Streaming service lags by at least 10-15 seconds whenever I stream with OBS

[marmaladenjelly21]

So I have a $500 HP laptop with an Intel (R)UHD Graphics card. Recording with OBS has worked out well for me, but it's when I stream on Twitch that there's an issue. Twitch always lags my stream by at least 10 seconds, give or take a couple seconds, as does YouTube when I tried it out. I've tried tweaking the settings in OBS to see if there's any way I can fix this, but to no avail. There's always a lag, right from the time I click "Start Streaming" all the way to when I end it.

I honestly can't tell whether it's because I have a cheapazoid laptop, or if it's the streaming services themselves. My WiFi is perfectly fine. Recording with OBS works wonders. There's no stuttering, dropped frames, or disconnecting. There's just that 10-second lag that I don't know how to fix. I'm very new to streaming so any help is appreciated.

 

[Tomasz Góral]

YT have 20-30 sec lag and 2-3 sec lags (two modes), Twitch as you see got 10 sec lag it's specific stream mode.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Basically - speed of light isn't that fast
You upload video in H.264, the stream provider re-encodes to a more bandwidth friendly format, then distributes to CDN servers, and then that content goes out to end users. That such happens as quickly as it does (commonly 15->30 seconds) is a technical wonder. There are ways to significantly reduce that lag, but not with mass market free streaming services

Also - WiFi is completely inappropriate for real-time livestreaming uploads... it might work, but was never designed for such. And LOTS of things can cause issues with jitter, latency and throughput on WiFi. so ,,, beware

 

[FerretBomb]

Streaming is not a peer-to-peer VoIP call. There's a LOT more processing and infrastructure to go through. Latency is expected, and 10-30 seconds is well within normal ranges.

 

[marmaladenjelly21]

Thanks for all the responses! Did some more Googling and found that a 10-15 second lag is indeed apparently normal for Twitch, which is a relief because I thought it was my laptop or OBS Studio that was the issue. Glad neither is the case.