~partha/diffprobe

 

[dodgepong]

OK, so according to that result, your upload speed is 2800kbps. You are streaming at 2600kbps, which is pretty close to your max upload rate. Dropped frames result from having trouble pushing enough data to the server. I would recommend lowering your bit rate to 2200 and enabling CBR to prevent your bandwidth consumption from betting too spiky, and see if that helps at all.

 

[Frostshocker]

This sounds like the new Traffic Management Virgin Media(That's your ISP according to the speedtest) changed in April
if you upload 900MB within an hour they reduce your upload speed by 60% for an hour, and if you reach 1200MB within 2 hours it gets reduced further to a 75% reduction.

I'm willing to bet if you don't stream in the day and then start a test stream at 1AM you won't get the frame drops during those times because their traffic management isn't active.
More info at the site lody linked: Here

As for the solution, I don't think there is much you can do, Many UK based streamers have been moving over to BT Infinity just to stream correctly(Sacriel42 comes to mind).

 

[DarkPopulous]

I don't think there is much you can do, Many UK based streamers have been moving over to BT Infinity just to stream correctly(Sacriel42 comes to mind).

So there isn't much i can do other than switch to BT? Unfortunately that isn't an option for me.

I would recommend lowering your bit rate to 2200 and enabling CBR to prevent your bandwidth consumption from betting too spiky, and see if that helps at all.

I will try dropping my bitrate again but i have tried this before and it didn't help, however i didn't apply strict cbr last time. So maybe this time eh? Worth a try. Otherwise i can only stream for a limted time. :( Darn you virgin.

Thank you guys for your help, i really much appreciate it.