Question / Help Require help to set up 360p/480p stream!

[Mon0]

Hi!

I just started streaming yesterday and so far I am not doing too bad. Here, take a look at this: http://www.twitch.tv/mon0tv/v/18151465 (hope the link works and sorry for my accent in advance).

Here are the settings I am currently using to stream:

Maxbitrate/Buffersize: 650/650 (after some testing I can actually push it to 700/700)
Codec: AAC (96 bitrate stereo (44.1kHz format))
FPS: 25
Resolution: 854x480p
CPU preset: Very fast

Yes, unfortunately my upload speed is quite slow. Here's a link to my speedtest: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4699856471

Down: 8Mbps
Up: 0,82Mbps (it actually goes up to 0.87Mbps sometimes (Woohoo))

There is no good fast upload speed where I live so right now I have to do with what I have. Xsplit and OBS both recommend me to stream 360p or 480p videos.

I was just curious what settings you would recommend me and if I should stream in 360p or 480p for a better quality picture. And just in case, my PC specs are:

i7-3770k
GTX 980
8GB Ram

Thanks for helping me figure this out!

*** If possible I would like to be as close as possible to a true 360p or a true 480p quality.

 

[Boildown]

If your game uses the internet too, you have to take care to not lag yourself out, so you can't stream at your max upload rate. I'd personally find out your best settings experimentally, starting at something you can guess will probably work, and then pushing it until it doesn't work, then backing off a bit until you've got it well tweaked.

So I'd start out at 360p at 500kb/s or so and make sure that works as good as it can. Then start trying to push the bitrate until you start dropping frames or notice lag in your game. Then back it off a bit until that doesn't happen any more. Once you've found your bitrate, see if it looks better at 480p or 360p by streaming at both options then watching your VODs to see which one you like the look of better.

Once you've done that, you can play with your presets, because at 360p or 480p, you can probably use something better than VeryFast.

 

[Mon0]

I don't plan to play online games right now. So I don't really suffer from lag at the moment.

I tried doing 360p, 550kb/s and 480p, 550kb/s. However, the quality was better for 480p. Isn't it supposed to be better on 360p if I use the same bitrate???

And as for the preset, for some weird reason I feel like using the faster cpu preset makes the quality worst than veryfast. Is this normal???

Thanks for your help!

 

[WilliamBarrows]

I know that OBS has a tendecy to produce a weird blur any resolutions not divisible by 4. It's possible that twitch compensates this, to be safe you should use a resolution divisible by 4, or even 8 if you want to be extra safe. For this reason I'd recommend 360p, or 468p.

480p is actually a bad resolution for 16:9 aspect ratio because 480 divided by 9 times 16 is 853.3, which is not even a whole number. This can cause quality loss when scaling, and blurring issues as described above. The only way to do 480p properly is to use 852x480, which is what your video is using (kudos to you for figuring that out yourself).

360p helps use less bitrate, too. What resolution are you playing your game in? If your screen resolution is 1080p, you could stream in 540p because that's half so scaling will look better, sadly that's probably too high for your internet. Similarily, if you play your game in 720p downscaling to 360p will work better because it's exactly half. You get the point.

Before I can give you any more specific advice, I want you to run this test. You download it, unzip it anywhere, run the .exe inside, select your region, then close everything using the internet (like your browser for example) and run the test. Then send us a screenshot of your results so we can recommend which twitch server to use and with what bitrate.

 

[Mon0]

Alright. Done the test.

Here is an imgur link to the results: http://imgur.com/a/I16S9

So I guess the best server would be "South America - Rio de janeiro" for me? Thought strangely, when I was streaming with Xsplit, they said "Us East: Ashburn: VA" was the most reliable server (it was greenlighted and had something like 20-30 ms). Is it normal that it is so different in this test?

And If I understand what you just said about the resolutions stuff. I should use a resolution dividable by 4. Okay. And if, for example, my in-game resolution is 480p... Hmm how can I say this. Here is what I'm thinking:

Streaming resolution: 480p
In game resolution: 1080p
Results: Okay quality video.

Streaming resolution: 480p
In game resolution: 480p
Results: Very good quality video?

Is this what you meant WilliamBarrows? Is this correct?

 

[WilliamBarrows]

Yes, it seems Rio de janeiro is best. (Do you actually live in South America?) I consider XSplit generally inferior to OBS, so don't listen to it.

The more important part of the test is the bitrate, not the location or ping (although those are relevant too). 800 means you should stick to 700 for your bitrate and 96 for your audio. This leaves very little headroom, meaning it might cause problems. If it does cause problems, simply lower the bitrate to 650 again.

"Divisible by 4" means both the width and height need to be divisible by 4. That's why 480p is bad: The height is divisible by 4 (480/4 = 120), but the width isn't (854/4 = 213.5).

As for scaling: It's true that scaling 1080p down to 540p for example would look worse than 540p without any scaling, and use less power too. At the same time a 1080p game scaled to 720p will look better than a 540p game without scaling. It's a little complicated, but what it means is that scaling loses quality because lower resolution means less pixels for the same picture. Depending on the kind of game this will be more or less relevant. It's best if you could tell me what resolutions are available for your games and what kinds of games they are so I can recommend one.

As for the framerate: I'd recommend 20fps over 25fps. It's a more even framerate, and your bitrate is so low that you can't really afford a higher framerate.

 

[Mon0]

Nah I live in CA!

Alright.

Maximum bitrate I can use is 650. 700 is too much, I drop frames.

Now. I'm wondering which server is the best; either South America Rio de Janeiro OR Asia Singapore. What do you think about that?

I tried 468p. Pretty much the same as 480p. BUT I also tried 540p and the quality was a bit better, but I'm not sur if the stream would lag at some point or even disconnect. For the time I tried it though (about 2-3 minutes) it was working fine (650 kb/s). So, I'll try that tonight.

I'm gonna keep my 96 stereo and try 20 fps instead of 25. I'll see how it goes.

 

[WilliamBarrows]

With 20fps you can probably do 540p, higher resolution is a good thing, and it's a rounder number than 468p aswell. BTW, what method are you using for scaling? And do you plan to add anything to your stream layout besides your game?

Hmm.... you live in CA? Can you redo the test with just "United States" checked? I'm suspecting that your ping just varies alot, so it only looks like Rio is best, eventhough one of the CA servers would be better because it's closer.

 

[Mon0]

So after streaming a bit, I lose some frames on 540p. Like 20-25 mins in, I had dropped 30-40 frames. I reverted to 468p and it was fine this time.

However, If I lower the bitrate a bit on 540p, let's say 600 kb/s instead of 650 kb/s, would it change something or would it still drop frames?

Also, what do you mean by "what method are you using for scaling"? Are you talking about Game capture or window capture? X264, Nvidia NVENC, Quick sync? CBR? What is that?

And yes, I live in CA. QC more precisely. I will redo the test just to make sur.

 

[WilliamBarrows]

Using a slower preset might actually help with dropped frames at 540p, too. You could go down from veryfast to faster and see if your CPU can handle that alongside your game.

By "what method" I mean if you have your scene in 540p and just resize the source to that, or if your scene is your game's resolution, but then downscaled to 540p with the downscale feature under video. There's advantages and disadvantages to both.

 

[Mon0]

Alright so I see it now.

I just streamed with a resolution of 540p with 600 bitrate this time. It actually worked. This time I dropped 0 frames for the whole session. I used to Bicubic scaling method. Tomorrow I will try out again 650 bitrate but this time with the cpu preset faster instead of veryfast. Since my CPU is a i7 3770k, I think it will be fine.

I will also redo the test tomorrow. Kinda late here. But so far so good. It's not the dream stream but I think it's watchable for now.

I'll keep you in touch with the results tomorrow! Thank you again for your help, it is very appreciated!

 

[WilliamBarrows]

Okay, so your game is running in 1080p resolution on your machine, you scene is also in 1080p, but you are then downscaling it with Bicubic to 540p? If this is the case, then you're doing it right. You can still try out the lanczos filter, it uses a bit more power, but creates a sharper image. It isn't actually always prettier than Bicubic, so you'll have to decide for yourself which you would rather use.

Once you've tested your stream with faster preset, could you post a highlight of it like you did in your original post? Would be nice to see how the stream is turning out.