Question / Help Stream quality much lower than expected (blurry, grainy, etc.)

Canadianakin

New Member
I have been playing around with my stream to try to improve the quality, however I do nothing seems to work.

Here is my build:

CPU: AMD FX-8150 @ 4.7Ghz
GPU: AMD R9 390 (Slight overclock)
Ram: 8Gb DDR3
OS: Windows 10
Bandwidth: 150/30 Mbps

Here is my encoding settings:

Video Encoding: x264
filter: Lanczos (best detail, 36 samples)
fps: 30
width: 1280, height: 720
preset: faster
profile: main
keyint: 60
CBR: yes
CFR: yes
max bitrate: 3500
buffer size: 3500

Here is an example of my stream quality: http://www.twitch.tv/canadianakin/v/16233067

As you can see, the interface looks grainy (see the shotgun icon), and quick movements look blurry/pixelated. This was using window capture as game capture wasn't working for me. Is there something I am doing wrong? I thought that these were fairly default settings aside from my CPU preset which had the same problems at veryfast. I was also under the assumption that my rig could handle 1080p streaming but after having the same problems I tried downscaling to 720p. Are AMD CPUs so bad for streaming that a pretty highly overclocked one still won't suffice or have I royally screwed up somewhere? Any help is appreciated.

Here is my log for that stream attached as well as on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/qVF0QWP3
 

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You are being extremely picky. That is a perfectly fine stream (to me atleast) if you were a partnered broadcaster.

There is obviously going to be a difference between a 3,500kbps 720p stream and a 20,000kbps+ 1080p YouTube video.

Good luck trying to get people watching though. The recommended bitrate for the average Twitch viewer is 2,000kbps.
 
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Yep. Mitigating expectations and learning to work within realistic technical boundaries is one of the hardest things for some to learn when starting out in livestreaming. Coming to terms that it's never going to look perfect, and learning to accept and deal with that fact.

And then you get into the 2000kbps advised max for non-partners on Twitch and the associated balking, and you usually get those who ignore it giving bad advice to run at 3500 regardless.
 
Why are high expectations a bad thing and how is that helpful? I'd like to have the best quality I can. I'm not looking to get a huge viewbase, I just want to have a nice quality stream. I am perfectly aware that 2000kpbs is recommended for the average viewer, that has nothing to do with the question I asked.

I appreciate you all answering my question, but I didn't come here looking for a lecture. If you had said "this is normal quality for a 720p stream, try going to 1080p if you can" that would be the end of it.

I am basing my expectations on other streams quality that look better to me. I am trying to match that quality and I found it lacking. That's all.
 
When they're too high for what the infrastructure allows, they are a bad thing.

Your desire for a "high quality stream" requires more bandwidth than is available for non-partnered streamers on twitch.

In order to get the high picture quality, you need to raise your bitrate to the point where a large enough percentage of your viewers will end up in buffering hell that it won't be worth it.
 
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