Question / Help New streamer; some questions! :D

[awksfox]

Hey there OBS board,

Got a few questions hope you can help me out with to start me off on my streaming journey. First one is windows capture. I want it to stay locked into the League of Legends client but it changes to whichever window I'm hovered over. Any way to just lock it down?

I also have a question on performance. I know CPU load is a huge factor in streaming. Do you think upgrading for 3.1 to 3.6 will drastically improve my streaming quality? From 480 to 720 per se? In that same train of thought will upgrading from 4GB to 8GB ram improve it much?

Hope you can help me sort out these issues. Some basic questions cause I'm a noob. Lol thanks guys!

-awksfox

 

[dodgepong]

First one is windows capture. I want it to stay locked into the League of Legends client but it changes to whichever window I'm hovered over. Any way to just lock it down?

To keep it on LoL, make sure LoL is in windowed mode, and enable Aero.

I know CPU load is a huge factor in streaming. Do you think upgrading for 3.1 to 3.6 will drastically improve my streaming quality? From 480 to 720 per se? In that same train of thought will upgrading from 4GB to 8GB ram improve it much?

3.1 to 3.6 what? GHz overclock? Mbps? I'm not sure what you mean. What are you asking about resolutions?

Increasing RAM from 4GB to 8GB probably won't have that much of a performance impact on encoding, but it might still help a bit. More RAM is good.

 

[awksfox]

3.1 to 3.6 what? GHz overclock? Mbps? I'm not sure what you mean. What are you asking about resolutions?

Thanks for the reply! Means a lot since I've been on several forums and get no response haha. So for this I meant upgrading my CPU hardware from my current Phenom X2 with 3.1 GHZ to a higher version that will provide 3.6 GHZ of CPU processing. Like getting a new processor. Will that improve the stream drastically?

 

[FerretBomb]

Also be aware that LoL is actually two programs; the PVP.net client, and the in-game executable. Normal usage is to set a Window Capture (Aero on!) for the out-of-game menus/windows, and a Game Capture for in-game play (but still a borderless fullscreen windowed mode, to make alt-tabbing easier).

Livestreaming is VERY CPU-dependent... but to see if you are running into issues, we'd need to see a logfile from a live streaming session (not just an offline preview) with a good bit of duration. More RAM is almost always a good thing, and can have an impact on streaming performance as well.

Have you been monitoring your system while streaming? CPU usage, RAM usage, GPU load, system temperatures, all of that? Important to keep an eye on the system health to spot potential issues or areas where an upgrade will be the most effective.

I'd definitely say that upgrading to an X4, X6 or X8 would be in your best interests though... encoding can be parallelized, so more cores = better, as that's really the 'heaviest' step. A dual core (like the X2) may have significant trouble in keeping up. This would be a much more noticeable performance bump for the livestreaming side as compared to a simple 500MHz clock speed increase (3.1->3.6).

 

[awksfox]

THanks FerretBomb, really informative post here. I always had a hunch I'd need to upgrade my CPU but I just needed a second opinion. I'd probably spend another 100 on upgrading to an x4 or x6 and getting liek 4 GB more ram. Hopefully it helps although even on my current settings I can barely handle (if you can even call it handling) 480p. I will attach log files to see if anyone else can give me more of an insight xD.

 

[FerretBomb]

Yeah, if it was my rig I'd go for an X6. Mo' cores, mo' betta. At least as far as encoding goes.

Far as your log is concerned:
-Switch to AAC at 96kbps. MP3 is very poor quality at the same bitrate.
-Drop your keyint to 50. 250 means you're sending a keyframe every 10 seconds, and Twitch wants one at least every 2s.
-3000kbps is RIDICULOUSLY high. That's enough to run a 1080p stream, and will usually choke most of your viewers into a slideshow. Drop to 1000-1500kbps (the latter is still good enough for a 720p@30fps stream).

I'd also drop from 48khz to 44.1khz on the audio side... 48 was added recent-ishly to match some native devices that were having issues with 44.1.

Have you tried just kicking it to a 720p@30 stream and seeing how it goes, at 1500kbps?
You could also try switching the preset to Ultrafast (try 720@30 on Veryfast first though)... a noticeable loss in quality, but a good bit lighter on the CPU at the same time.

 

[awksfox]

God man you've been really helpful. I just took your advice on the settings and will give it a go, although running at anything higher than 480p will usually freeze my OBS and thus my Twitch stream. But hopefully these new settings will prevent that. Will test run tonight when I'm home from classes. I also followed you on Twitch =]. Thanks man