Question / Help Noobie to OBS and streaming advices

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Poisonwolkswagon

New Member
Hello everyone,

considering the times, I've started streaming on Twitch just for fun. Yesterday I did some tests with obs and the streams are not that bad. I've noticed though that sometimes there are some frames skipping and OBS says that the encoder is overloading so I imagine is a problem with my CPU.

Specs:
I5-8600k
2070super
16gb ram
Asus PCE-AC88 AC3100

Upload is roughly 20mbps, download 150mbps

Logs are attached. In the logs I can also see a bunch of error but I don't know if are relevant.

I'm confused about using x264 or NVENC for my specs, I've imagined NVENC should be better since the CPU is not a powerhouse. Also, the bitrate is set to 6000 and maybe I should tweak that as well. I've toned down the setting after the initial auto-configuration Wizard.

Much appreciated
 

Attachments

Switch to NVENC (new) instead of x264. On the 20-series cards, the Turing encoding core is roughly equal to x264 Medium or even Slow (slower is better quality). NVENC is a separate part of the GPU that normally isn't being used, and will not degrade your in-game performance unless you turn on a few options (Max Quality, Psychovisual Tuning, Lookahead; leave them all off and just use Quality as the preset).

It's also advised that you run OBS as Administrator; there's a workaround in place that allows OBS to grab GPU time before your game can, to ensure all of its (very lightweight) housekeeping tasks get taken care of, before the game eats all the rest.

Are you playing at 720p on your monitor? The log indicates it's a 1440p monitor... if you're playing at 1440p, it's a much better idea to set your Base (Canvas) Resolution to 1440p in Settings->Video, and the Output (Scaled) Resolution just below it to 720p. This will allow a much better downscale than squishing your game capture to fit in the Preview window. Do NOT use the 'rescale output' option in Settings->Output (that one is a CPU rescale which is much slower and more resource-heavy).

Another major problem is that it appears you're trying to stream over wifi. Never do that. Plug in a network cable. Wifi isn't designed for high-bandwidth, constant-throughput applications like livestreaming... it's meant for lightweight content consumption on a portable device, and is absolutely not a replacement for a network cable for many, many reasons.

And a last issue, CODMW has problems in general with being livestreamed, due to how it's coded. It uses up a LOT of VRAM by default, and can cause OBS to crash as a result. There are workarounds out there to limit the amount of VRAM it will use; just Google, it's a pretty simple change to a text config file. It doesn't eliminate the problem entirely, but it does reduce the impact significantly.
 
FerretBomb said:
Switch to NVENC (new) instead of x264. On the 20-series cards, the Turing encoding core is roughly equal to x264 Medium or even Slow (slower is better quality). NVENC is a separate part of the GPU that normally isn't being used, and will not degrade your in-game performance unless you turn on a few options (Max Quality, Psychovisual Tuning, Lookahead; leave them all off and just use Quality as the preset).

It's also advised that you run OBS as Administrator; there's a workaround in place that allows OBS to grab GPU time before your game can, to ensure all of its (very lightweight) housekeeping tasks get taken care of, before the game eats all the rest.

Are you playing at 720p on your monitor? The log indicates it's a 1440p monitor... if you're playing at 1440p, it's a much better idea to set your Base (Canvas) Resolution to 1440p in Settings->Video, and the Output (Scaled) Resolution just below it to 720p. This will allow a much better downscale than squishing your game capture to fit in the Preview window. Do NOT use the 'rescale output' option in Settings->Output (that one is a CPU rescale which is much slower and more resource-heavy).

Another major problem is that it appears you're trying to stream over wifi. Never do that. Plug in a network cable. Wifi isn't designed for high-bandwidth, constant-throughput applications like livestreaming... it's meant for lightweight content consumption on a portable device, and is absolutely not a replacement for a network cable for many, many reasons.

And a last issue, CODMW has problems in general with being livestreamed, due to how it's coded. It uses up a LOT of VRAM by default, and can cause OBS to crash as a result. There are workarounds out there to limit the amount of VRAM it will use; just Google, it's a pretty simple change to a text config file. It doesn't eliminate the problem entirely, but it does reduce the impact significantly.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for all the advices. I can't use a cable now so I'm stucked with wifi for the time being.
Bit rate is set by default to 6000, should I change it as well?

Again, very much appreciated.
 
A lower bitrate might help mitigate the problem, but really, run a network cable. If you are unable to for some reason, look into Powerline adapters; they will run network connectivity over your home's electrical system instead. Wifi should never be used, if at all avoidable, especially on a desktop PC.

Do be aware that running a lower bitrate in general can be a good idea, but to compensate for the bitrate loss, you may need to run at a lower resolution and/or framerate to compensate and keep image quality up.
 
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