Question / Help Stream output is of poor quality and sometimes lagging

[Sterigo]

Hi there!

I have googled, researched and tried a lot of stuff, but my stream is still of low quality and a bit laggy.
My latest adjustment was to fix my in-game framerate at 100hz. Before this it was running as high as the GPU could manage.
This seemed to help a bit, but there are still issues.

Here is the latest logfile:
https://hastebin.com/muqehosiwi

I am running a 21:9 aspect ratio stream on a powerful SLI-computer with 500mb network speed.
I did some streaming on the same machine on windows 2008 and it worked nicely. After I reformatted and upped to windows 2010 it no longer works as well.
The game I am streaming is Heroes of the storm - which is not a very demanding game.

I have tried a bunch of different settings in OBS, have disabled Game bar, updated all drivers and verified my hardware setup. I've run stress tests and performance test - everything seems to be in perfect order.

Have you guys got any tips?

 

[BK-Morpheus]

The log still shows rendering lag, so you need to set a fps limit (or lower the actual fps limit), until the rendering lag is gone.

 

[Sterigo]

But it is set at 60 fps in-game now and the stream at 60. With my setup it should surely be able to a lot more than this?

I don't get it - especially since it was working nicely on windows 2008 without having to do any restriction of FPS.

 

[Harold]

SLI makes things worse.
As does leaving the nvidia in-game overlay enabled.

 

[Sterigo]

Thanks, Harold!
I'll try changing it - the overlay can go and I don't really need SLI.

 

[Sterigo]

Update:
SLI turned off, GPU card properly installed with PCIe at x16 and Nvidia overlay removed.
Stream looks better now and no rendering lag registered during a short test stream.
Might be fine now - I'll give a go at a longer stream session and see.
Weird that SLI should make things worse...more power causes lower performance?

Anyway, thanks for your input guys!

 

[Harold]

Weird that SLI should make things worse...more power causes lower performance?

Not exactly. You're splitting the frames across multiple video cards for the game, but OBS needs them on one video card for scene composition.

Most systems also cause the video cards to run in slower pci-e modes just by having the second video card installed.

 

[Sterigo]

So, been streaming for a few hours and the results are better but not satisfying.
There is a slight tendency for lags and the quality is not crisp.

Here is the latest log file:
https://hastebin.com/romepevuyo

Do I really need to start adjusting down bitrate such?

 

[Narcogen]

21:05:56.908: Output 'simple_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 5793 (1.4%)
21:05:56.908: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 2/400863 (0.0%)

No, adjusting the bitrate down would lead to more load and lower quality. If anything you want to reduce framerate or decrease quality. You're at the edge of what your GPU can do. You could also try reducing canvas size.

 

[Sterigo]

Alright, so I changed it to base canvas = 1920x1080, Output the same and I set FPS to 30.
The stream is now crystal clear, seemingly no lag and log shows almost no lost frames.
https://hastebin.com/amidiqejiv

I'm rather spiffed that a pretty solid PC like mine can't handle higher settings :(

 

[Stream Doctor]

Alright, so I changed it to base canvas = 1920x1080, Output the same and I set FPS to 30.
The stream is now crystal clear, seemingly no lag and log shows almost no lost frames.
https://hastebin.com/amidiqejiv

I'm rather spiffed that a pretty solid PC like mine can't handle higher settings :(

Might also recommend running Keyframe Intervals = 0 , and leaving Preset at Default

I've been playing with NVENC extensively in both Fortnite and PUBG and even with my GTX 1080 it will choke on 900p@60fps . It gets some rendering lag. The GPU simply cannot keep up with butter smooth movement. 720p is no problem and decent compression quality @ 6000kbps.

I know that in MOBA's the preferred resolution is always 1080p @ 60fps. You might try x264 at Very Fast or Faster presets. You might be able to get away with it on your system in a game like HOTS.