Question / Help Streaming Resolution/Black Bars on Twitch Stream

[TechieRock]

Ah, you're right! The right side chat was was open, but the left side was collapsed. When I re-opened the left side it pushed the video over and removed those bars. Shoot, I had no idea that would have been why.

Besides that issue. I had another problem/question about my stream settings. Should I ask it here or PM you?

 

[dodgepong]

Go ahead and ask here.

 

[TechieRock]

Is there anything I can adjust in my stream to make it better? Performance, aquality, etc.

Is there any setting to make my latency/delay better?

On my previous computer I had some type of code under "Custom x264 Encoder Settings that was recommended here". I forgot what it was. Is that important to have?

I have a 20 mbps upload and a 80 mbps download.

 

[dodgepong]

There's not much you can do to make the delay any better, other than making sure your keyframe interval is set to 2, like Twitch wants.

As for quality, the main ways of increasing quality are:

1) increasing bit rate (up to 3500kbps) - puts more demand on the connection between the Twitch server and your self and your viewers
2) use a lower x264 preset, such as faster or fast - greatly increases CPU usage, improvement is somewhat hard to notice
3) Increase resolution - this should be coincident with increasing your bit rate, but it will also increase CPU and GPU usage a noticeable amount.

 

[TechieRock]

You mentioned to go higher in my resolution. What resolution is higher that would also not have black latter boxes?

It also sounds to me if the server is a little laggy and it's stuttering, I would actually lower the bitrate to compensate for that?

Also, under "Broadcast Settings" on the bottom it says in red "WARNING: Your OBS settings are not optimized for Twtich."

It says to use x264 encoding profile, but I thought I had that selected.

 

[dodgepong]

Any 16:9 resolution wouldn't have black bars. Your base resolution is already 1920x1080, so just play with the downscale.

If you're dropping frames to the server, then you'll want to lower your bit rate, and probably also lower your resolution, too, so the quality doesn't go down too much.

The warning is telling you to use the "main" x264 encoding profile. The default is "high".

 

[TechieRock]

I changed those settings. Thank you for that.

One more thing.. What's the green bar that's under the word "Exit". Is that connection quality?

 

[TechieRock]

bump for question

 

[dodgepong]

It's just a vague indicator of how good your connection is to the streaming server. Green means things are good. Yellow means things are getting a bit backed up but are still OK, and red means that you are having connection issues and are dropping frames.