Question / Help Stream Good, Tips to Eradicate Skipped+Lagged+Dropped Frames?

unsane

New Member
I'd like to get these numbers closer to 0%, if possible/if useful. For those with really good looking streams, feel free to let me know if you get numbers like this too and i shouldn't worry about one or all three.

21:11:18.449: Output 'adv_stream': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 21844 (6.4%)
21:11:18.449: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 94 (0.0%)
21:11:18.449: Output 'adv_stream': Number of dropped frames due to insufficient bandwidth/connection stalls: 121 (0.0%)

Log (did a stream test first, then a full 3 hour stream from 18:00):
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/ecfeb0ea01f5a9af3620c71c12f991b4
 

C-Dude

Member
thats a really weak processor real time encoding takes a lot of processing power. You are running at 768p, you should probably downscale to 720p and use superfast. Or maybe even go down to 480p and use veryfast. 480p and veryfast should look quite good. Its not HD but it will probably look better than HD because of better compression. Of course I'm not sure how much additional performance you would get from downscaling to 720p probably not much but it might be enough to decrease your encoding lag.

Also remember to scale in video tab never output tab.
 

unsane

New Member
Thanks.

I'd assumed that just leaving everything at my actual screen size (1366x768) would result in better performance and visual quality, rather than using extra processing to convert to almost the same resolution (720p, 1280x720). Am i wrong?

I'm already using ultra fast, shouldn't that be even faster than superfast?
 

C-Dude

Member
downscaling should mean you get better performance. But since it is a fairly small downscale it probably wont make too much difference.

Never use ultrafast for streaming. At low bitrates ultrafast has awful compression and is unwatchable always go for lower res with slower preset than higher res and faster preset

480p and veryfast should work well for you
 

unsane

New Member
OK. Wikipedia links to something that talks about mod16 compatibility. Should i use 848x480 rather than 852x480?

"Resolution Considerations (MOD-16)

When determining what resolution and/or frame size to use it is important to keep those dimensions divisible by 16. This is because encoders divide the image into 16 x 16 pixel macro blocks. If for some reason 16 is not a possible divisor for you it is also okay to use 8 though some loss in quality may occur."
 

C-Dude

Member
Ehhh, 1366 isn't divisible by 16 either. I personally don't/haven't noticed a difference but you should probably keep it at 854x480. And no it isn't 852x480 yet lots of people use it anyway. All really complicated since the 16:9 aspect ratio doesn't go into these low SD resolutions very well since they were originally made when 3:4 was the standard aspect ratio.

You can obviously also stream at really any resolution. You can also stream at 540p (960x540) which works nicely with numbers. And is higher res than 480p.

Telling what your CPU will be able to process is complicated. The number of pixels in 540p is a bit over 1/2 the number of pixels of 720p yet for some people it is only slightly faster, yet for others it seems to be a lot faster. Guess it depends on your CPU.
 

unsane

New Member
OK so yesterday was 3hrs Output 'CPU Usage Preset' ultrafast, Video 'Output (Scaled) Resolution' 1366x768.
Today I tried 5hrs Output 'CPU Usage Preset' veryfast, Video 'Output (Scaled) Resolution' 848x480.

23:03:06.243: Output 'adv_stream': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 25770 (4.8%)
23:03:06.243: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1112 (0.2%)
23:03:06.243: Output 'adv_stream': Number of dropped frames due to insufficient bandwidth/connection stalls: 311 (0.1%)

1) Stream looks significantly worse (playing a card game either through a program, or on a website),
2) encoding lag went from 6.4% to 4.8% (not a huge improvement),
3) rendering lag/stalls went way up (0.0% to 0.2%, 94 to 1112).
4) Bandwidth got worse too but that might be unrelated.

http://pastebin.com/sPup7WUR


I think i'll try superfast 720p next time.
 
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