Question/Help optimizing & quality for high framerate games in OBS

[pixaleksey]

I am struggling trying to make my stream less blurry when there is alot going on in games like world of warcraft and overwatch 2. I have read a few forums with issues like this and I have attempted some of the tweaks in OBS without much luck. I have tried several test streams with each tweak so I have attempted to do my homework but am missing something. I believe the tweaks I have made are improving the quality of the stream but I see other streams sometimes with less computing power achieve better quality. I cant recall if they were partnered. I believe that makes a difference but not sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

as in example heres a recent stream from my channel where you can see when I fly around on the dragon mount or when a lot is going on in battlegrounds or instances the quality drops: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1679379620

My current setup is a dell optiplex 7070 which I use as an encoder and a more supped up gaming pc feeding into the encoder through a elgato HD60s. I thought this would take load off the cpu and gpu so that the gaming PC can focus its power on the game and not encoding. Specs and log file from OBS below:

(encoder) Dell optiplex 7070:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900 CPU @ 3.10GHz 3.10 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
RADEON RX550/550 Series
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor


Gaming PC:

 

[pixaleksey]

As a side note. I have tried rescaling to 1280x720 60fps with the recommended bitrate of 4500-5000 and medium-veryfast and I still just get unclear blur when more is going on. Seems silly to have a seperate machine with a decent processor doing encoding a fast connection and a pretty strong PC just to end up with a blurry stream. I HAVE to be not understanding something. I found a great youtube video explaining this but just like other forums and videos the settings i implement dont seem to be making a difference. Thats why I posted my specific case and logs if someone could evaluate it on a individual basis.

 

[koala]

You need to understand what items define stream quality. The topmost item is bitrate. The more bitrate you have per pixels to transfer, the better the quality. Your "blurry stream" is blurry, because the encoder needs to remove much detail to match the requested bitrate.
The higher the resolution and the higher the fps, the more pixels have to be transferred. So the higher these items, the higher the bitrate must be to keep the quality. The lower the resolution and fps, the more detail can be kept, and the higher the quality. One has to balance the detail removed by downscaling the output resolution with the detail removed by the encoder.
The more detail a source provides, the more data needs to be removed to match the requested bitrate, so to have better output, it might be necessary to tune down graphics settings of the thing you stream.

The encoder preset (medium/fast/veryfast) reduces the amount of data to transfer, so it indirectly increases the bitrate. Settings above medium contribute almost nothing to the quality, because improvements are very small above that. They can be measured, but usually not perceived.
The available network bandwidth with your internet provider is irrelevant, as long as it is higher than the bitrate you chose for your stream.

Use the highest bitrate possible for your streaming provider (that still fits the upload speed of your internet connection).

The video you showed is 1920x1080, and for a clear stream with such content, you need bitrates above 8000. Twitch doesn't support that except for partners, as far as I know.
Try 1280x720 with the maximum bitrate allowed by Twitch. Downscaling will make your stream also slightly blurry, but not that much as with a too low bitrate for a given resolution.

For tests, you don't need to actually stream. You can record with the encoder called "(use stream encoder)" to record with the streaming settings, so you can watch all test recordings directly with your local media player.

 

[pixaleksey]

You need to understand what items define stream quality. The topmost item is bitrate. The more bitrate you have per pixels to transfer, the better the quality. Your "blurry stream" is blurry, because the encoder needs to remove much detail to match the requested bitrate.
The higher the resolution and the higher the fps, the more pixels have to be transferred. So the higher these items, the higher the bitrate must be to keep the quality. The lower the resolution and fps, the more detail can be kept, and the higher the quality. One has to balance the detail removed by downscaling the output resolution with the detail removed by the encoder.
The more detail a source provides, the more data needs to be removed to match the requested bitrate, so to have better output, it might be necessary to tune down graphics settings of the thing you stream.

The encoder preset (medium/fast/veryfast) reduces the amount of data to transfer, so it indirectly increases the bitrate. Settings above medium contribute almost nothing to the quality, because improvements are very small above that. They can be measured, but usually not perceived.
The available network bandwidth with your internet provider is irrelevant, as long as it is higher than the bitrate you chose for your stream.

Use the highest bitrate possible for your streaming provider (that still fits the upload speed of your internet connection).

The video you showed is 1920x1080, and for a clear stream with such content, you need bitrates above 8000. Twitch doesn't support that except for partners, as far as I know.
Try 1280x720 with the maximum bitrate allowed by Twitch. Downscaling will make your stream also slightly blurry, but not that much as with a too low bitrate for a given resolution.

For tests, you don't need to actually stream. You can record with the encoder called "(use stream encoder)" to record with the streaming settings, so you can watch all test recordings directly with your local media player.

Thank you!! That was clear and understandable. I've adjusted my settings as such in the attached. Would you still recommend the preset be medium or fast+? The other part I dont see is being able to use stream encoder to record for testing? Not sure I can see an option for that.

I will also tune down the graphics of the source there is just so many settings that can possibly be tuned down. I suppose the easy answer is just maybe down to high as opposed to ultra across the board. This is not a problem I am used to having for financial reasons :D

 

[koala]

Don't check "Rescale output" in the encoder settings, if the resolution given her is the same as the output resolution in Settings->Video. Rescaling in the encoder settings is second rescaler that is very CPU intensive, while the other one is taking place on the GPU and is as good as free if it comes to resource utilization.

 

[pixaleksey]

Well I have tried everything under the sun including down scaling to 720p 60fps 6000 bitrate. But the quality downgrade is not acceptable to me at that resolution. I hate to sound entitled but with net and pc resources I have I should not have to deal with downscaling that much. My upload speeds now that I have hardlined are exceeding 800mbps as opposed to the 400-500mbps upload on wifi which was also more than enough to push1080p 60fps 6000kbps.

I just see people streaming as affiliates at 1080p 60fps on the same games with what to me looks like near lossless quality no matter how many particles or "fast paced" action is occurring on the screen. I know because I have reached out to those people and asked them about their settings and their affiliation with twitch.

The only TWO things I have not considered is the downscale filter which I have used Lanczos instead of bicubic and I have not considered or asked what the graphics settings ON THE GAME ITSELF are set to for these other streamers.

Also what constitutes a "fast paced game" the same blurriness I struggle with happens when I streamed WoW or FF7Remake or overwatch or really any game once more particles appear on the screen or action kicks up slightly.

Im not mad im just frustrated that identical settings on identical games with more resources available have what looks like dramatically different results to me.

I am obsessing over quality I know. And I know that doesnt make or break a stream but I am attempting to create the best possible viewing experience for the people that do happen to click my link and might walk away to a stream that "looks" better than mine.

 

[pixaleksey]

Just in case this helps anyone it turns out ultimately my issue was the Auto detection for best twitch server in OBS. I downloaded twitch bandwidth tester and manually set the best server with the highest overall quality vs latency and I feel like that has made the difference I was looking for. Hope this helps others!!