Question / Help Stream looks like garbage regardless of settings?

[Rewire]

Hey guys, I need some help.

So I've got a two-pc set up with the gaming computer with an i7 6700k and Fury X and a dedicated streaming PC that I just set up with an i7 6700k paired with an Elgato HD Pro and streaming to twitch is proving to be a struggle and a half.

Recordings look perfect with VQF QuickSync at 15 for all Q settings, it's like I'm playing the game right there in the video, zero visual difference apart from frame rate (I run 144hz on my main monitor, can only record in 60 obviously).

But I swear, I have gone through LITERALLY every single setting you can change in both OBS Studio and OBS Classic and every setting x264 and QuickSync x264 setting possible in both simple and advanced and just get blur boxes all over the place. 720p30, 720p60, 1080p30, 1080p 60, it doesn't matter they all get blur boxes, even when using the max allowed bitrate at 3500 kb/s. All the logs indicate never any dropped frames, and watching the video stats confirms this, plus there are no frames not reaching twitch either.

I have attached the largest log I have for your viewing pleasure.

I play mainly FPS games at the moment, and this makes the stream unwatchable, it just looks absolutely horrific.

Is there anyone that can chime in their set up with a similar system that gets crystal clear video when streaming to twitch?

 

[DamageInc]

Sorry i cant help with the streaming, but im watching for responses on this one. Your hardware is badically what i plan to do. It should be working like a dream.

You noted local recordings look perfect...

Whats your max upload speed off if speedtest?

 

[Harold]

720p30 at 2000kbit with the slowest x264 preset you can handle will offer the best picture quality that you can squeeze into the bitrate limits imposed by twitch.

Using quicksync as your encoder will decrease picture quality.

Higher motion videos need higher bitrates to maintain picture quality and the content you're working on may simply be too high motion for twitch's bitrate limits.

People will tolerate blurry streams that don't buffer.

 

[Rewire]

My max uploads get up to 7.2 Mbps, so I know it's not the upload.

I'm super stumped as to what's going on here, I can pull up plenty of top end streamers doing things like Overwatch, CS:GO, Battlefield 4, etc and their stream look crisp, no blur boxes, just perfect, and the only possible thing I can think of at this point is that they're allowed to stream at higher bit-rates.

If they're still capped at 3500, I'm mind-boggled as to how they're accomplishing it.

Harold - I actually have a better time with Quick-Sync reducing blur boxes by putting the Async Depth to 1 during normal gameplay, but during periods of extended rapid movement during close quarter combat, normally near or inside buildings or similar looking terrain, Cthulhu rears his ugly head yet again.

This is just extremely frustrating.

 

[RytoEX]

It's not just about your quoted Internet speed or what Speedtest.net tells you, it's also about the quality of your connection to Twitch. Try running the Twitch Bandwith Test tool using a Medium Test Duration for your region with a 64k TCP Window Size, and post a screenshot of the results here.

 

[Rewire]

 

[RytoEX]

I can pull up plenty of top end streamers doing things like Overwatch, CS:GO, Battlefield 4, etc and their stream look crisp, no blur boxes, just perfect, and the only possible thing I can think of at this point is that they're allowed to stream at higher bit-rates.

If I recall correctly, partnered streamers (those with a Twitch Subscribe button) are allowed to stream at higher bitrates. I'm not sure about non-partnered streamers with large audiences (thousands of followers and hundreds of regular viewers).

Regarding the test results you posted, a quality of 80 is pretty much the threshold for acceptable levels for streaming, but you could still experience issues between 80 and 100 (really, more like 80 and 95).

You said you have a two PC setup? Have you tried to stream with only a single PC to see if you can replicate the blurriness issue you're having?

 

[Rewire]

The whole reason I started using a second PC for streaming was because gaming and streaming didn't work out well at all on a single PC. Way too much CPU usage.