Question / Help Tons of Pixelation with movement, I've tried what other posts suggested...

[RobinAldabanx]

I'm running Windows 10, trying to stream Rocket League. My last attempt was saved here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/219010792

I'm using a Ryzen 5 1600 and a GTX 1060 and playing at 200fps at 144hz. My GPU is not nearly maxed out by this, as RL is not intensive. Additionally, my CPU never goes above 30% usage even though I have my preset set to medium.

This should be enough log files, I added quite a few...

 

[BornDownUnder]

You have a 1080p monitor, you have your base resolution in Video Settings of OBS set to 720p. This is the main cause of your pixelation issues. If you don't mind, I have some settings for you as I have a R5 1600 as well, though your GPU is a bit better than my R9 290x Tri-X OC.

Video Settings:
Base Resolution: 1920x1080
Scaled Resolution: 1920x1080 (So you can record at 1080p60fps without having to change here all the time)
Downscale Filter: Lanczos
fps Value: 60

Streaming Settings:
Encoder: x264
Enforce Streaming Service Encoder Settings: (Box Ticked)
Rescale Output: 1280x720 (Box ticked) <--- This will give you 720p scaling for streaming.
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 3500 (Try this as a baseline, you want more bitrate for better quality, towards 6k bitrate)
Use Custom Buffer Size: (Box Ticked)
Custom Buffer Size: Same as your bitrate preferred.
Keyframe Interval: 0 (Auto) or 2
CPU Preset: Veryfast <--- Big impact on quality, faster is worse/slower is better (Exponential in CPU demand)
Profile: High
Tune: none or Film/Animation/Grain (More CPU intensive though can help retain more detail in fast motion games, you have to see which one works better if at all)

Note: If bitrate set too high your viewers may have trouble with buffering as it is their download speed, keep them happy!

Recording Settings:
Encoder: x264
Rate Control: CRF
CRF: 15-23 <--- Lower than 15 can create big files, lower than 10 can be gigantic (Make sure you write to an SSD)
Keyframe Interval: 0 (Auto) or 2
CPU Preset: Veryfast (Raise to Superfast/Ultrafast if too CPU intensive, lower if possible for better quality)
Profile: High
Tune: none or Film/Animation/Grain (More CPU intensive though can help retain more detail in fast motion games, you have to see which one works better if at all)

If you have troubles with fps/bandwidth, etc please reply with a logfile containing a stream attempt and I or someone will try to lend a hand.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Log shows two encoding settings used:
1. 720p/60fps @ 3500kbit/s with x264, fast preset
2. 720p/60fps @ 2500kbit/s with NVENC

First of all: Games like Rocket League have a lot of movement with many details (gras) and a bright image (almost no dark areas, where the encoder can save some bitrate).
So it eats up a lot of bitrate.

That's why 3500kbit/s for 720p/60fps will still show a lot of pixelation (often visible on the webcam footage or scrolling text).
With NVENC you even need a little more bitrate, as NVENC encoder can't use all the x264 features, that CPU encoding can use.
Combine NVENC with 2500kbit/s and 60fps and the result will be very poor quality in games like Rocket League.

Stick with x264 fast preset and increase bitrate to 5000-6000kbit/s.

 

[RobinAldabanx]

I'm playing the game in 720p, do I still need to record in 1080p?

 

[RobinAldabanx]

I mean because the first response told me that I needed to record at 1080p and scale it down, I was asking if that still held if I was running the game in a smaller 720p window

 

[BornDownUnder]

Sorry, I automatically assumed you would have been playing at 1080p, given you have a 1080p monitor connected to your gtx 1060.
If you are playing the game at 720p, then definitely keep your base resolution at 720p.

When I said 3500kbit/s for the baseline, was referring to making sure you didn't have any bandwidth issues, as @BK-Morpheus said, you should try to push for a higher bitrate for better quality retention when streaming.

Out of sheer curiosity, why are you playing the game at 720p on a 1080p monitor?

 

[RobinAldabanx]

I played 520 of my 650 hours on a 2010 iMac, so I needed to play 720p to get 60fps lowest settings. I guess I'm just used to it - the full screen seems disorienting for RL now...

 

[FerretBomb]

Out of sheer curiosity, why are you playing the game at 720p on a 1080p monitor?

There are a lot of people who stream at 720p and don't want to deal with the quality loss that downscaling incurs. Streaming at native game resolution means providing a 1:1 video feed, ensuring that in-game text stays sharp, and highest fidelity is retained. So they'll play at 720p, even if they have a 1080p monitor, and suffer the not-that-great image quality on their end to ensure they're streaming the best possible quality.
Also when streaming retro-games, 720p is the 3x multiplier for 240p consoles, keeping the pixels nice and sharp.

Streaming at 1080p with the higher bitrate requirements that carries can dramatically reduce your potential viewerbase. Twitch (for example) released data a while back showing that most viewers will be able to watch with minimal buffering events at the 2000-2200kbps mark. Even going to 2700kbps started a serious increase in buffering. Going to the previous ingest recommended maximum of 3500 caused a STEEP falloff in potential viewerbase.
People who are buffering aren't going to stick around. They aren't going to complain about the buffering. They'll just leave to find another channel to watch. The only ones who will stay are the ones who don't buffer... so it's VERY easy to get into an echo-chamber and assume nothing is wrong.

There's a lot of people who just crank bitrate to the max their connection can handle, up to the recommended ingest maximum, and end up shooting themselves in the foot as far as channel growth is concerned, because they got lost chasing numbers.
There's very good reason that 720p 30fps 2000kbps is still the 'sweet spot' for channel growth, even with the recently increased recommended-maximum 6mbps ingest rate on the table.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Ferret is absolutely right, but it seems, that most streamers "think" that they definitely need 60fps streaming (because in direct comparison, after playing with at least 60fps and then watching the video in 30fps, it appears "bad").
But then they wonder, why bitrate-hungry games look very pixelated with those settings.
If they have a huge amount of viewers (and the Twitch server got enough resources left), Twitch will transcode/re-encode the stream to lower quality versions for viewers, with slower connections. In that case, it's fine to crank up the bitrate, because the viewers can choose between source stream or transcoded version.
Without transcoding, staying under 3500kbit/s, sticking to 30fps and living with some pixelation is the best way to go.