Question / Help Streaming and Recording, weird pixelation/buffering

[ByucknahTheRed]

I am not quite sure where else to turn on this and I hope that someone here can help me. I am having some issues with the quality of my stream and am not sure where else to turn. On top of that, the same issue also seems to exist with video capture, though not as noticeable.

To start, here is my most recent log file - https://obsproject.com/logs/Ffkjbz6pssEaciFM
And here is the last test stream I did - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykd3-l8wkMc
Speedtest results - 112.84Mbps Download, 10.17Mbps Upload

I know I do not have the best rig around but I should be capable of 720p 30fps streaming at an acceptable and consistant quality, right? The weirdest thing about this is that there were times in the past where I could stream no problem and did not have this issue, or at least they were nowhere near as noticeable, but after watching my most recent live stream vod I saw that the video quality was very fuzzy/blocky/pixelated. I tried tinkering with my settings but nothing seems to be helping.

Looking at my vod its doing this weird pulse buffering where it consistently gets worse and worse over the course of about a second then jumps to crystal clear for a split second before beginning the process of rapidly degrading again and repeating this process over and over. Even when not moving its pretty obvious and jarring.

Honestly, I don't know what to set my OBS to anymore and am hoping that those of you here who are far more knowledgeable can help me. I tried looking at guides and videos on this stuff but nothing seems to help. For some reason I honestly just can not get it to look good. I am not expecting my stream to look perfect but at the very least I am hoping to get it to be acceptable and at the very least consistant in quality instead of having this jarring buffering its got going on.

Please, if anyone here can help me fix this I would be most grateful!

 

[koala]

You logfile contains many recording and streaming sessions with various settings. Which one with which settings should we evaluate?

Some general comments:

• your log doesn't contain any signs of GPU overload or encoding lag. This is good! You are not overloading your machine.
• bitrate 2500 produces much pixelation. This is probably what you complain about. Recommendations for streaming see here (applies to Youtube as well as long as you don't know better): https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/ For streaming 720p at 30 fps, bitrate 4000 is recommended.
• for recording, don't use CBR or VBR. Use CQP with nvenc (or CRF with x264) with values between 15-25 (lower values mean better quality but larger file sizes). With these you will get recordings indistinguishable from the game.
• if you want to stream and record simultaneously, encode the stream with x264 CBR preset veryfast and a bitrate suitable according to the streaming guidelines above (probably around 4000 for 720p), and encode the recording with nvenc CQP with a CQP value of 18-20. I recommend two different encoders, because 2 encodings in parallel with x264 will overload your machine. You can also choose "use stream encoder" for recording, but this will yield no better quality for your local recording than for the stream. If you choose nvenc with CQP 18-20, you will get way better quality for your recording than for your stream.
• if you don't get encoding lag, for x264 you might try preset=faster to get a bit better quality, but don't try fast or medium or something beyond that. This will only consume CPU resources and produce hot air, but gives no visual difference in comparison to faster.

 

[ByucknahTheRed]

You logfile contains many recording and streaming sessions with various settings. Which one with which settings should we evaluate?

Oh, Maybe I copied the log file wrong? I followed the pinned instructions to get the last log file. Is there a way to get a more specific one? The log in question would be whatever was the last log.

bitrate 2500 produces much pixelation. This is probably what you complain about. Recommendations for streaming see here (applies to Youtube as well as long as you don't know better): https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/ For streaming 720p at 30 fps, bitrate 4000 is recommended.

So I think I found a big portion of the issue, partially being on the Youtube side of things. The higher bitrate helped a lot though. Thanks a lot, any more tips to up the quality?

for recording, don't use CBR or VBR. Use CQP with nvenc (or CRF with x264) with values between 15-25 (lower values mean better quality but larger file sizes). With these you will get recordings indistinguishable from the game.

Oh yeah, video recording quality has greatly improved here for sure! Thank you for the advice here!

if you want to stream and record simultaneously, encode the stream with x264 CBR preset veryfast and a bitrate suitable according to the streaming guidelines above (probably around 4000 for 720p), and encode the recording with nvenc CQP with a CQP value of 18-20. I recommend two different encoders, because 2 encodings in parallel with x264 will overload your machine. You can also choose "use stream encoder" for recording, but this will yield no better quality for your local recording than for the stream. If you choose nvenc with CQP 18-20, you will get way better quality for your recording than for your stream.

Ah, good to know but I do not record and stream simultaneously since the streams get uploaded automatically as vods. Still, good information to know and I am thankful for it :D

if you don't get encoding lag, for x264 you might try preset=faster to get a bit better quality, but don't try fast or medium or something beyond that. This will only consume CPU resources and produce hot air, but gives no visual difference in comparison to faster.

Alright.