On September 13 2010 00:20 tofucake wrote: I haven't fiddled with the command line version, but have you removed "offline" from the Stream value in the right box (on the GUI)? Saving that and then loading the profile in the CLI might work.
Ah nice that got everything working. Thank you!
Actually I got regular 2.5 to work and I got command line 3.1 to work, but not command line 2.5. But hopefully either 2.5 or command line 3.1 will be enough to take a load off my processor and enable me to stream in good quality without lag so I don't have to worry about command line 2.5!
On September 13 2010 00:20 tofucake wrote: I haven't fiddled with the command line version, but have you removed "offline" from the Stream value in the right box (on the GUI)? Saving that and then loading the profile in the CLI might work.
Ah nice that got everything working. Thank you!
Actually I got regular 2.5 to work and I got command line 3.1 to work, but not command line 2.5. But hopefully either 2.5 or command line 3.1 will be enough to take a load off my processor and enable me to stream in good quality without lag so I don't have to worry about command line 2.5!
i've heard jtv doesn't like 2.5 cmd. i dno. that might be why its not working.
On September 13 2010 00:20 tofucake wrote: I haven't fiddled with the command line version, but have you removed "offline" from the Stream value in the right box (on the GUI)? Saving that and then loading the profile in the CLI might work.
Ah nice that got everything working. Thank you!
Actually I got regular 2.5 to work and I got command line 3.1 to work, but not command line 2.5. But hopefully either 2.5 or command line 3.1 will be enough to take a load off my processor and enable me to stream in good quality without lag so I don't have to worry about command line 2.5!
i've heard jtv doesn't like 2.5 cmd. i dno. that might be why its not working.
On September 13 2010 00:20 tofucake wrote: I haven't fiddled with the command line version, but have you removed "offline" from the Stream value in the right box (on the GUI)? Saving that and then loading the profile in the CLI might work.
Ah nice that got everything working. Thank you!
Actually I got regular 2.5 to work and I got command line 3.1 to work, but not command line 2.5. But hopefully either 2.5 or command line 3.1 will be enough to take a load off my processor and enable me to stream in good quality without lag so I don't have to worry about command line 2.5!
i've heard jtv doesn't like 2.5 cmd. i dno. that might be why its not working.
it was working for jtv but not ustream
doh. i completely blanked out. sometimes you have to restart FMLE and then try ustream again. i had that issue a few times. you HAVE to open FMLE, connect, start, THEN open ustream. 3.1 and 2.5 cmd both work for me.
Thanks for the guide. It took a bit of tinkering but I think I've got everything reasonably set up now. I finally registered on TL to contribute what I've learned while setting up my stream!
First of all, my specs: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz (Overclocked to 3.4Ghz) 4GB DDR2 1000 RAM (Underclocked to DDR2 800, with 5-5-5-15 timings) XFX GTX 260 Core 216
My monitor runs at 1920x1200 resolution, but to save myself the hassle I would set it to 1920x1080 when streaming. This gave me black bars at the top and bottom of my screen which I don't really mind too much.
To start off, I had set VH screen capture to 60 fps and Flash Media Live Encoder 3.1 was set 20 fps via VP6, with resolution at 960x540 and bit rate at 500kbps. Using these settings I experienced terrible frame drops, with < 10 fps average as well as weird occasional frame rate increases when I click around wildly. I solved these problems by doing the following:
1. Uncheck "Optimize screen capture" in VH screen capture driver. This made the stream smoother and updated the image even if I wasn't moving around the mouse. 2. Lower the resolution to 640x360 (1920/3 = 640). I tested this against 960x540 and the difference was not noticeable to me. 3. Set frame rate in VH Screen Capture equal to the output frame rate in FMLE. 15 or 20 seem to work okay). 4. Set format to H.264 with Profile: Main, Level: 3.1, Keyframe: 1 second. 2 second keyframes work but 3 seems to make the stream too laggy to watch. I did a little bit of research and although I don't understand the codec completely, it seems that at my resolution there there is no reason for the level to be above 3.1. I tried playing with VP6 but it always seemed laggier than H.264 no matter what I settings I used. Increasing the bit rate seemed to do very little to help. My theory is that modern processors are optimized to do H.264 encoding, whereas VP6 is a proprietary format, and thus is not optimized. 5. Up the bit rate to 650kbps. I tried 1000kbps and it seems that my connection (mid-tier Comcast cable) maxed out at around 800kbps. My roommate was playing TF2 at the same time as the stream and experienced no ping problems. Your results will vary for this one, this may be due to the awesomeness of my Tomato router.
Few things to note: - I have a quad core, so I set my SC2 to use CPU0/1 and FMLE to 2/3. It's important that you set FLME to CPU3/4 because quad cores pre-i7 have a tendency to task CPU0 with the majority of processing. If you do not set your CPU affinities then your SC2 will most likely lag too much to play. I've noticed that although setting FMLE to CPU2/3 makes a big difference, setting SC2 to CPU0/1 does not seem to make any noticeable impact on frame rate.
- UNIT PORTRAITS! They're such a huge FPS hog. I get about a 10fps increase in-game if I set them from 3D to 2D.
- In one of the guides linked in the first post, there is some mention of using a .bat file to start FMLE in order to ease the process of setting CPU affinity and priority. This will not work for Windows XP machines as the "/affinity" parameter is not part of XP's "start" command (although "/high" is in there). The .bat file should work for Windows Vista/7 just fine though.
- If you have access to a second computer, it is a good idea to control the broadcast via the Ustream page on that instead. This way your main computer's system resources are not hogged by your browser, which often uses a good amount of RAM depending on how many tabs are open. Liquid`Tyler mentioned something about starting the broadcast via the command line - this is something that I have not looked into and may be worthwhile if you do not have a second computer to control and view the stream.
- When using Ventrilo in conjunction with streaming, even with Stereo Mix enabled I do not get any sound from Ventrilo unless the Output Device (in Setup) has "Use Direct Sound" UNCHECKED. I'm not sure why this is. You can easily test whether or not your Ventrilo sound is coming through by going into Setup and using the "Test" button. That way, whatever you say will be echoed back to you via speakers, and therefore should be audible through the stream provided you correctly enabled Stereo Mix/What U Hear. You should hear yourself twice on your stream (once from you speaking into the mic, once from Ventrilo repeating it back to you due to Test mode)
- Originally in Starcraft 2 my audio output was set to "Speakers" instead of "DirectSound Device". This made the in-game sounds EXTREMELY loud, even if your in-game Master Volume was set to low.
I hope this long writeup will help someone. Good luck streaming everyone!
Ok, I have a Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card and It doesn't support stereo mixer in the recording devices, and only has it's own mixer that is not recognized by FMLE. Does anyone know a work arround?
@Ktzero3: Lowering keyframe rate should lower processing requirements, and make your stream a bit smoother (but lower quality if you jump around a lot). Also, you can boost your stream quality by sticking SC1 on 1 core and FMLE on 3. Video processing/encoding is one of the very few things that is a greedy multitasker. Also, why did you underclock your RAM? Also, you can use a program called Virtual Audio Cable to pump a bunch of different sources into a single output line and have FMLE use that as audio.
On September 14 2010 03:42 dotFX wrote: Ok, I have a Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card and It doesn't support stereo mixer in the recording devices, and only has it's own mixer that is not recognized by FMLE. Does anyone know a work arround?
@tofucake - I underclocked the RAM to achieve 1:1 ratio between RAM speed and Front Side Bus speed. Having a weird ratio between RAM and FSB can cause stability problems when overclocking and possible performance problems in general.
Math involved: Q9550 has a multiplier of 8.5 and a 333 FSB by default. Q9550 clock speed = FSB * Multiplier. To overclock to 3.4GHz the FSB necessary is 400 (400*8.5 = 3400), and since DDR stands for double data rate, the clock speed for the RAM is actually 400 even though it says DDR2 800.
well i have finally gotten everything figured out, including sound. however, i have 2 questions.
the first, my batch file is closing right away giving me an error where it it's reading a random invalid character as the first character of the line, so i'm unsure how to fix that.
the second is, how can i stream my stereo mix with my usb soundcard? i have tried changing the playback, but to of no avail. i HAVE to use my onboard card it seems to stream my game sounds, any fix for this?
Firts of all, thank you for the guide. This was very helpful.
I found very helpful also what this guy wrote about speeding up ustream and the video capture driver. I would consider putting it in the first post of the thread.
On September 13 2010 11:34 Ktzero3 wrote: Thanks for the guide. It took a bit of tinkerin[...]
But i still have a problem.
The stream finally seems to be going fluenlty at a 720x576 resolution and 350kb framerate using H.264 at 3.1 with 25 fps and keyframe set to 10.
The problem is that about every 20 seconds, the stream ( i mean viewing that on ustream ) freezes for about 1 - 2 secons and then keeps going from where it stopped before. This made me think that the problem is with my connection, because if it was from the computer than the stream would' nt resume exactly where it stopped before.
I actually ask a friend to check the stream so my connection is not affected by that.
Can you guys help me with this?
Thanks in advance, and sorry for my horrible engrish, lol.
Hey guys, I'm looking for a little help. It's not technically about streams, but I figured this would be the best place to ask anyways.
Can someone tell me why there seem to be so many.."squares" in the video? I guess it's pixelated in a sense? I mean, why is there a 720p viewing option when it looks exactly the same as the 480p one? I'm basically looking for what settings I can toggle to fix this. My computer isn't that great, but I think something should be able to be worked out.
I am casting with camtasia, with SC2 being in a 1280x720 window. Fps is set at 20, the keyframe is 80. My monitor is 1680x1050 by default. Since it's 16:10 and not 16: 9 , I decided to record in window mode.
Any opinions? Maybe you guys need more info, I just don't know what to provide.
On September 14 2010 05:38 tofucake wrote: @Ktzero3: Lowering keyframe rate should lower processing requirements, and make your stream a bit smoother (but lower quality if you jump around a lot). Also, you can boost your stream quality by sticking SC1 on 1 core and FMLE on 3. Video processing/encoding is one of the very few things that is a greedy multitasker. Also, why did you underclock your RAM? Also, you can use a program called Virtual Audio Cable to pump a bunch of different sources into a single output line and have FMLE use that as audio.
On September 14 2010 03:42 dotFX wrote: Ok, I have a Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card and It doesn't support stereo mixer in the recording devices, and only has it's own mixer that is not recognized by FMLE. Does anyone know a work arround?
What OS are you on?
lowering keyframe rate WILL make the stream smoother, but it increases processor load as its an encoded frame with as little loss in quality as possible. higher quality = more proc power needed. increasing keyframe rate, then increases proc power.
EPT
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