Can't get Twitch streams to look good

hello everyone I'm in need of some help no matter what i can't get streams to look good or sharp or anything Here are my OBS settings. i am running a rtx 4080 with a i713700k single PC setup with an upload of around 8-10. i do have a 1080p 30fps webcam. I mainly play fps shooters (overwatch, valorant, battlfield etc) but i do play single player/slower titles. The streams look horrible in motion or sometimes even standing still ive looked everywhere and got conflicting information, so hopefully you guys can help me out. thank you!

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:31 PM

what are your output settings

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:31 PM

hey sorry image didnt post correctly here my obs settings

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:32 PM

So you're basically achieveing the limits of what's possible on Twitch

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:33 PM

Two things you can do are drop to 720p which will give you a massive improvement to artifacting in motion at the cost of precieved sharpness for people watching on 1440p or 4K monitors, and drop your stream's frame rate to something like 50FPS

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:34 PM

Reducing the amount of bits needed per frame/per second of video is the only way to get around Twitch's severely restrictive bandwith limitations and achieve higher quality

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:34 PM

My advice is if quality matters this much to you, stream on YouTube

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:35 PM

unless you already have an established viewership on Twitch, switching platforms will alievate most of your issues

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:36 PM

darn was afraid of that i did some testing on YouTube and sadly I do not think i have enough upload for youtube. any possible filters i can put on my display capture to help when i do make the fps and resolution changes?

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:36 PM

You can upload the same bitrate to YouTube while also taking advantage of AV1 or HEVC encoding

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:37 PM

AV1 will basically double the precieved quality of your streams at the same bitrate as H.264

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:37 PM

i did try av1 for some reason it didnt look how i expected but ill run some more tests maybe i misstested or missed something

LLAMPGUY darn was afraid of that i did some testing on YouTube and sadly I do not think i...

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:37 PM

You want to present as close to a native image as possible, adding sharpening or vibrancey filters are going to make encoding more challenging and drop the quality for viewers

TTechnically Alex You want to present as close to a native image as possible, adding sharpening or...

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:38 PM

ah makes sense thank you

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:38 PM

https://youtu.be/-XHJmqURKAI

YouTubeJASHIKO

Stream or Record in AV1 in OBS | AV1 Encoding in OBS for Streaming ...

#OBS #AV1 #nvidia
A super quick video showing how to setup streaming and recording in AV1 in OBS. A new more efficient encoding format to use for Streaming and recording content.

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:39 PM

just use whatever the highest bitrate is that your connection can handle

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:40 PM

ah alright ill fiddle with it some more if nothing works then 720p at 50 works for me thank you i appreciate your help a lot

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:40 PM

My pleasure

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:41 PM

The most important thing to keep in mind is people are tuning in for you, not pixels

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:41 PM

If you can achieve literally anything watchable, you've done 10% of what it takes to make a good stream. The other 90% is your presentation skills.

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:41 PM

Sometimes it's better to focus on the quality of the entertainment VS quality of the encoding

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

true i may have been more worried about quality of the video rather than anything else recently

MEE6•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

GG @fpslamp, you just advanced to level 1 !

LLAMPGUY true i may have been more worried about quality of the video rather than anythin...

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

It happens to everyone

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

NBD

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

Just get something that works within your limitations and focus on making good content

Technically Alex•8/23/23, 2:42 PM

Most streams look like doodoo

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:43 PM

yeah ive noticed even top streamers on twitch sometimes have visually bad streams

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:50 PM

should i ignore streaming service settings for twitch? or enable?

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 2:59 PM

the "area" downscaler is what im using or should i use lanczos?

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 3:45 PM

Lanczos looks considerably better IME.

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 3:46 PM

BTW, surprised nobody asked you to share a VoD or something. Maybe there is something wrong. Or not. Can't tell without seeing

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 3:49 PM

BTW, isn't increasing how often you run B-frames going to make things look better when it comes to movement, since it'll "reset" to full quality more often? celrHmm

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 3:49 PM

Asking this to everyone else.

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 4:34 PM

heres a test vod with 4 b frames instead of 1

LAMPGUYOP•8/23/23, 4:34 PM

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1906501734

Twitch

testing testing - fpslamp on Twitch

fpslamp went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Just Chatting VOD now.

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 4:40 PM

You mean every 4 seconds instead of every second? The default is every two seconds. That field is for how many b-frames per second celrHmm

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 4:42 PM

Also, gotta move fast, more than shoot, to truly see how it looks, since most of the frame remains constant, so this isn't what b-frame is there to "fix."

Thunder_God•8/23/23, 4:43 PM

I'd play a match vs bots with more b-frames, as in, once a second, and then with once every 2 seconds, and compare if it looks better to you. But checking your older VoD, yeah, that looks like what you should expect.

Flaeri•8/24/23, 11:06 AM

not quite. Some stuff is getting mixed up here.
Keyframe Interval (GOP) is the distance (in seconds) between to keyframes. This should be set to 2.
The b-frames value is how many b-frames there can be between two p frames.
Example, bf=1
I P B P B P ... I
bf = 3
I P B B B P B B B P ... I

LAMPGUYOP•8/26/23, 3:30 AM

So B frames high or low? Currently on 1 and that looks good

Flaeri•8/26/23, 12:59 PM

there is no right answer

depends on the content, and other settings. If you're using lookahead, then you can do 3. If not, then 1 or 2

At least thats what I'd personally do

TonyTurbo78•8/31/23, 10:24 AM

What is more demanding when encoding guys, Setting preset to a higher number, ie P7 or using a lower CQP for nicer quality ie CQP20 (this is at 4k by the way using only one PC and a 4090, 5950x

TonyTurbo78•8/31/23, 10:56 AM

Apologies. where to? Or do you mean creating a new topic inside the tech help section? so many areas here, creator talk, tech help (the dozens of threads) general chat, it could even go in Capture cards as i use a capture card to lol

Thunder_God•8/31/23, 11:04 AM

New topic in this section.