Question / Help Pixelation during high activity.

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0m3rta

New Member
I have a i7 3930K, GTX Titan, & 7.2mb confirmed stable upload.

Now i got some help from someone else earlier who told me how to "force OBS to stream in 720p since that's what most people view in" but after streaming for 16+ in 2 days beating metro last light i noticed heavy bursts of pixelation when there was a lot of movement. Now these settings have been the best so far at reducing pixelation but i feel like im not getting the full potential. I see people streaming 720p with not a single pixelation issue in sight. Crisp, clear, 60fps, & beautiful. I have no problem streaming @ 60fps on max settings in game without a single dropped frame. Here are the OBS settings i was told to use.

no CBR
10 Quality
Max Bitrate: 3072
Buffer Size: 2048
AAC: 256
I live near chicago using server Ashburn, VA (secondary)
1920 x 1080 resolution no resolution down scale
FPS: 60 Disable aero at startup
Using multithreaded optimizations
x264 CPU Preset: veryfast

Now i was thinking that my CPU can easily handle fast/medium and even slow x264 CPU Preset and i was about to try out fast with some dayz. I have no idea what multithread optimizations are and everyone whom watches my stream says 720p isn't even an option only 1080p. Now pixelation isn't that bad, but when it happens it happens bad for about 1-2 seconds. Setting up the perfect OBS settings has been hard but my system is beefcake and i just feel like im not using it to it's max potential. Hell my Titan is streaming 1080p, max in game settings, 60 frames in game, recording, and it's not even over clocked. Best card i've ever owned it's insane. Anyway, if any experts out there can help me figure this out that would be amazing. I'd love to kind of force it at 720p with 0 pixelation and crystal clear for viewers with 60 frames per second without having to downscale my resolution. I've got the cpu, gpu, psu, & upload speed to produce the best quality stream i possibly can.

-Omerta
 
You are trying to stream a high action FPS game in 1080p60fps with only 3000 bitrate. It will not look good. You need to set a 1.5 downscale in OBS Video Settings to stream in 720p and clear your picture up drastically. Even then, 3000 bitrate for 720p60fps in a high action game is going to be pushing it.
 
I can push my bitrate up to 6k if needed. I dont want to have to downscale for no reason that messed up the recorded versions which i like to edit afterwards.

Also, the stream is crystal clear 80% of the time it's just every once in a while during a CGI or a lot of smoke/water etc. i get big pixelation. With the current settings it's streaming 60FPS 1080p clear as day, it's being able to do it 24/7 and pushing it down to 720p without downscaling.
 
I really don't recommend 1080p60fps, mostly because Flash is a piece of shit and won't really display it well. Experiment with 1.25 downscale and Lanczos filter. There's only a very minor loss of visual quality, but performance is greatly improved, and bitrate requirements are lowered. Consider at least 3500 bitrate, but no more than 4000 for this.
 
Like i said i dont want 1080p i want 720p 60FPS without having to downscale. The bitrate dimensions i have set were given to me by someone else and they stated "These are the exact required max & buffer numbers for 720p" and was told that to acquire 720p that no downscaling would have to be done. I have no idea what Lanczos filter is. I mean i'm going to try 1.25 to see the results. Right now im about to check my listed settings above but with x264 cpu preset: fast. Although i was told that increasing the encoding rates at all from the current settings would not allow me to preset 720p. Anything over 3100 is 1080p.
 
Anything over 3100 is suitable for 1080p RTS-Games maybe. FPS games require a lot more bitrate. I was streaming Battlefield 3 in 720p with 60FPS with approximatly 3500Bitrate/3500Buffer.

There are no EXACT required max&buffer numbers. That really depends on the game and what quality you want and can achieve.
 
Er, why exactly do you not want to downscale? Using a downscale filter is going to give a better image quality over just setting your base resolution to 720p.

If you REALLY want to avoid downscaling, you will need to be playing your game in 720p and THEN set your custom resolution to 720p.

Currently, you have your OBS set to stream 1080p since you aren't doing a downscale.

I would also like to know what the heck this is supposed to mean: Now i got some help from someone else earlier who told me how to "force OBS to stream in 720p since that's what most people view in"
 
Like i said i dont want 1080p i want 720p 60FPS without having to downscale.
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Uh, how do you expect to have a base resolution of 1080p and stream of 720p without downscaling?

Anything over 3100 is 1080p.
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What? No...the resolution you stream at is determined in the Video tab of OBS settings. Whatever your resolution is set to in there is what you stream at, completely independent of bit rate. Reading your replies almost makes me think that you believe bit rate determines the resolution you stream at, which is absolutely not the case.
 
dodgepong said:
Like i said i dont want 1080p i want 720p 60FPS without having to downscale.
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Uh, how do you expect to have a base resolution of 1080p and stream of 720p without downscaling?

Anything over 3100 is 1080p.
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What? No...the resolution you stream at is determined in the Video tab of OBS settings. Whatever your resolution is set to in there is what you stream at, completely independent of bit rate. Reading your replies almost makes me think that you believe bit rate determines the resolution you stream at, which is absolutely not the case.
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That is what i was lead to believe yes, that is exactly what that person told me is that by setting an exact bit rate forces the stream to stream at the max allocated quality it can and by increasing the required threshold of data it increases the packets and allows more smoother frames required for the quality that comes with 1080p. Most of the time though all i seem to be getting now isn't 1080p or 720p it's "Best". Actually i have even tried scaling it down to 1.75 and i have still yet to see the "720p" option. To answer the other guy i wanted to stream in 720 60 FPS and not have to down scale so my recordings stay at 1080p when they get deposited into my storage drive while im streaming.

So what should i set my encoding at? I have already tried scaling it down to 1.2 & 1.5 using the same encoding and using CPU x256 faster & fast. I had no problem streaming metro last light with all my OP listed specs at 1080p 60FPS with pixelation only happening sporadically during CGI. Although i have tried tons and tons of different settings for DayZ and Arma and nothing seems to work. I mean even while i'm streaming i have 26 ping inside the servers, 60 FPS. How can i utilize all this hardware and upload speed correctly? It's a stable 7.2-7.5 upload out of supposed 10. I can run faster x256 without any skipping or frame loss with my cpu at stock.

Lets dumb it down, because i have asked so many people for help on this and each and every single person who responds keeps giving me completely opposite information. Guides are outdated and give outdated information on OBS with functions that do different things now. I'll make a list. If you had a PC with an i7 3930k duel radiator liquid cooling, GTX Titan, 1200w PSU, 16gigs of g.skill ripjaw ram, 90gig SSD OS /w 2TB barricuda storage, & 2 LED 1920x1080 monitors. You want to stream at 60 FPS with next to 0 pixelation while streaming Arma 2 at 720p or 1080p What would you set for the following for your first test? Second? Third? Side Information: say you lived in Chicago, IL and you can choose to overclock the GPU & CPU at free will with the CPU capping max at 5.2ghz but pushing temps if running games at max settings & having a lot of programs open at once.

Arma 2 settings are currently set at and can't be edited:
Texture Detail: Very High
Terrain Detail: Very High
Objects Detail: Very Low
Shadow Detail: Disabled
Full Settings are mirrored from this video: http://youtu.be/0k2rqc8ihL0?t=9m43s Pause when you open.


1. CBR? Yes/No
2. Quality Balance?
3. Max Bitrate?
4. Buffer Size?
5. Server Location?
6. Save to file? (does this play a factor on your stream?)
7. Base Resolution?
8. Resolution Downscale, Y/N? What size?
9. Filter?
10. FPS? (60)
11. Disable Aero at startup, Y/N?
12. Use Multithreaded Optimizations, Y/N?
13. x264 CPU Preset?
14. Use CFR?
15. Allow 61-120 FPS entry in video settings, Y/N?
16. Automatic low latency mode, Y/N?
 
To stream at 720p, you need to set 1.5 downscale in your Video options, I recommend also using the Lanczos downscale filter (only available in recent version of OBS, make sure you are up to date. Current version is .522b). I generally recommend CBR, as does Twitch. Consider going up to 3500 bitrate for a first person game like ArmA2. Your PC/internet should definitely be able to handle a 720p60fps stream with no issues.

You can experiment with Faster and Fast presets, but it shouldn't be necessary. Every other setting can be left alone for the most part.

If these suggestions don't get your stream looking the way you want, I will need to see a log file to see if anything else is wrong.
 
1. CBR? Yes
2. Quality Balance? Not relevant when using CBR
3. Max Bitrate? 3500 (this might need to be adjusted based on your internet speeds)
4. Buffer Size? 3500 (keep this the same as your max rate, whatever you set it to)
5. Server Location? Whichever one is closest to you besides Frankfurt. Don't use Frankfurt.
6. Save to file? It doesn't affect your stream performance, generally. It's up to you.
7. Base Resolution? 1920x1080
8. Resolution Downscale: Yes, 1.5 (1280x720)
9. Filter? Lanczos
10. FPS? Start at 30, and then go to 60 if you know your computer can handle it
11. Disable Aero at startup? No
12. Use Multithreaded Optimizations? Yes
13. x264 CPU Preset? veryfast, and if your computer has very little load on it after experimenting, you can try bumping it to faster
14. Use CFR? I use CFR, personally, because it ensures the resulting video works in editors later on.
15. Allow 61-120 FPS entry in video settings? No
16. Automatic low latency mode? No

Try these settings, and post your log afterwards and a link to the video: http://obsproject.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=97
 
Whats Multithreaded optimizations? I was told to turn it on high with default buffer time 400 milliseconds and to turn on "Allow 61-120 FPS entry in video settings" Over half of the crap on OBS when hovered over doesn't say a damn thing about what it does. What is disable aero at startup? Someone told me to turn that off. Does saving streams to a file path effect your stream? Should i just match the custom buffer size to the bit rate? Someone told me that having the buffer size lower than the max bitrate is important. Someone also told me that setting my windows audio and video format to 44.1khz to match OBS's. Does which server you use really play an impact on your stream and the amount of people that are using the same server?

I've asked a lot of these questions like 4 times now and people just seem to skip over them and im not really learning anything about the program. I wish all of the stuff showed descriptions instead of 1 out of 5 of them and most googling of what they actually are turns up with "How to set them" not "what it does and if it's right for you". Don't get me wrong i appreciate any and all help, it just feels like people are almost copy pasting. I didn't even know "Lanczos" was a filter that you can select when you downsize the resolution and i still don't even know wtf that even does i just know where it is now. I wish there was some kind of software that could at read my hardware and clock settings and give me basic ball park settings = /.
 
0m3rta said:
Does saving streams to a file path effect your stream?
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x264 encodes the video on the fly in a flv container, and when you save your stream, all you're doing is saving that video file that you are already creating to disc. The only extra resources that saving your stream does is taking up hard drive time, and given the bit rates of streaming video, it's not much to worry about. Thus, saving your stream to a file does not really have a notable impact on your streaming.

0m3rta said:
Should i just match the custom buffer size to the bit rate? Someone told me that having the buffer size lower than the max bitrate is important.
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VBV settings are something that is often just prescribed to people because VBV is a complicated concept in x264, and it's easier to tell people to "just do X" rather than full explain how it works. The general rule of thumb that OBS recommends is to set your max rate and buffer to be the same. This link does a decent job explaining more details of VBV: https://www.xsplit.com/blog.php?post_id=305 (Don't worry that it's from Xsplit: OBS and Xsplit both use x264 to encode video so the information applies to both.)

0m3rta said:
Someone also told me that setting my windows audio and video format to 44.1khz to match OBS's.
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Sure, why not. There was a bug in Xsplit waaaay back in the day that caused sound issues with mismatched audio formats, but I don't think it's a problem in OBS. Honestly, your defaults are probably fine and performance/quality don't really be affected or even very noticeable unless you use some very non-standard settings.

0m3rta said:
Does which server you use really play an impact on your stream and the amount of people that are using the same server?
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Absolutely. The speed of your connection to the streaming server has a big impact of how high of quality you can use. If you have 10 Mbps upload from your ISP and you try to stream to the Singapore server from the other side of the world, you might only have a 1.5 Mbps connection to the server since it is so far away, so your stream quality wil be limited by that, and if you try to stream at a bit rate higher than your connection speed to the server, you will drop frames. That's kind of an extreme example, the the principle applies everywhere. And yes, Twitch has had a history of certain servers getting overloaded and causing the server to run slow, making connections slower to that server, so heavy usage and time of day can affect how much speed you have to the server. That's why I don't recommend using the Frankfurt server, because it is constantly overloaded.

0m3rta said:
I've asked a lot of these questions like 4 times now and people just seem to skip over them and im not really learning anything about the program. I wish all of the stuff showed descriptions instead of 1 out of 5 of them and most googling of what they actually are turns up with "How to set them" not "what it does and if it's right for you". Don't get me wrong i appreciate any and all help, it just feels like people are almost copy pasting. I didn't even know "Lanczos" was a filter that you can select when you downsize the resolution and i still don't even know wtf that even does i just know where it is now. I wish there was some kind of software that could at read my hardware and clock settings and give me basic ball park settings = /.
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Streaming is a brand new technology, relatively speaking, only gaining prominence as a mass medium within the past ~5 years or so. With Tricaster, then Wirecast, then Xsplit, and now OBS, the barrier to entry has dropped like a rock, but it's still very much in its infancy. That means you're going to have to put in some energy for self-learning if you really want to understand what all these things do. Most people just want to get a stream up and running and don't care about settings, just asking for a quick prescription so they can plug and chug. If you want to understand, then yes, it take some searching and asking. I recommend hanging out in the OBS IRC chat to learn more about how things work.
 
My primary crutch when it comes to computers is in fact software. I have my A++ for computer hardware repair, networking & etc but i've always had a problem when it came to complex software such as flash, adobe, photoshop, etc. Stuff that involves minor tweaking with huge results. I'm a hands on kind of learner a monkey see monkey do remember forever kind of guy. Give me directions too your house and i'll get lost the first 2 times then know it permanently, but if you show me how to get there 1 time personally i'll remember instantly. That's why when it comes to big programs i share screen with people but luckily OBS isn't that complex it's just a tweeker. The primary problem with all these OBS outside guides, is the fact they are not going into more detail about what exactly all the settings are doing as well. Not even the programs own help files go into just what exactly each setting is doing to alter the program. I have been wanting to stream since 2004 on my first machine i built which i had 2 Nvidea cards SLI'd from powercolor which both came with faulty heatsinks. Then i built a new system in 2012 and dumbass me bought from powercolor again to save money and got x3 crossfire radeon 6970 HD's. Surprize surprise all 3 of them and the entire model batch came with...you guessed it faulty heat sinks. Got so pissed i threw my entire vacation fund on a GTX titan and haven't looked back since. I dont think im ever going to SLI or Crossfire ever again.

I thank you very much for taking up your valuable time & going into advanced detail on your reply. I apologize if any of my comments or statements came off as rude as the way i type and write always seems to come out that way; figuring i'm not the kind of guy to add "Lol" or emoticons after every sentence that is. I'll make sure to hop onto the IRC, because it's absolutely mind boggling how complete opposite settings work better for one game than another. I streamed the entirety of Metro Last Light max settings with 3072 - 2048 60 FPS 1080p and other than a little pixelation during CGI it was great. Used the same settings with dayz and i might as well be playing DayZ minecraft. Anyway, i haven't gone through your entire post as of yet as i have just woken up so i might be editing my response.

Edit: My isp tells me 10mb upload. After testing at least a dozen times i'm getting 7.1-7.5. I'm probably not taking into account server location, which i live north of chicago and im currently using Ashburn, VA (Secondary). What do you think is overboard encoding wise? I mean, is there really a limit to how much of my upload i tether to my max bitrate? AKA is there anything really stopping me from tethering 5000 for bitrate + 256 for audio? I have an Asus RT-N56u router and it's one of the best routers i've had the pleasure of owning. Even better than netgear business routers. With my router i'm able to pipeline manage my bandwidth both up & down and individually allocate my uplink to different tasks/programs or generalize it between "Gaming, Internet, FTP, or VOIP/Video Streaming". Currently i'm generalizing streaming to 70% Gaming 20% and P2P has to be 10%. So i can directly dedicate 70% of 7.2mb so around 5mb. That's the reason why im asking if there is any reason why i shouldn't be using the max amount of bitrate that i can tether in light of it having no say in the matter on 720p quality if i downscale to 1.5. My primary concern is the fact that even when i downscale to 1.5 my stream still shows 1080p or "best". That's the primary reason why i seeked help.
 
0m3rta said:
My primary concern is the fact that even when i downscale to 1.5 my stream still shows 1080p or "best". That's the primary reason why i seeked help.
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????????

Would need to see a log file, or a screen shot of your Video settings in the program.
 
Doesn't matter the vod's are running at 1280x720. you might wanna lower the quality from 10 to 9 or 8 to help with the pixelation.
 
0m3rta said:
What do you think is overboard encoding wise? I mean, is there really a limit to how much of my upload i tether to my max bitrate?
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Twitch doesn't like it when people stream above 3500 bit rate, so I'd just that as a ceiling. If you can stream at that bit rate, then go for it. Just keep in mind that your viewers have to have the same download speed as the speed you are uploading at in order to watch your stream, so the higher the bit rate, the fewer people will be able to watch (unless you are a Twitch partner and have transcode options).
 
I seem to be having a lot of trouble getting the desired stream settings so that I can stream 1080p 60fps on youtube gaming. My computer and internet specs are as follows. I have a Asus G75VX intel core i7 gaming laptop with Nvidia GeForce GTX 670MX graphics card and my internet speed is 62.04mbps download and 6.32mbps upload. now seeing that I have a beefy computer and speed I still get high encoding warnings no matter what I set it on. can you help me find the right settings for what I am trying to stream. I stream FPS games and Open world almost like RPGs. So thank you for taking the time to read this.
 
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