Question / Help Stream choppy, game not.

[Jacob29]

Hi there, tried using OBS but I got complaints that the stream itself is laggy.

During browsing the internet and such OBS is at 28fps, however whenever i alt-tab back into a game OBS is only streaming at about 18fps and is rather choppy.

My actual game is running at 40+ fps but OBS is only producing at 18fps stream.

Any ideas? Here are my settings;

 

[R1CH]

Are you getting dropped frames? If so, try changing the ingest server. If not, try disabling / enabling Aero if using the software screen capture. More info such as your upload / downoad, CPU specs, capture method, game, etc would be nice too.

 

[Jacob29]

I don't believe it's frame drops.

I've tried it with both Aero on and off but the frames still seem to drop, also tried capturing window and monitor.

As mentioned, I tried both window and monitor.

I tried League of Legends which went down to 18fps, as well a Dark Souls which managed to stay a little higher after setting its process priority a little higher but still decreased.

 

[sh0gunshin]

i'm having the same problem as OP but im not sure if im losing FPS. it's just choppy

SPECS: http://alienwarearena.com/member/1839021/
SPEED: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2259629729.png
TEST VID: http://www.twitch.tv/mikephlurry/b/336583934
aero enabled and disabled with no performance difference (I use screen capture as well on scene 2)
dxtory 2.0.111
team fortress 2

bitrate is 2k and buffer is 2.5k quality 6, 128 audio

i think i may have tested it out at

1k & 2k and it wasn't so choppy but i cant recall

 

[anhdvu]

You should only set your overall bitrate to 1500 at max since your upload stream is just 2mbps. You need to leave some room for game and other stuff that requires internet connection.
As far as I know, the reason of choppy stream is often too high bitrate or intensive encoding settings. Intensive encoding settings may affect game performance as well. And if your game is running fine, you set the bitrate too high.

 

[Lain]

Post a log when you get this choppiness, if possible.

 

[anhdvu]

@Jacob29: I don't think your CPU is good enough to play game and do encoding simultaneously. You can google to find benchmark comparison between your CPU with a lot of other newer CPU.

 

[Jacob29]

http://www.twitch.tv/cushions29/b/336480306

Here's an example video. Game runs smooth at 40+fps but the stream drops to 12 at one point when I alt tab to quickly see it.

Here is a log from the few times I streamed during that session:

Open Broadcaster Software v0.421a - 32bit (´・ω・｀)
-------------------------------
CPU Name: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor
CPU Speed: 3013MHz
Physical Memory:  4095MB Total, 3583MB Free
stepping id: 3, model 5, family 15, type 0, extmodel 8, extfamily 0
------------------------------------------
Adapter 1
  Video Adapter: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
  Video Adapeter Dedicated Video Memory: 2123665408
  Video Adapeter Shared System Memory: 4025542656
=====Stream Start=====================================================================
  Base resolution: 1680x1050
  Output resolution: 1680x1050
------------------------------------------
Loading up D3D10...
------------------------------------------
Using auxilary audio input: Microphone (VIA High Definition Audio)
------------------------------------------
Audio Encoding: MP3
    bitrate: 128
------------------------------------------
Video Encoding: x264
    fps: 25
    width: 1680, height: 1050
    quality: 8
    preset: veryfast
    i444: no
    max bitrate: 1000
    buffer size: 1000
------------------------------------------
Total frames rendered: 4856, number of frames that lagged: 4821 (99.28%) (it's okay for some frames to lag)
Number of b-frames dropped: 0, Number of p-frames dropped: 0
=====Stream End=======================================================================
=====Stream Start=====================================================================
  Base resolution: 1680x1050
  Output resolution: 1680x1050
------------------------------------------
Loading up D3D10...
------------------------------------------
Using auxilary audio input: Microphone (VIA High Definition Audio)
------------------------------------------
Audio Encoding: MP3
    bitrate: 128
------------------------------------------
Video Encoding: x264
    fps: 35
    width: 1680, height: 1050
    quality: 8
    preset: veryfast
    i444: no
    max bitrate: 1000
    buffer size: 1000
------------------------------------------
Total frames rendered: 763, number of frames that lagged: 763 (100.00%) (it's okay for some frames to lag)
Number of b-frames dropped: 0, Number of p-frames dropped: 0
=====Stream End=======================================================================
=====Stream Start=====================================================================
  Base resolution: 1680x1050
  Output resolution: 1680x1050
------------------------------------------
Loading up D3D10...
------------------------------------------
Using auxilary audio input: Microphone (VIA High Definition Audio)
------------------------------------------
Audio Encoding: MP3
    bitrate: 128
------------------------------------------
Video Encoding: x264
    fps: 35
    width: 1680, height: 1050
    quality: 8
    preset: veryfast
    i444: no
    max bitrate: 3000
    buffer size: 3000
------------------------------------------
Total frames rendered: 428, number of frames that lagged: 428 (100.00%) (it's okay for some frames to lag)
Number of b-frames dropped: 0, Number of p-frames dropped: 0
=====Stream End=======================================================================

Profiler results:

==============================================================
frame - [100%] [avg time: 70.158 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1] [children: 98.2%] [unaccounted: 1.81%]
| scene->Preprocess - [77.4%] [avg time: 54.281 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1]
| video encoding and uploading - [20.8%] [avg time: 14.609 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1] [children: 14.4%] [unaccounted: 6.38%]
| | CopyResource - [0.0057%] [avg time: 0.004 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
| | conversion to 4:2:0 - [7.24%] [avg time: 5.079 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
| | call to encoder - [7.2%] [avg time: 5.053 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
==============================================================

Memory Leaks Were Detected.

@Jacob29: I don't think your CPU is good enough to play game and do encoding simultaneously. You can google to find benchmark comparison between your CPU with a lot of other newer CPU.

I am starting to think that it might be that....

 

[sh0gunshin]

here's a log of my game im trying to run at 1280x720. i switched the bitrate and buffer to 1500 each

stream test: http://www.twitch.tv/mikephlurry/b/336642206

how else can i increase the quality of my stream especially during motion? my preset is set to faster

btw im looking for the 64 bit installer version. it seems from my log i've installed the x86 version..


-------------------------------
Open Broadcaster Software v0.421a - 32bit (´・ω・｀)
-------------------------------
CPU Name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3720QM CPU @ 2.60GHz
CPU Speed: 2594MHz
Physical Memory: 4095MB Total, 4095MB Free
stepping id: 9, model 10, family 6, type 0, extmodel 1, extfamily 0
------------------------------------------
Adapter 1
Video Adapter: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
Video Adapeter Dedicated Video Memory: 67108864
Video Adapeter Shared System Memory: 1711276032
Send Buffer Size: 4096
=====Stream Start=====================================================================
Base resolution: 1600x900
Output resolution: 1600x900
------------------------------------------
Loading up D3D10...
------------------------------------------
Using auxilary audio input: Microphone Array (Sound Blaster Recon3Di)
------------------------------------------
Audio Encoding: AAC
bitrate: 128
------------------------------------------
Video Encoding: x264
fps: 30
width: 1600, height: 900
quality: 6
preset: faster
i444: no
max bitrate: 1500
buffer size: 1500
------------------------------------------
Total frames rendered: 6728, number of frames that lagged: 64 (0.95%) (it's okay for some frames to lag)
Number of b-frames dropped: 0, Number of p-frames dropped: 0
=====Stream End=======================================================================

Profiler results:

==============================================================
frame - [100%] [avg time: 9.943 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1] [children: 98.1%] [unaccounted: 1.93%]
| scene->Preprocess - [24.6%] [avg time: 2.444 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1]
| video encoding and uploading - [73.5%] [avg time: 7.307 ms] [avg calls per frame: 1] [children: 32.5%] [unaccounted: 41%]
| | CopyResource - [0.503%] [avg time: 0.05 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
| | conversion to 4:2:0 - [17.1%] [avg time: 1.701 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
| | call to encoder - [14.9%] [avg time: 1.484 ms] [avg calls per frame: 0]
==============================================================

 

[Lain]

shogun - your stream you posted wasn't choppy on my end. not sure what you're talking about. 30fps isn't the best though, maybe you could try a higher FPS or something.

and according to the results everything seems in order in terms of render speed, average of 10ms per frame, so the stream renderer isn't doing anything wrong, and you're not dropping any frames.

if you want your stream to have smoother motion, turn up the FPS or something.

 

[Lain]

as for jacob - there is a few possibilities. 1.) aero as somebody may have mentioned. 2.) your windows may not be up to date, or your graphics drivers or motherboard drivers might not up to date. 3.) I don't know the specifics of your CPU/GPU, but it could be caused by one of the two. If your GPU is an integrated GPU, that may definitely cause issues.

 

[Jacob29]

Tried having Aero both on and off as well as trying with it set to Monitor capture and window capture but still the same.

I regularly update Windows but will check manually to see.

Graphics drivers are up-to-date I check these often.

Motherboard is also up-to-date, last bios was in 2010.

 

[anhdvu]

@sh0gunshin: There isn't installer for 64 bit version at the moment, so you have to go with the binary package if you need that version. Your stream is no longer choppy so you can try to push your bitrate up a little bit. I see that you have already adjusted the encoding preset to faster, what left to play around with is to increase the FPS or to use some custom x264 settings such as constant quality encoding (-crf). You may try to increase the encoding quality to higher level like 8 or 9.