Question / Help Lower fps/resolution, better quality?

[woodyfly]

I'm kind of noob to this kind of stuff so bear with me please. Let's say I'm running 2k bitrate @ 60fps.

1) Might be a stupid question but is my bitrate bandwidth being used to stream the 60 fps (or is it my computer doing the work)? If yes, does this mean that lowering my fps to 30/45 will increase the quality since more bandwidth is free'd up?

2)Same question above applied to resolutions. If I use a really high resolution like 1080p, I need higher bandwidth to support proper quality, correct? So does lowering the resolution actually give better quality for a medium bitrate like 2k? What happens if I try to stream 1080p with only 2k bitrate or lower (pixelation?)

 

[Kharay]

Generally speaking, a lower FPS at the same bandwidth should indeed increase the overall image quality. As you're basically spreading that bandwidth across less frames and as a result have more bandwidth per frame.

As far as lowering resolution goes (OBS' Resolution Downscale); up until a certain Downscale it should indeed also improve image quality. However, this is highly dependant on the game. For example, WoW reacts quite poorly to downscaling, its fonts become quite hard to read. In general, things that are tiny or thin, such as fonts become harder to read when downscaling but the gameplay itself should overall still look better. And if you're playing something like Dota 2, well, Dota 2 reacts quite well to downscaling.

As far as your example goes, 1080p@2000 Kbps I would simply never do. 1080p is very, very CPU and bandwidth hungry. If you are limited to 2000 Kbps, I would suggest starting off with 720p@30 FPS for a clear image.

 

[woodyfly]

Generally speaking, a lower FPS at the same bandwidth should indeed increase the overall image quality. As you're basically spreading that bandwidth across less frames and as a result have more bandwidth per frame.

As far as lowering resolution goes (OBS' Resolution Downscale); up until a certain Downscale it should indeed also improve image quality. However, this is highly dependant on the game. For example, WoW reacts quite poorly to downscaling, its fonts become quite hard to read. In general, things that are tiny or thin, such as fonts become harder to read when downscaling but the gameplay itself should overall still look better. And if you're playing something like Dota 2, well, Dota 2 reacts quite well to downscaling.

As far as your example goes, 1080p@2000 Kbps I would simply never do. 1080p is very, very CPU and bandwidth hungry. If you are limited to 2000 Kbps, I would suggest starting off with 720p@30 FPS for a clear image.

Thx for the education