Question / Help Motion Quality issue, Tried everything.

[TheNatural]

I'll start off by saying I've read nearly every thread on this site and many others regarding this issue, I've been tinkering for months, and didn't want to clutter the forums with more posts like this until I had tried everything I could think of as well as using every resource I could dig up. Unfortunately, I am still coming up blank on how to get a high quality stream.

I play a heavily modded Skyrim (occasionally an MMO or two), and I like to stream it for a group of friends family, and the modding community, but during almost any motion, my stream seems to become pixelated. The problem occurs with any bit rate, settings, and streaming service (I've used Twitch, HItBox, and Youtube Gaming).

According to multiple tests from every possible source I could find regarding my *true* upload speed, it is around 13mbps at the lowest, to 18mbps, but averages around 15.5mbps. EDIT: Each site and test gives me very consistent results, its not one site bouncing up and down, each test gives me very consistent results.

My PC specs:
CPU: i7-4790k @4.6Ghz
GPU: 2x EVGA 780 ti SC
RAM: 16gb
MB: ASUS z97

For the record, my CPU doesn't break a sweat while streaming, even at insane settings with voip software running, and an open chrome window for chat.

Usually I go for quality, but I have tried many different configurations with little to no improvement.

My current settings (I've been using youtube gaming as it seems to give me the best quality at the moment):

Encoder: x264
CBR/CBR Padding: Enabled
Quality Balance: 8
Bitrate/Buffer Size: Tried everything from 2500-4000kb/s (I do notice my kb/s in the OBS window varying more when I am in-game and moving around quite a bit, usually never more than 400 kb/s below my set bitrate, but bounces up over 1000kb/s for a moment or two on occasion, usually when coming out of a loading screen.
Audio: AAC; 128; 44.1kHz
Base Resolution: 1920x1080
Downscale: Using 1280x720 atm but have tried 1080 to no avail
Filter: Lanczos
FPS: 30
Disable Aero: Enabled
Use Multithread optimization: Enabled
Process priority class: high
Scene Buffering time: 700
x64 CPU preset: Superfast haven't tried ultrafast yet.
Encoding Profile: High
Keyframe interval: 2
CFR: Enabled (havent tried youtube streaming with this disabled, but it didn't really change twitch all too much.
Encode in Full Range: Disabled

 

[Harold]

Disabling aero does not improve performance or quality.
Pixelation happens more often at lower bitrates.

Going from superfast to ultrafast will make things WORSE.

 

[TheNatural]

Disabling aero does not improve performance or quality.
Pixelation happens more often at lower bitrates.

Going from superfast to ultrafast will make things WORSE.

I have aero disabled in windows regardless because I use multiple monitors and have very intense graphics mods installed on all of my games.

And how will it make it worse if my CPU can handle it? according To HWinfo, CoreTemp, and ASUS AI Suite, I never go above 45-50% CPU usage no matter the situation.

 

[Harold]

ultrafast has THE WORST quality per bitrate ratio of all the x264 presets.
That's how going from superfast to ultrafast will make it worse.

The slower the preset sounds, the better the quality per bitrate.

 

[TheNatural]

ultrafast has THE WORST quality per bitrate ratio of all the x264 presets.
That's how going from superfast to ultrafast will make it worse.

The slower the preset sounds, the better the quality per bitrate.

Ah, now I see. When I changed that setting recently, it was based off of a thorough guide that had been posted here, the wording was slightly ambiguous and I must have misunderstood the function of the setting.

I feel incredibly dumb now. I was just testing my stream before that reply, and I have a ton of CPU horsepower just sitting there. I'll start with faster and go from there.

Big hugs for you.

I'll report my results soon.