Question / Help Streaming Quality Feedback Request

[its_RoRo]

Thanks for taking the time to read this (it’s my first post).

Context:
I built a gaming rig in late 2013. I recently decided to upgrade, and built a brand new rig in late 2018. I wanted to try out streaming my gameplay, and considering I had a spare PC I wasn’t using that still ran well, I began using my old rig as strictly an encoding machine. I’m using an OBS to OBS NDI setup, with gigabit internet (unfortunately, hardwiring is not an option). I typically get 0 missed/skipped/dropped frames.

Specs/Settings:

• Gaming PC:
  • Specs:
    • CPU: i7 8700k
    • GPU: GTX 1080Ti
    • Connection: Powerline
  • Settings:
    • Base res: 1440p (144hz. This will change to 1080p/240hz when my newer monitor arrives in a few days.)
    • Output res: 720p
    • Filter: Lanczos
    • FPS: 60
• Streaming PC:
  • Specs:
    • CPU: Xeon x5675 (Overclocked to 3.8Ghz. This was a recent dirt cheap “upgrade” over an i7 930. Decided to give it a shot.)
    • GPU: GTX 1060 (Overclocked, can’t remember the frequency. This was an upgrade in mid 2018, before I decided to build an entirely new PC.)
    • Connection: Wifi (I’ll be using a powerline adapter fairly soon, which has worked very well for connection stability on my gaming PC.)
  • Settings:
    • Base res: 720p
    • Output res: 720p
    • Filter: Lanczos
    • FPS: 60
    • Encoder: x264
    • Bitrate: 6000
    • Keyframe: 2
    • Preset: Medium
    • Profile: High
    • Options: threads=12 rc-lookahead=60 trellis=1 direct=spatial (Driven from EposVox’s video here.)

VOD:

• Link (Excuse the lack of audio. Not sure how this happened, but simply restarting OBS fixed it.)
• Faster motion gameplay from 0:30 to 5:10, which doesn’t happen frequently. You’ll see a lot of pixelation and artifacting.
• More general gameplay from 24:38 to 42:15, which happens very frequently.

Questions:

• Will using NDI Scan Converter instead of OBS on the gaming PC improve or degrade performance?
• Will using Streamlabs OBS instead of OBS on the streaming PC improve or degrade performance?
• Any feedback on quality? How it can be improved given my hardware? (I won’t be upgrading hardware on the streaming PC anytime soon, unless it’s dirt cheap or I decide to get a bit more serious about streaming.)

Thanks again, and let me know if you need any more information.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

I haven't tested NDI much so my experience is limited. Personally, I'd do the following:

1) Cap framerate to 120, since it divides evenly into the 60FPS being captured, which can lead to better frametime consistency in the stream;
2) Test if sending 1440p capture, instead of 720p, from gaming PC to streaming PC helps with overall quality, since it's a cleaner source. On this point, I'm not sure how it would affect it, if at all;
3) Whichever PC is doing the downscaling set to bicubic, as I found it to have more consistent results across all titles over Lanczos (too sharp in some cases);
4) If you want to be really nitpicky, look at deblock command or different tunes (None, Film or Animation), though it's strictly personal preference.

The reason EposVox matches base resolution and output resolution is due to every other source added, since they won't have to be downscaled alongside the game capture and potentially end up with the typical downscale blur. Also, trellis=1 and direct=spatial do nothing on Medium CPU preset, only on Slow or higher. Rc-Lookahead needs testing, I'd rather use a tune or deblock command personally.

 

[its_RoRo]

Thanks @Volfield. I'll be sure to try some of this out very soon.

I'm assuming with the new 240hz monitor I'll use, that I won't need to cap framerate below that as it divides evently into the 60fps being captured. Hopefully that works out.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

Thanks @Volfield. I'll be sure to try some of this out very soon.

I'm assuming with the new 240hz monitor I'll use, that I won't need to cap framerate below that as it divides evently into the 60fps being captured. Hopefully that works out.

There's this line on OBS 24.0.2 release notes:

"When running OBS as administrator, games will now be much less likely to cause lag to the video of OBS (we will eventually get this improvement working without requiring administrator, currently this does not work unless OBS is running as administrator)"

If I'm reading this correctly, I assume OBS devs (maybe with Microsoft/NVIDIA/AMD support too?) have figured out a way to no longer need to cap FPS to free up GPU resources for OBS compositing but it still needs to be fully ironed out until it's reliable enough so there's hope in the future for uncapped streaming :D