Question / Help Really Bad Quality on Stream and Record

A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
Hi.
I switched to OBS from Xsplit Gamecaster cause a few people told me it has better performance.
What I noticed is, that after 3h of playing with the settings and testing, both the stream and recordings are with terrible quality.
I experimented with 1920x1080 30 and 60 fps, from 3000-30000 kbps settings, swapped from CPU to GPU recorder....
its exactly the same shit... its something between blurry or squary...
on Gamecaster I had almost perfect quality on the stream and perfect quality on recordings at the same 1920x1080 30 and 60 fps...
Also OBS is spiking my FPS ingame from time to time.
My setup is:
Win 10 Pro x64
Latest Nvidia Driver and DX
Core i7 3770K 3.4Ghz 4x8
16GB DDR3 1600Mhz
Nvidia 960 GTX 4GB
Killer 2100 NIC (set to max priority on OBS and Xsplit)
Internet 75 MBPS DL 35+ MBPS UL
I just dont get it, i tried experimenting with all the quality and upload settings, but after i checked the recordings they had the same bad quality.
Twitch server is the closest to me with <30ms
OBS Studio 0.15.4
Please help :(
 

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A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
finaly after i gave up on Studio i installed classic OBS and after a little play found great quality but alot of frames missing at 30,000 speed both on Nvidia or CPU H264 on 1920x1080 60fps, a little better with less frames missing on 15,000 and finally on 7500 its sleeping with the same quality i get from Xsplit on 1920x1080 on 30 fps but here i am on 60 fps.
I am streaming CSGO to twitch and i am not a partner yet.
The problem was that both stream and record were terrible on OBS Studio, but way better on Classic.
My idea is to both stream and record CSGO at 1920x1080@60fps
so with OBS Classic i managed to get the stream where i want it quality side same as the Xsplit gamecaster, but the problem there is Gamecaster gave me the same quality at 3000-3500kbps where at OBS Classic it takes 7500+
Dow the recording is still a bit of a problem, cause it has the same quality as the stream, where Gamecaster gave me 1:1 quality as i see it on my screen while playing, and with way smaller file sizes.
As I said my upload speed is a stable 30-35 MBPS and its not dropping under 30 MBPS for sure.
So far for my 1h tests on OBS Classic Nvidia is giving me better FPS ingame rather than the H264
 
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Beardedbob

Member
I've found the best combo is x264 for the stream as its better Q at lower Bitrate and x264 20000 for recording. If you don't have the CPU % for the x264 on Record then use Nnvec with a higher Bitrate usually around 30000 is good upwards for fps.
 
A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
yeah, but on Classic i cant seem to find how to split recording from streaming...
and i want to record and stream at the same time...
there is only encoding and 1 choice... no separation for record/stream
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
If you're recording with studio at a different quality than you're streaming, you need to stream with x264 (software encoder).
Since you don't have twitch partnership, streaming at anything above 720p30 is not viable due to bitrate limits caused by viewer routing on Twitch's side.

On the recording side, use CRF or CQP based bitrate selection (which is used in the high and indistinguishable quality presets in simple output mode). If you're using x264, use crf 15 ultrafast preset (equal to indistinguishable quality software low cpu use encoder). If you're using nvenc for recording, use a similar CQP value on that. Those bitrate controls allow the encoder to use what bitrate they need to maintain quality, giving lower bitrates and smaller filesizes for lower motion video without having to fine tune your settings for every different type of content you work with.

Twitch's Bitrate UPPER limit is 3500. Going above that puts you at increasing risk of getting banned from the service.
 
A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
i noticed that....
but the problem is on Studio i get crap video quality both on Stream and recording, even with 7000-30,000 kbps.
on classic at 7500-10,000 i get good quality on stream and lets say high quality on recording (but still has pixelisation on it).
So what can i do to get my quality the same on Studio ?
Tried the exact same settings and on Studio i just get epic blurry quality.
The screenshot i uploaded at the 1st post is from the recording of Studio 1920x1080@60fps 30,000 kbps 1:1 with all other settings i tried on Studio.... even @30 fps the quality is the same and it doesnt matter if its CPU or GPU recorded...
 
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Beardedbob

Member
AlexanderHarizanov said:
yeah, but on Classic i cant seem to find how to split recording from streaming...
and i want to record and stream at the same time...
there is only encoding and 1 choice... no separation for record/stream
Click to expand...

With classic you have to run two instances of OBS one for record one for stream it becomes a pain as then each needs its own scenes creating also, but I used this for a year as a work around until Multi platform / studio came in with the right features.

@Harold is right though you need some higher bandwidth to get a decent 1080p 60fps stream 3.5mb is ok for this but it wont give you stunning results on fps games.

The only issue i have on Studio when recording / streaming at the same time is you can only have one fps settings but can run independent resolutions e.g I can stream at 720p 60fps and record at 1080p 60fps but i can't stream at 720 30fps and record at 1080p 60fps.
 
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Beardedbob

Member
AlexanderHarizanov said:
i noticed that....
but the problem is on Studio i get crap video quality both on Stream and recording, even with 7000-30,000 kbps.
on classic at 7500-10,000 i get good quality on stream and lets say high quality on recording (but still has pixelisation on it).
So what can i do to get my quality the same on Studio ?
Tried the exact same settings and on Studio i just get epic blurry quality.
The screenshot i uploaded at the 1st post is from the recording of Studio 1920x1080@60fps 30,000 kbps 1:1 with all other settings i tried on Studio.... even @30 fps the quality is the same and it doesnt matter if its CPU or GPU recorded...
Click to expand...

worth checking the scene / video capture is set to the correct resolution as OBS can show its 1920x1080 in the video settings but the video capture settings are 720p say. I've found this more when using a capture card but worth a look as this could explain the blurr if its scaling up from 720p to 1080p
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
Also, I've noticed that some driver versions newer than 365.19 for GeForce cards introduce some performance issues relating to capturing.
 
A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
well the video is 1920, the downscaling is disabled...
and i only get decent quality when setting 7500kbps.... anything under it and it looks like crap....
the screenshot provided on the top when zoomed, so you can see the quality besides the 2nd screen on the right :D
if i set Classic to 1920@30or60 fps and 3500kbps it looks exactly like that...
if i set Classic to 1920@30or60 fps and 7500-10000 kbps it looks normal (still some blurrines but stream like is fine)
Only when i set 1920@60fps and 30,000kbps than it looks almost 1:1 as what i see on my screen while playing, but than both the recording and stream are so hardly cut off that its like watching a slideshow...
In all instances my game drops to under 100 fps on CPU encoding so... thats not an option for me..
just tried to put stream at CPU and record on Nvidia on the Xsplit and the FPS was the same <100, but on full Nvidia my fps is stable 140-150 (G-Sync capped)
I even tried putting only record or only stream on the OBS, but it acts the same... 3500kbps 1920x1080@30 or 60 fps.. looks like a badly full screened HD or worse...
check for 100 times and there is noting degrading the quality but the KBPS of the encoding...
Also experimented with the performance/quality and CPU intensity on the encoding same
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
None of that addresses the settings I recommended, nor does it address the driver issue.

Repeating yourself doesn't magically change the requirements to test other settings.
 
D

delithralas

New Member
Can you post a screenshot of your "output" and "video" setting in OBS Studio?

Besides, it sounds like you expect crystal clear Bluray quality whilst streaming at 1080p?
This is basically not possible when you are using Twitch as they don't allow higher bitrates than 3500kbps as far as I'm aware.
You may set your settings higher, but they only receive 3500kbps.

But again, please post a screenshot of your settings as mentioned above.
 
B

Beardedbob

Member
delithralas said:
Can you post a screenshot of your "output" and "video" setting in OBS Studio?

Besides, it sounds like you expect crystal clear Bluray quality whilst streaming at 1080p?
This is basically not possible when you are using Twitch as they don't allow higher bitrates than 3500kbps as far as I'm aware.
You may set your settings higher, but they only receive 3500kbps.

But again, please post a screenshot of your settings as mentioned above.
Click to expand...

Correct @delithralas Non-Partners for twitch are limited to 3500kbps, other services will allow higher bitrate. Twitch will accept a higher bitrate fom a non partner but once detected it then downgrades it.

Arma @ 1080p 60fps with 3500kbps looks ok stood still but not good when moving especially in grass as it needs a much higher bitrate so your better off with 720p 60fps.

something like CS-GO wont require as much bitrate as Arma to avoid Artifacts but will never be perfectly sharp using 3500kbps and 1080p 60fps.

The other issue I see though someone already with your CPU 3770K might confirm otherwise is it only has 4 cores and 1080p 60fps is a greedy beast to stream with x264, add x264 recording and it will make it cry. Even using Nvenc for the record wont give you much CPU % back so your going to need to use higher CPU presets like UltraFast to encode.
 
A

AlexanderHarizanov

Member
Well...
Tried all the suggestions including downgrading the video driver to 360 something... from 372 or whatever...
Tried using the CPU at fast ultrafast and etc.... the quality was really tragic...
not sure if the 2 screenshots from the OBS will be uploaded cause it seems stuck on pending... but think they uploaded...
 

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Harold

Harold

Active Member
You STILL haven't tried the settings I gave you yet.

Just the ultrafast preset isn't enough.

Your screenshot ONLY shows streaming settings, not your recording settings.

And streaming with nvenc is basically DEMANDING that quality is bad.
 
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