Question / Help Streaming with Xeon?

[mcpeterc]

Hi.

First let me start by saying that im new to streaming...

Okay so the thing is I have been lucky enough to get my hands on 2x Intel® Xeon® Processor X5650
(12M Cache, 2.66 GHz, 6.40 GT/s Intel® QPI). For free! At work we are changing our blades in data center from HP G6 to Gen8 so I can just take the parts I want... pretty sweet!

Im also looking to make myself a new gaming rig. This rig will be build with a Haswell CPU (if it performs better then intels core 3rd generation in gaming)

So I was wondering if I should make a dedicated streaming PC so it can take the workload off my gaming pc.

The streaming PC would then contain the 2 xeons.

This is the way I would do it with my limited knowledge to streaming.

How would you guys do it? Also can the 2x xeon handle 1080p at 60fps?

 

[hilalpro]

You can do 1080p60fps with those but the problem is that if you're not partnered with twitch alot of the viewers would have trouble watching on flash player.. it also takes alot of bandwidth if you're planning on streaming anything with mid to high screen movement.

 

[mcpeterc]

Okay.

That raises some questions:

Partnered with twitch you say? Can one pay for this?
Is it because partners upload in another format then .flv?

I have 50mb download and 10mb upload (speedtest shows 49mb down and 7mb up) Is that enough? Else I will have to play around with the settings.

I have always wondered why many 'high rated' streamers stream at 720p but they have CPUs that supports 1080p. Is this the reason for this? Simply because the viewers get a better experience?

Thanks for your time

 

[Xianahru]

Well, getting partnered makes transcodes for your stream available. (For example a 720pTranscode, downscaled from your 1080p feed)
Streaming 1080p will need alot of bitrate on your end and alot of bitrate on the viewers end. The availability of transcodes usually compensates for a lack of bandwith available for the viewer.

To be fair, 720p60FPS looks pretty decent compared to 1080p and it doesn't hit that hard on your hardware. There are many people preferring a 720p stream over a 1080p stream.

 

[Krazy]

That, and to do 1080p60fps in a 2PC setup requires a capture card that can handle 1080p60fps, and those are not cheap.

Regardless, Flash shits a brick usually when you try to do such a high resolution at 60fps, so I really don't recommend it, even though your hardware will be able to handle encoding it just fine.

I know for myself, even though my hardware can do 1080p60fps on a single PC setup, I just prefer to downscale and have everything look much smoother. Plus, downscaling means you can scale back on the bitrate a decent amount and not make your viewers with bad internet lag frequently. Personally I find 864p60fps the best balance between stream performance and visual quality. Unfortunately, doing that in a 2PC setup would still require a capture card that can handle 1080p60fps.

 

[Muf]

A fellow rich man! Let my dual Xeon X5550s fistbump your dual Xeon X5650s :P *bump* *bump*

You can easily handle 1080p60. If streaming is going to be all that box is doing, you can probably kick x264 up a notch, even. When I have a game running, I can't really go higher than "faster" without either the game lagging or stream frame rate suffering. You could start by trying "faster", and if that runs smoothly, you can try "fast". I wouldn't really go higher than that, as x264 CPU usage wildly varies based on scene complexity. A highly detailed frame with a lot of motion could pin down your CPUs and drop frames.
Additionally, I always enter "threads=16" in the custom encoder settings (for you that would be threads=24), but that's more superstition than anything else as I think x264 should always auto-select the amount of logical processors available as its thread count regardless.

Like Xianahru said, Flash isn't really made to handle 1080p60, and systems that should be capable of viewing 1080p60 streams without problems do encounter stuttering. Getting partnered requires a certain amount of viewers over a certain period of time. You can check out more on the Twitch partner application page.

If you can't get partnered and you'd like to offer a lower quality stream, 720p60 is always a good alternative. The lower resolution means you can raise x264 quality further; I've successfully streamed at "medium", I think, and you might be able to go higher than that.

If you decide to go with 1080p60 anyway, there's the issue of capture cards. Capture cards that do 1080p are expensive, I've touched on the subject before. On the other hand, you've just saved a big wad of money by getting free hardware from your workplace, so why not splurge on a nice expensive capture card! Make sure you keep some money to buy a top hat.