Issues with M1 Max to Twitch
I am at wit's end and could use any and all help.
Problem: Trying to stream 1080p 60 to Twitch on a Mac and it's coming out pixelated - not a bitrate/internet issue.
My Son who also streams but on a PC (not Mac) has no issues - crystal clear.
My Specs: Mac Studio M1 Max 10 cores (8 performance / 2 efficiency) 32gb memory / Built in 24 core GPU. OS is Sonoma 14.5
Using the latest 30.1.2 version of OBS and the Elgato 4K X with the most recent firmware.
Connecting to a PS5 - Playing over HDMI 2.1 4k 60hz but up to 120hz for some games.
My Internet is a dedicated 1gb up and down - speedtest also confirms this. I am connecting all devices over a ethernet cable not wifi.
Things I have tried:
Initially I tried the Apple VT H264 Hardware encoder but it was an absolute mess with blurring and pixels showing even on my transition and welcome screens.
I am currently using X264 as the encoder which displays clean welcome screens and transitions but shows pixelation in game, especially fast and dark scenes.
Current: X264 / Base canvas and output both at 1080p / Rate Control at CBR / 6000 for bitrate / 2sec for keyframe interval / CPU usage = fast but have also tried medium / Profile set to main but have also tried high and none.
In Advanced OBS settings if I look at Video it shows NV12 for color format / Rec 709 for Color Space / Limited for Color Range / Disabled macOS V-sync but I have also tried it enabled.
Lastly, If I look at the properties in OBS for the Elgato 4k X it is set to NV12 but the color space is listed as CS601 with no other options.
What am I missing? Is it just not possible to get a good stream on a mac? I have also tried to stream at 720p 60 and same pixelation occurs. If you watch on a phone or small screen it does not look that bad but if you watch on a monitor 27" in full screen it looks really bad.
Thank you for any and all advice!
20 Replies
1. Link the stream VoD, so we'll be able to tell if it's expected Twitch quality.
2. People will ask you to share your OBS logs.
Not sure if it’s relevant, but what is your son’s Windows stream setup comparison since you mentioned it?
definitely need samples and maybe a matching log
X264 presets should look identical across platforms
Thank you all for your willingness to help. Here is the info as requested:
For these samples I created a new scene with only gameplay footage, I did keep the welcome screen in there so you can see how it looks worse when using Apple VT H264 Hardware.
Sample video X264: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2155844261
Log file X264:
https://obsproject.com/logs/1CPw8GnIHWFbjtH9
Sample video Apple VT H264 Hardware:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2155847357
Log file Apple VT H264 Hardware:
https://obsproject.com/logs/5GKsi0tOmWN8C5Jx
Twitch
X264 Hardware Test Stream - Nothing to see here... move along - met...
metagamers went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Stress testing VOD now.
Twitch
Apple VT H264 Hardware Test Stream - Nothing to see here... move al...
metagamers went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Stress testing VOD now.
your x264 log doesn't show a stream session
but it's also flooded by spam from the awful SE plugin
the x624 sample looks about how i'd expect
I'm guessing it's x264 fast there
LOTs of tiny foliage that doesn't compress well and it's very dark, which is harder to compress
no artifacting on the starting soon scene like you mentioned tho
Thank you for looking at it I know your time is valuable, one last thing. I just disconnected SE and created a new profile with only the elgato capture. This is with X264 set to Medium. Hopefully this looks better in the log file.
Sample Video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2155872237
Log File: https://obsproject.com/logs/55QvFcBpFIqOPpQb
Twitch
Another X264 Test Stream (Med) - Nothing to see here... move along ...
metagamers went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Stress testing VOD now.
This does look way worse than I'd expect medium x264 to look, for sure.
Starting to wonder if it's just a mac thing.. I assume if I was on a PC with a real graphics card things would be much different.
You're streaming using the CPU anyway.
Correct, when I use the Apple codec VT H264 Hardware it's actually worse 🤷♂️
GG @metagamers, you just advanced to level 2 !
Anyway, X264 cpu encoding's better quality than GPUs. People prefer GPU encoding because the hit to performance is much lesser.
but yeah X264 will look the same no matter what it's encoded on
So I assume then, for mac this is about as good as it gets. If I want better quality i'd be better off using a PC with a Nvidia graphics card so I can use that encoder.
yeah it doesn't look great, but it's fast-moving with a ton of foliage, never going to look great
I wouldn't stress it too much
if you pay attention to the foliage bits as he runs around
similar issues
pretty normal
Makes sense, I'll check that out. Thank you very much for all the help and input you have supplied here 🙂
@metagamers I'd still say these things:
1. It sounds weird your son's quality is better. Medium CPU-encoding should look better than what you showed us, and better than any gpu-encoding onto twitch at 6k. So something is still a bit off here.
2. You can improve your quality by lowering resolution. The whole point of increasing resolution is to have more details per inch, but if your details are all fuzzy at a higher res, that defeats the purpose anyway.
I would also suggest doing test recordings for CPU x264 and for hardware h264 encoding, and grabbing the logs for both of those so we can see what settings you're using and if there are any recommendations we can make based on that