Question / Help Streaming high motion games, conflicting advice

LittleSisGaming

LittleSisGaming

New Member
Howdy,

Thanks for all the answers and threads and support - I've been combing them the past 3 weeks as I've started streaming and they've been a lifesaver!

Today was the first day I streamed my PS4 to my Avermedia LGP to OBS. I didn't do sufficient homework beforehand and the quality was abysmal - blurry & pixelated. (I was streaming AC: Unity whereas the past few weeks I've been streaming 2D side scrollers). I've been doing a ton of homework/googling/testing for the past 6 hours but I'm kind of left confused; none of the settings combos I've tried look very that good to me (granted, I'm just testing in previews and local recordings). And I might just be a huge perfectionist/not really recalling what the "good" visual standard for Twitch is (i.e. a low bar, since bitrates are capped).

Speedtest.net says I get ~76 mbps down and ~12 mbps up. I have an AMD FX Quad Core and AMD HD Radeon 7800. 8 GB of RAM. No problems when I analyze my OBS log. So it's just a settings sweet spot that I'm not understanding.

The OBS estimator recommended:

CPU Advice
  • Set FPS to 25
Game Advice
  • Try to aim for the highest bitrate possible for high motion games
  • Use game capture if possible for maximum performance.
  • Use window capture with Aero enabled if game capture is unavailable.
Network Advice
  • Your upload speed is sufficient for 720p / 1080p
  • Enable CFR for compatibility with streaming services
  • Enable CBR for improved stream stability
  • Recommended max bitrate: 3500
  • Recommended buffer size: 3500
^^Since I'm not partnered, I'm concerned Twitch is gonna shank me on the bitrate.

Then I googled,and found this Reddit thread, which TL;DR says stream 720p, 30 fps, 2000kbps:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/2dz7ru/bitrates_resolutions_and_quality/

^^I've tried those settings - they still look blurry/fairly pixelated to me.

Should I really be going down to 25 FPS for a high motion game, but keeping bitrate at 3500 as a new streamer? Will a high motion game like AC Unity really be watchable at 2000kbps? I realize the golden answer is to try both and pick what I like but both look kind of shoddy to me. Am I just on a high fidelity horse? Even when I watch non-partnered Destiny streamers, their stuff looks better that what I've been outputting tonight. Are they down to 480p and I'm just that ignorant about what I'm watching?

If it helps any advice-giving, this was the last log for the last config I tried that looked fine, I s'pose but not great: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/80de2f2ed6863b5ca030
 
Thanks for the reply! I have used this tool before, but not since yesterday so thanks for reminding me. Here are my results:

TroubleshootingServers.PNG


I switched from SF to LA a couple days ago due to ISP weirdness and never changed back. Having said that, LA shouldn't really be hurting me, I don't think . . .

EDIT:

I'm leaving up a dummy test video on my Twitch channel as reference. Looking at other non-partnered streamers, even specifically AC Unity streams, nothing looks as shitty as my gameplay. Really at a loss as to what's going on. http://www.twitch.tv/littlesisgaming/b/666546098

After the stream above, I also just tried to reduce my native resolution for shits and giggles and that didn't seem to do anything either.
 
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If you are streaming from console at 1280x720, you should set your base resolution in OBS to 1280x720 and resolution downscale to none, that should remove any quality loss from downscaling.
 
Osiris said:
If you are streaming from console at 1280x720, you should set your base resolution in OBS to 1280x720 and resolution downscale to none, that should remove any quality loss from downscaling.
Click to expand...

I only tried that because someone in another thread had said that LGP should be at 720p, but I mean it's taking HDMI from PS4 so optimal setup should be 1080p in LGP and OBS then downscaled. Also, I did try everything at 720, no downscaling, and I thought it looked about the same.

I'm looking at other streams and I'm wondering if I've just never noticed all capture card streaming of high motion games looks like garbo . . .watching Teawrex now, his Destiny stream is super blocky. I dunno. I'll delete the thread if that's just the overarching opinion, that capture card streaming is fun but looks like poo poo.
 
Not at the time, no. I just recorded everything (console, LGP, OBS) at 720, no downscaling and honestly thought it looked about the same. I just threw it up on YouTube for comparison to the stream I did this morning that is linked above which is everything 1080p, then Lanczos downscaling to 720p.

https://youtu.be/IR3UFPSryDI

I've probably just been beating my head against this for too long - they all look the same, and it all looks pretty poor to me.
 
Do realize that you will never get a true 1:1 video stream; 720p@30fps, 2000kbps is simply the best tradeoff point between resolution, smoothness, and image fidelity.

First step is to check the source though. Use AverMedia's software to look at the captured source that is being handed to OBS. As it's a USB 2.0 device, it has to encode the captured video before pushing it to the computer (why internal cards are strongly preferred, they don't have the USB bandwidth limitations of 2.0, or the finicky aggravation of 3.0 devices). If OBS is getting a poor-quality signal from the LGP after all, there's not much that can be done.

From your YouTube video clip I'd expect that to be the case, as your webcam is crisp and clean, while the gameplay footage coming from the LGP is... indeed, pretty bad. Way worse than 720p@30@2000 should look. Admittedly, there's very little motion on the webcam, but usually if it's an OBS-side encoder issue, it'll affect the entire frame at least somewhat. I'd put dollars to donuts that the LGP is choking, passing poor video to OBS, and causing the entire issue.
 
Yeah for sure - it'll never look like how it does while I'm playing but you said it yourself - what it is now is pretty bad.

Thanks for isolating it for me! I'll dig deeper into LGP. Sounds like though, if I'm reading you right, there's no "fix" per se - LGP is just dated and I need to upgrade to something newer or an internal card? The Stream Engine seems pretty nuts and bolts so if the quality from there is poor then I think I'm plum out of luck with LGP. Would that be your conclusion, too?

Thanks again!
 
I'd more suspect a configuration issue somewhere, why going through their software to check what's being captured would be my first step. Peek at the raw output, with best-settings (which really should be the default, in their official software after all). I know a number of people use the LGP, but haven't really looked at one to compare and have to assume what you're getting is worse than they do, as it's again, pretty bad. If it looks good there, we move on to the next stage in the production pipeline, to figure out where it breaks down.

I'm far from an AverMedia supporter. I dislike them immensely due to their shady marketing practices. Getting that out of the way.
At the moment, in my opinion the best video capture device on the market for livestreaming purposes is the SC-512N1-L/DVI. It's what I use. Micomsoft sells a version for $330 with a passthrough daughtercard (I have this one, and took off the passthrough as I never needed to use it, it's so FAST... and could just use splitters before the card, if I did want to use a separate display). SabrePC also sells one without the passthrough or the DVI->HDMI adapter ($7-15) for about $200 as the Yuan SC512 (Yuan is the parent company that makes the components). Same board, at better than a third cheaper.
Extremely cost-effective, and worth every penny. Especially if you might want to use retro consoles at any point, which it will also handle (and most AM stuff can't).

First though, troubleshoot what you've got and rule out variables. Try different color modes in the source settings too, and resolutions. Try dropping to 480p instead of 720... it might give you less blockiness and look better, even at the lower res, with less USB-choke. Give it every chance to do well. And if it still doesn't work satisfactorily, sell it off to someone else to recoup some of the cost. :)
 
Apologies for the delay - busy weekend.

After testing straight from Avermedia's RECcentral, it looks like the LGP is just really shit at low bitrates. No matter the resolution (480p to 1080p), colors settings, audio bitrate, or frame rate (25 to 60), if I do it at Avermedia's middle to high bitrate (30 mbps to 60 mbps) it looks fine to great. Lower than that, or down to Twitch bitrates (2.5 mbps) and it looks like garbage. SO. New capture card it shall be. Eventually. PC streaming in the meantime heh.

Thank you all so much for your help! And thanks for the capture card recommendations, FerretBomb; I will look into your top picks.
 
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