Question / Help My internet is good - But I need help with the settings for Twitch!

[HappyRusty]

Hey guys!

So I stream with my pals every saturday. We do a show called 'The Happy Hour: With Rusty, Miggy and Derek".
I have a question regarding my settings in OBS. I just did a speed test, and I have a download speed of 150Mbps and a upload speed of 58Mbps on wireless. I know that I'm able to upload/stream at 1080p 60FPS. So my settings in OBS is 1080p (not downscaling to 720p), and a bitrate of 3500.

My question is, even though my internet is good enough to stream that to Twitch, is my settings too high for the general viewer? Since I'm not a Twitch partner, I don't have the quality settings on my Twitch player, so viewers can't choose the stream quality. Do you guys think that I should keep my "high settings", or should I lower it so everybody, including people with lower internet speed can watch it?

If yes, what should I do exactly? Start streaming in 720p? Lower the bitrate?
I really don't wanna lower my quality. I mean, my internet is good enough to stream in the highest quality. But, I still don't wanna lose viewers just because they can't watch it.

Please help :)

 

[FerretBomb]

720p@30fps, 2000kbps is the "golden point" for non-partnered streamers. It's the best tradeoff between resolution and smoothness, while maintaining accessibility for the widest possible viewerbase.
Don't shoot yourself in the foot as far as growth, by getting lost chasing numbers. No one will come to your stream for crystal-clear 1080p video. But they sure as hell will leave if they get stuck in buffering hell. And they'll leave without saying a word, to watch something buffering-free instead.

Also, 3500kbps isn't anywhere near enough for 1080@60 anyway.

 

[HappyRusty]

Got it!

Thanks!
So by going 720p, you mean running all games in 720p (window mode) and stuff like that right? Cuz i bet its gonna look like crap if I downscale. Can't i choose 2500kbps instead of 2000?

 

[FerretBomb]

You can run native if you can live with it, and it will look better. I generally downscale though, as I don't want to keep separate copies of my overlays/graphics for each native resolution mode.

Anything over 2000 is going to result in more and more people buffering. Even going to 2200 is a bump in potential viewership. Don't give a mouse a cookie. It's entirely your call, but it's a bad idea.
Better idea, turn down your x264 encoding preset by one step, and do a test-stream while playing a game actively. Monitor your temperatures and CPU throttling. The slower you go, the better it will look at a given bitrate.

 

[HappyRusty]

But if you down scale, doesn't your overlays get way to big and doesn't fit? That happened to me, so need to make new ones in 720p instead of 1080p.

And by turning down the encoder one step, do you mean faster or slower? I'm on veryfast right now.

I have an i7 3770k (or what ever it is) with 16gb of ram, and good Internet.

 

[Bamse]

If you do a downscale through your Video settings in OBS it wont mess with your native resolution = all is good.

If you change your native resolution make sure to use the "fit to screen" (CTRL-F) option if you right click your overlay source in/on your scene. Or, just drag manually to scale them properly.
No need to make new ones.

 

[HappyRusty]

Thanks man, gonna try that out when I come home :)

 

[HappyRusty]

Just another question.. About fps. Do I really have to do 30? Is there a big difference from 60 in terms of Internet use? Talking about the viewers internet

 

[Bamse]

Going with 2000kbps, 60fps is going to look pretty crap since you are doubling the amount of frames that needs to be squeezed into that bitrate.
You could update the bitrate, but at the expense of your viewers that probably will start buffering. Try it maybe, but don't be surprised if it falls short :)

 

[FerretBomb]

...
If you change your native resolution make sure to use the "fit to screen" (CTRL-F) option if you right click your overlay source in/on your scene. Or, just drag manually to scale them properly.
No need to make new ones.

Try doing that. All of your elements will go jaggy, as the in-preview rescale is very low quality (another reason to do it in the Video scaling dropdown, it uses a higher quality post-compositing downscale, so everything 'antialiases' together and looks good). It's also why scaled-down face-cams suffer a lot of pixelation, especially noticeable if you wear a patterned shirt (thin stripes are particularly bad). Your onscreen elements should be resized to match the canvas resolution in a proper image editor (Photoshop, GIMP, etc) wherever possible (so all your overlays, watermarks, splash banners, etc) to avoid this problem.
It's why I facepalm when people do this with game captures, as it significantly degrades the game video.

Still trying to come up with a good organization scheme for stream art assets, as well as version-control.

Just another question.. About fps. Do I really have to do 30? Is there a big difference from 60 in terms of Internet use? Talking about the viewers internet

Yes. You do. Don't get lost chasing numbers. This is one of the biggest hurdles for new streamers to get over. It took me a long time to do so.

Streaming at 60fps is mostly just numbers-wanking as far as providing a watchable, enjoyable stream within realistic technical limitations of non-partnered bitrate. There's a big difference between *playing* at 60 vs 30, and streaming. You don't have the bitrate to allocate for it. Hell, non-partners should probably be running at 96kbps AAC audio (or lower!) to save even more bitrate... it's really a game of shaving margins everywhere you can.
The only time you should use 60fps is if you're playing something like an older game that uses sprite blitting for transparency (Super Metroid is a good example) where sprites either disappear or stay solid at 30. Even then, to free up the bitrate needed you need to drop from 720p to 480p to maintain the same quality level.

 

[HappyRusty]

Alright! Thank you guys so much :) my base resolution is now 1080p,and I use the downscale function in video settings to 720p.
Overlays and all looks good.

Also running 2k bitrate and max frame rate of 30fp.
Gonna be fun to see if there's any difference in viewer numbers on Saturday. Cuz like you said, I've seen people come and go rather quickly.

Thank you guys so much for the help. Really appreciate it.

 

[Bamse]

Sorry for highjacking, but FerretBomb:
Art assets aside, but what you're recommending then is to always run the canvas in the same resolution as your gaming monitor (assuming you always play at max resolution of that screen) and/or game cature source res. and use the downscale option under settings instead of setting the canvas size to you streaming resolution and downscale the source?

Again, sorry for the high-jack and the need for confirmation. Been up working for way to long when posting this :/

 

[FerretBomb]

Alright! Thank you guys so much :) my base resolution is now 1080p,and I use the downscale function in video settings to 720p.
Overlays and all looks good.

Also running 2k bitrate and max frame rate of 30fp.
Gonna be fun to see if there's any difference in viewer numbers on Saturday. Cuz like you said, I've seen people come and go rather quickly.

Thank you guys so much for the help. Really appreciate it.

Good luck, man! The biggest thing that NEEDS to happen if you want a channel to grow is to set and stick to a schedule. Even if it's not every day, or the same time each day (same time IS better though). Make sure you're always talking... it lets people get hooked more easily, and interact. Especially if you pose a lot of open-ended semi-rhetorical questions.

Sorry for highjacking, but FerretBomb:
Art assets aside, but what you're recommending then is to always run the canvas in the same resolution as your gaming monitor (assuming you always play at max resolution of that screen) and/or game cature source res. and use the downscale option under settings instead of setting the canvas size to you streaming resolution and downscale the source?

Again, sorry for the high-jack and the need for confirmation. Been up working for way to long when posting this :/

Yes. Your art assets should be scaled to match your base resolution. If you switch between different ones regularly and want max quality at each res level, then keep a version for each res and run native (including in-game). Otherwise, having a highest-res set and just downscaling using the dropdown is the way to go.
Essentially, tailor the stream around the resolution you plan to play at, and use the downscale from there. If you are willing to play at lower-res locally, it will improve your stream quality (there will always be quality loss when downscaling at all, just the overall downscale loses less than the in-preview squash/stretch).

I run everything on my end at 1080p, and use an overall downscale to hit whatever lower res I'll be streaming at. Simplifies matters greatly, and looks better than squashing.

 

[HappyRusty]

Good luck, man! The biggest thing that NEEDS to happen if you want a channel to grow is to set and stick to a schedule. Even if it's not every day, or the same time each day (same time IS better though). Make sure you're always talking... it lets people get hooked more easily, and interact. Especially if you pose a lot of open-ended semi-rhetorical questions.


Yes. Your art assets should be scaled to match your base resolution. If you switch between different ones regularly and want max quality at each res level, then keep a version for each res and run native (including in-game). Otherwise, having a highest-res set and just downscaling using the dropdown is the way to go.
Essentially, tailor the stream around the resolution you plan to play at, and use the downscale from there. If you are willing to play at lower-res locally, it will improve your stream quality (there will always be quality loss when downscaling at all, just the overall downscale loses less than the in-preview squash/stretch).

I run everything on my end at 1080p, and use an overall downscale to hit whatever lower res I'll be streaming at. Simplifies matters greatly, and looks better than squashing.

Yeah I stream sometimes in the middle of the week. But me and my friends streams every Saturday with a start at around 2pm est.

And "overall downscale" is the drop down menu right?

 

[FerretBomb]

Correct.

 

[Bamse]

I run everything on my end at 1080p, and use an overall downscale to hit whatever lower res I'll be streaming at. Simplifies matters greatly, and looks better than squashing.

Copy that, thanks!