Streaming

[Ualaa]

I've messed around with the Flash Media Encoder and VHRSCap program, as per the JTV thread on this site, and have not had any luck with getting that to work.

I decided to try other options, and found XSplit Broadcaster (www.xsplit.com), which is in a beta (free) stage at the moment.
When not broadcasting, the battlegrounds are smooth enough... follow will occasionally break out of the AV gate, but briefly stopping my movement at three points ensures my team reaches Galvatron still in range of the Crusader Aura.
While broadcasting, the battlegrounds are noticeably choppy but playable; just not very enjoyable while streaming.

See: www.twitch.tv/ualaa and http://www.twitch.tv/ualaa/b/304013746



My system is:
Windows 7 Home, 64-bit.
Motherboard is an Asus P8Z68-VPro, not using any of the overclocking features.
i5 2500K, at stock speed, with an after-market Corsair A70 cooler.
8gb of DDR3 ram, 1600mhz.
The OS is on an OCZ Vertex 3, SSD; Warcraft is on a Patriot Torq SSD; XSplit is running on a 10k rpm Raptor drive.
Two 27" widescreen Samsung monitors (1920x1080, each), running on an eVGA Ge-Force GTX570 (1280mb).
All drivers are up to date.

Speedtest.net shows an average of 48.18Mb/sec down, and an average of 4.82Mb/sec upload speeds.

In Xsplit Broadcaster, I initially had it set to a max Bit Rate of 2000 as a trial.
The test feature was both green and yellow (with a recommendation to reduce the bit rate, if it came up yellow often).
To be sure I had the bandwidth, I've set it to 1,200 Max Bitrate (kbps).
The VBV Buffer (kbit), scales to exactly match the chosen Max Bitrate; I've not changed this setting at all.
The codec is X 264, and it is not giving an option to change that.
The stream area is 1920x1080 (HD), at 25 FPS (which was the default)
The audo is 44,100 KHz 16-bit Stereo, which was the suggestion from the video on their site; I'm using the default AAC LC Codec, although the video on their site recommended using MP3 (which is not an option for me to choose).
I am not recording what I broadcast (that box is unchecked).
I have Interleave audio and video in one RTMP channel checked, which was the default.

I'm streaming the entirety of Monitor 1 (which is the current main toon) in full screen.
I'm not streaming the second monitor, with the slaves.

I have two scenes set.
One is the streaming of Monitor 1.
The other is blank, so I can log-in without revealing my account names.

In Warcraft, I have the slaves set to 250 view distance.
And just about everything else minimal.
With no shadows, spell effects, weather etc.
The main has maximum view distance, medium on most other settings, but zero shadows/water effects and medium spell effects.




Any suggestions on removing the choppiness?
Near totally inexperienced with streaming myself, so not sure where the bottleneck is.

Would reducing the stream quality, possibly going 1280x720 and/or a lower bitrate, improve the play quality?
I'm considering overclocking the CPU some, to something not very extreme.
Not sure if the CPU is a bottleneck.
I'd assume 1,280mb video is enough for 1x medium, 4x low settings, especially considering the fairly smooth play when not streaming.

[Ualaa]

Bumping, because edited posts don't show up as New Threads on the "Quick Links - New Threads" tool at the top of the forum.

[Ualaa]

As per suggestions from Zenga on dual-boxing, changing the stream to 1280x720 and the FPS to 29.97, the stream is suddenly so smooth I'm not even aware that it is streaming aside from opening the browser window.

[SethLan]

nice, subbed. check my channel out sometimes.

[Tim]

Real quick, when you say choppy, was it the stream on the viewer's end was choppy, or on your end streaming?

[Ualaa]

It was choppy playing the game on my end.

The stream was noticeably choppy on my roommates computer, at about the same amount of choppiness.

The change to 720x1280 and 29.97 FPS, instead of 1080x1920 and 25 FPS, fixed the issue for me.
Not saying the stream is as optimal as it could be, I'm sure there's room for improvement.
I have no clue really what my optimal bit-rate is (dozens of speedtest runs, put my upload in the 4.80Mb/sec to 4.85Mb/sec range).
The program defaults the video buffer to the same as the bit-rate, but that value is not locked and can be edited too.

[SethLan]

setting resolution, at 1280x720 - will fix it, each computer is different so is the internet connection, you just have to find the soft spot.

[Chamassa]

Originally Posted by SethLanz

setting resolution, at 1280x720 - will fix it, each computer is different so is the internet connection, you just have to find the soft spot.

That shouldnt completely account for the choppiness on his end though, but then again my knowledge of these programs is limited :P

Anyway, dont forget that the difference between 720x1280 and 1080x1920 is a 2.25 ratio..
Thats 2.25 times more capture, encoding, network traffic.. All those things can make it slightly unplayable on certain systems.
Add that to the fact that xsplit is a much heavier way of streaming for your system then a correctly set-up VHscrap + FME :P

Either way, i know a 1080p stream has prestige value :P But in reality, 720p is still HD, and will serve most people just fine, considering they cant watch 1080p on their internet connections anyway.

[SethLan]

Well, if its choppy on his computer, it will show choppy on the stream. (its taking all recording) I have same cpu i5 2500k and cpu is dying with 5x account running, plus if you add stream its gonna drain cpu even more, like i suggested, lower the graphic down on each toon, also FPS in setup, set it down to 15fps. see if that helps.

Run Task Manager and monitor the GPU usage.

-On my end I did play a lot with settings, i set mine at 15fps, Quality is at 7, Maxbit rate is at 1000 and vbv buffer at 2000, since my internet its not so great 5up/26down.

i7 2600k is the way to go if you box and running stream, unless you box only 2-4 toons on i5.

[Ualaa]

Streaming the DK team.

They had 4k honor (conquest became honor), so have bought one 2,200 Honor piece and are rather close to the next one.