Question / Help Mac Mini 2018 Stream Quality

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akamrburns

New Member
Hey, I recently bought a Mac Mini 2018 model with upgraded specs. Maxed out the processor and put in 32gb ram and 2tb storage. I am using a logitech c920 and avermedia live gamer portable 2 plus capture card for my xbox. My stream seems to be smooth but pixelated. I don't know if its my settings or capture card or GPU. I don't think its the capture card because the whole stream gets pixelated (including my webcam footage). Is it worth getting an eGPU? Will that improve the stream quality? I watch Ninja's stream and it seems so clear and vivid. Check out my channel twitch.tv/akamrburns for examples of the video quality. Thanks!
 
denumerable

denumerable

New Member
I don't know if this will help in your situation, but try to use "Display Capture." It resolved issues I had with stuttering/pixelation.
 
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TylerDurd0n

Member
For starters, partnered streamers get better conditions for their streams, i.e. higher bit rates, transcoding and CDN support. Neither of those things are available for "normal" streamers (even affiliated).

Running 720p60 at around 6mbps is more or less the best Twitch allows you to do (YouTube meanwhile allows you to throw 10+ MBps at them and they will transcode automatically and for free - depending on your choice of stream/topic the target audience might be on Twitch though).

So even if your box could create a pristine 1080p60 stream at higher bitrates with slower x264 presets, Twitch will not accept it or complain about too high an incoming bitrate. A 720p video will look more pixelated when watched in full screen, but many Twitch viewers will follow your stream in theater mode or on mobile anyway to not miss the chat. This gives your streaming machine enough headroom to choose a slower x264 preset resulting in a clearer picture even at 6mbps.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
Would like to see a log but I would echo the above advice-- at the bitrate that Twitch allows to non-partners you will get better quality either with 720p60 or 1080p30.

An eGPU will not help you in this case. If your stream was not smooth and was stuttering because you were overloading your GPU, it might, but I'm honestly not sure how well OBS would utilize an eGPU on MacOS, I never tried.
 
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akamrburns

New Member
under the video settings in OBS I changed my output (scaled) resolution to 720, and left my base (canvas) resolution at 1080.
 
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