Question / Help My stream quality is bad (grainy and pixelated) changing settings makes no differences

AngryAndy

New Member
I recently started streaming on Youtube from a PC and after a few streams I noticed my livestream quality is abysmal. My CPU and GPU specs are great (Ryzen 9 and MSI Geforce GTX 1660) so I doubt its a problem with my PC, which handles my games on High->Ultra settings and I notice no drop in frames in my game when streaming/outputting on HD Quality (1080p) but the quality of the livestream is terrible no matter what I do.

My OBS settings are the recommended settings for most livestreams and are as follows:
Encoder: NVENC (new)
Resolution is at 1080p (the stream is passable at 1080p but not nearly the quality I expected, everything below that looks more like 144p!)
CBR with a bitrate of 6000 (This is the max Youtube can supposedly handle, and my quality is barely passable with this bitrate, anything below this becomes exponentially grainy and pixelated, again my PC should theoretically be able to handle this bitrate.
Preset is set at Quality, Keyframe interval set to 2, Profile main, Max Bframes 2, Video frame rate is set to 60...

Lowering Bitrate doesn't make much of a difference, and I have followed the recommended charts but there seems to be no difference at all between 2500 bitrate and 6000 bitrate even with their corresponding resolutions. The resolutions are all ranging from terrible to worse starting at 1080p and even lowering my video fps to 30 made zero difference. The game I stream is Fortnite (roast me) and I understand that there is going to be some processing pixelation when moving around alot but in my case it seems extremely bad. I even tried streaming Skyrim with the same result, when I look around alot, the stream gets really pixelated and grainy. When I stand still it takes a few moments to buffer and the image becomes clear but the moment I move or look around it gets scrambled.

Another thing I took into consideration was my network. I have decent quality internet with 300 Mbps download and 5-10 Mbps upload using ethernet. When I run a speed test my upload sometimes reaches into 30 Mbps so I assume it has nothing to do with that and that maybe Youtube's server is limiting what I encode, but other streamers in my state have better quality streams that are expected of a quality PC build. I checked a 3rd party software that monitors my CPU/GPU usage as well as my network traffic and the problem seems to be coming from my end, not Youtube's. MY NETWORK TRAFFIC OUTPUT IS AVERAGING 500-700 kB/s when streaming!!!!! Shouldn't a 1080p HD livestream be using more of the network?? At least above 1 mB/s... I don't really understand the difference between megbytes per second and megabits per second in case those values are expected.

Overall, I am very displeased with my stream quality and am saddened by the fact that I invested so much in a quality PC build with the intentions of improving my livestream only to encounter this problem. The livestream quality of my Playstation seemed to be even better than my expensive PC! Please if anybody has any suggestions that can help resolve my issue I would be grateful! I am planning on upgrading my internet plan as a last ditch resort, but am worried it won't make a difference.

Last Log file: https://obsproject.com/logs/-Q_EvMYPayRHo33y
 

Attachments

  • Settings.PNG
    Settings.PNG
    19.8 KB · Views: 191
  • Network when streaming Fortnite.PNG
    Network when streaming Fortnite.PNG
    17.2 KB · Views: 182
Top