Broadcasting Games, low quality

[death2all333]

I've been using procaster to broadcast my games and it has been working well but when i go to see the recordings of my broadcasts, it runs at a low fps and the video quality is low. is there a way to tweak procaster to have higher FPS at least, (I am not lagging in game)

Specs
AMD 3.0 GHZ Quad-Core
ATI Radeon HD 4500 (512 MB)
4GB RAM (2x2GB)
Windows XP professional SP3

[LegendaryWuKong]

Originally Posted by death2all333

I've been using procaster to broadcast my games and it has been working well but when i go to see the recordings of my broadcasts, it runs at a low fps and the video quality is low. is there a way to tweak procaster to have higher FPS at least, (I am not lagging in game)

Specs
AMD 3.0 GHZ Quad-Core
ATI Radeon HD 4500 (512 MB)
4GB RAM (2x2GB)
Windows XP professional SP3

In the newest version of live stream procaster select preferences and click the video tab. Just underneath the aspect ratio selection, there is something that says "target frame rate" This is the target FPS that it will try to broadcast. Click the Games tab next. Where is says "control game FPS" you should uncheck the box (as far as I can tell this just limits the fps of your game) Hope that helps!

[JARRRNO]

If you ask me, it's pretty much BS.
I have a pretty decent PC ( Intel i7 940, 2x nVidia GTX285 in SLi and 6 gigs of RAM ), doing 100 fps on L4D2, 80 on ME2 maxed out, but the streaming FPS constantly drops below 20, even though the game's fps never drops. It starts out at 28 - 30 fps, stays there for for around 20 seconds and then it just starts dropping. I usually end up having 8 - 16 fps stream.
This isn't any good when you're streaming games. Especially fast paced ones.

I have a solid connection ( 8mb/s download speed, 2mb/s upload speed ), so I doubt that's the problem.

I hope someone in the staff takes notice of this.

[coryfrans]

Playing a game at full settings like Mass Effect 2 is a CPU and GPU drain. Running this along with procaster will also cause a drain on your system too. I Recommend that you reduce the screen resolution when you broadcast, and maybe scale back some of the gpu effects. Even tho the i7 theoretically has 8 cores, a multi threaded game, and program like procaster will try to get as much CPU power as they can.

If this doesn't help with your FPS, then please send us your Procaster logs to procaster@livestream.com

[Jalasuperior3]

I used to be able to broadcast games like Dead Space, Mass Effect 1/2, and Crysis at a steady 30FPS.

Then I formatted my computer.

After a fresh install of all drivers, software etc, my FPS plummets. I'm using the same Procaster settings I always have, and my CPU is even overclocked from 3.0 to 3.6GHZ this time around, as well as my GPU being overclocked through the whazoo. My specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 3.0GHz clocked to 3.6GHz
nVidia GTX 260
6GB DDR2-800 Ram

Despite my more-than-sufficient specs, now when I try to stream I broadcast at 30FPS... Then 25... Then 17... Going down... 10... 7...
.
.
.
LOW BANDWIDTH. ATTEMPTING TO RE-CONNECT.


What the bleep is going on?

[EzRemake]

When this happens to me I automatically know it's upload choke. I have my settings on *Low Quality* with a frame rate of 25 and a bitrate of 250, and every time I stream games with faster moving graphics/more going on the bitrate goes over 450!

Since I don't have much more upload than 480~, I start to lose frames thereafter because my bandwidth can't support the frame goal. I know you say you have 2Mbps upload, but with a free plan you're capped at 500Kbps bitrate, so if the game requires more than that to keep that 30fps, you're going to choke, and suffer massive performance drop.

Tweak settings. I noticed all the high quality settings only have a target frame rate of 15, but the bitrate is high. I don't think broadcasting 30FPS is necessary.

[EugeeTV]

Try this bitrate calculator:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/ap...te_calculator/

You can set your target at whatever you like, but if it's short of the number the calculator gives you, you're going to have problems.

640x480 @ 30 FPS needs 2458 kbps up to handle fast motion (shooters) or 1229 for average motion (MMO).

15 FPS will look great in a stream, and you can get away with 10 FPS, especially for MMOs. I stream my widescreen at 768x432 @ 10 FPS (average motion) so I aim for 442 kbps target, and it holds steady when streaming. If you aim too low, it will exceed it, then cut performance endlessly trying to hit the impossible target you've given it.

Drop your audio to bare minimum for games (22 KHz, mono, 18 kbps) because you're probably just listening to Ventrilo anyway. That saves a lot of upload.

I've also tried 512x288 widescreen with over 400 target (which is Fast motion) and it's pretty good as well. I haven't settled yet, honestly. When I stream Borderlands it looks much better though (and Dawn of War II)

[Mastodon]

Originally Posted by JARRRNO

If you ask me, it's pretty much BS.
I have a pretty decent PC ( Intel i7 940, 2x nVidia GTX285 in SLi and 6 gigs of RAM ), doing 100 fps on L4D2, 80 on ME2 maxed out, but the streaming FPS constantly drops below 20, even though the game's fps never drops. It starts out at 28 - 30 fps, stays there for for around 20 seconds and then it just starts dropping. I usually end up having 8 - 16 fps stream.
This isn't any good when you're streaming games. Especially fast paced ones.

I have a solid connection ( 8mb/s download speed, 2mb/s upload speed ), so I doubt that's the problem.

I hope someone in the staff takes notice of this.

You have amazing specs and connection. I have this same problem as well, and even though my specs aren't as good as yours, they're still decent and shouldn't have this problem when my PC handle it.

[cseeman]

Mastodon,
You haven't posted any information for anyone to make suggestions. It's not simply computer specs.

An ISP's claimed specs may not be delivered in reality either. You have to run speed test and ping test at the point when you spot the issue.

Your settings can have a big impact as well. That ranges from screen size to actual streaming settings.