Question / Help My stream quality has tanked recently

[ChazzDoomington]

I tried posting over in the OBS Studio section and have heard nothing back for 2 days so posting again here in the hopes that someone can help.

For some reason my stream quality has suddenly diminished greatly despite using essentially the same settings as always. I used to be able to maintain a solid 720p 60fps even on slower presets while streaming everything from Undertale to Dark Souls 3 while maintaining decent to good picture quality. Now even on the fastest presets I struggle to maintain 60fps with awful picture quality.

I recently made a small adjustment to allow me to record locally at 1080p while keeping the same streaming settings. It was while testing this on my alternative testing account that I noticed the decrease in quality.

I have tried to run my recent logs through the analyser but each time it tells me the log seems to be incomplete. They have been short test streams of about 2 - 5 minutes so perhaps too short to gather all info? I really don't know.

I have also tested on both 32 and 64 bit versions of OBS Studio, reverted back to previous versions and used several different servers each of which were rated 100 on Twitchtest all to no avail.

Streaming 720p 60fps at 2500kbps shows issues persisting across the live stream and VODs with or without local recording. OBS reports 0 dropped framees, twitch bandwidth test shows my connection is stable and consistent.
All local recordings turn out perfect 1080p 60fps quality at 8196kbps

I'm running Windows 7 on an i7-4790k with 16GB of 1333mhz RAM and a GTX 970

Stream settings are as follows

Output
Encoder - x264
Rescaled Output - 1280x720
Rate Control - CBR
Bitrate - 2500
Keyframe Interval - 2
CPU Usage Preset - veryfast
Profile - none
Tune - none

Video
Base Resolution - 1920x1080
Output Resolution - 1280x720
Downscale Filter - Bilinear
Integer FPS Value - 60

Advanced
Video
Renderer - Direct 3D 11
Colour Format - NV12
YUV Colour Space - 601
YUV Colour Range - Partial

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[H4ndy]

Use Lanczos downscale and attach your OBS Studio logs of a session.
You may also provide a demo video/VOD link showing the issue.

720p60 will look a bit pixely with fast moving games at 2500 bitrate tho.

 

[ChazzDoomington]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I have attached the log file as requested

Here is the resulting VOD using Lanczos downscale - http://www.twitch.tv/doomtest23/v/71864534

And here is a highlight showing the quality I was getting before the issues arose - http://www.twitch.tv/chazzdoomington/v/64844556

 

[ChazzDoomington]

Just out of curiosity, I tested using the stream analyser from your signature. Here's a link to the results https://r-1.ch/analyzer/results/doomtest23.6b399a

 

[H4ndy]

Thanks. I have downloaded the VODs and can't really tell them much apart in terms of quality. Both have artifacting with high motion. The "new" one just is more obvious due to the bright high contrast environment (the old VOD linked is almost completely dark through out).

I have created 3 image comparisons of good and bad parts of both VODs.
On the left is your old VOD, right is the new.

Static Text:
https://glorp.ninja/upload/20160612ChazzDoomington-text-compare.png

Good parts
https://glorp.ninja/upload/20160612ChazzDoomington-good-compare.png

Artifacts with high motion:
https://glorp.ninja/upload/20160612ChazzDoomington-artifacts-compare.png

I would rate both roughly the same with the material we have on hand.
Your logs also don't indicate any issues.

When you lower the preset you get get rid of a little bit of the artifacts but it's not magically enhancing the overall quality by much.

 

[ChazzDoomington]

Indeed, the overall quality of the picture is roughly the same. However it is the frame rate that I have seen the deterioration in. You can see in the earlier VOD, the frame rate is much smoother whereas the current one looks to be struggling to maintain even 30fps at times.

 

[ChazzDoomington]

I decided to do a test stream at 3500kbps so the issue would perhaps be more apparent.
https://www.twitch.tv/doomtest23/v/72028247

As you can see, the frame rate is very unstable and nowhere near the 60fps intended.

During this stream my CPU temperatures maxed out at 53c
Max CPU load was 65% on core 1, 42% on core 2, 44% on core 3 and 37% on core 4

GPU temperatures maxed out at 57c while maximum load was 77%

I've attached the log file for the session

 

[Boildown]

15:33:12.214: Output 'adv_stream': Total encoded frames: 19271
15:33:12.214: Output 'adv_stream': Total drawn frames: 19271
15:33:12.214: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 34 (0.2%)

0.2% is just fine. Are you sure this is an issue in OBS and not a player issue? Save a file to disk as you stream and see if the problem exists in the file you save as well.

 

[ChazzDoomington]

Indeed, OBS has been reporting 0 dropped frames. Every indicator I have available to me shows no issues persisting and yet the stream looks to be maintaining 45fps at best, to my eyes. Recordings come through clear and smooth in 1080p 60fps at 8196kbps.

 

[Boildown]

This could be an issue with Twitch's flash player then. Make sure your flash install is updated and try it with various browsers. Some might work better than others. Also this used to be super-common but its gotten better lately, but its still another "con" against streaming at 60fps in the first place.

 

[ChazzDoomington]

Well, now I'm properly confused. Using Chrome, which is my usual browser, my current test VODs look to be having frame rate issues and my old VODs from my main channel look fine.

I switch over to Firefox and the opposite is the case. Current test VODs appear smoother but older VODs from my main channel look to be having frame rate issues.