Poor Streaming Quality

[hchastain888]

I started playing Assassins Creed Syndicate and I wanted to try using my new Steam Link. So I started tinkering around with it but I could never get good quality and good frame-rates, even though my Nvidia Geforce 760 was more than enough to handle the game. On my desktop I was easily getting 60 fps on High settings. However, my steam link was a little more tricky.

To try and remedy this I tried a bandwidth fix here on steam. I editing the bandwidth limit in the ini files to allow me to stream 100 MBits. It helped a bit, but it really didn't free anything up. I already have enabled hardware encoding (or whichever one I'm supposed to enable) and I have a wired connection on both my steam link and my computer. I'm running Assassins Creed on beautiful. I'll post my in-game stats below.

If anyone has any insight into why I'm getting such bad framerates on the Steam Link and how to remedy the situation I would be very grateful.

[hchastain888]

My in game stats are as follows

Capture 1920x1080 @ 27.71
Encoder: Game polled D3d11 NV12 + Intel QuickSync D3D11
Decoder: Marvell hardware decoding
Streaming Latency: <1ms input, 98.82 display
Ping Time: <1ms
Incoming bitrate: 28246 kbits/s video: 0 kbits/s
Outgoing bitrate: 147 kbits/s
Estimated bandwidth: 100Mbps
Packet loss: 0.00% (10.81% frame loss)

On top of this I was overclocking my GPU and the game was running extremely smooth on my desktop. However, Steam Link was getting less than 30fps constantly.

Any insight into what is holding up the quality?

Edit: I should note that the stats said "Slow Network" in yellow. However, this would be perplexing as the internet we have is fiber and can get speeds that should easily be able to handle this. I downloaded the game itself in about 20 minutes

[Dav]

Your internet type is irrelevant because Steam IHS uses your LAN (local) network. How are the host PC and the Link connected? Wired? Wireless?

By quality do you mean the picture looks bad? Is it blocky with compression artifacts and such? Or do you mean it seems jerky and not smooth? The jerkiness is caused by your stream limiting the FPS to 30 and the high amount of frame loss you seem to be getting.

Slow network errors indicate you are not getting sufficient (I'm assuming wireless) speed to maintain the bandwidth you have selected (in this case 100Mbps). From the stats if you are getting slow network errors at the current bitrate (around 30Mbps) your network will not be able to handle 100. I've heard the Link does not do well on wireless regardless.

It also seems you have your integrated graphics enabled and Steam is using that for encoding (Intel QuickSync). This shouldn't affect encoding performance, but I'm unsure because I don't use it. I would try disabling the iGPU and use your 760's Nvidia encoding as your display latency seems a bit high. Does anyone know if your encoder affects the display latency? I use Nvidia encoding and Intel decoding on the client and get around 30ms.

[Zero]

I've given up trying to stream Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. It's the only game that streams horribly. Literally everything else works perfectly when streaming.

Host Machine: Desktop
- CPU: Intel i5 Quad Core @ 3Ghz
- RAM: 16GB DDR5
- GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX960 w/4GB DDR5 RAM
- HDD: 500GB

Streaming Client: Laptop
- CPU: Intel i7 Dual Quad Core (8CPUs) @ 2.4Ghz
- RAM: 16GB DDR5
- GPU: nVidia Quadro K1000M w/1GB DDR3 RAM
- HDD: 1TB

Host settings for In-Home Streaming:
- Hardware Encoding

Client settings for In-Home Streaming:
- Hardware Decoding
- Quality: Fast. I previously had it set to balanced but moved it because I noticed no difference in quality from any of the three settings on any game.

Throughput:
- 30Mbps. I previously had it at unlimited but it caps out at 100 - 130Mbps anyway so I figured why risk the latency since AC:S was already sluggish and unplayable.


I've noticed that when you're in a really detailed part of the enviroment the FPS just dies. This is because the bandwidth also dives. I'm getting around 2Mbps when in the heaviest detailed areas, and about 100Mbps when the game is paused. It's not my router. I went and bought a commercial grade router to run streaming and I've tested it extensively. In even went so far as to only allow my streaming laptop client on the 5Ghz band of the router. B/G/N is turned off. A/C only. Only one client on the wireless network. Host machine is wired at 1Gbps.

I plan on wiring both machines tomorrow just to see what happens. However, the whole point of me having my setup is so I can use my laptop as a wireless client anywhere in the house.

To restate. Only Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is having severe streaming issues. Every other game is fine. And I mean all of them, including Thief, which is also a bastard to even the best GPUs.

[Tucu]

Originally posted by hchastain888:

My in game stats are as follows

Capture 1920x1080 @ 27.71
Encoder: Game polled D3d11 NV12 + Intel QuickSync D3D11
Decoder: Marvell hardware decoding
Streaming Latency: <1ms input, 98.82 display
Ping Time: <1ms
Incoming bitrate: 28246 kbits/s video: 0 kbits/s
Outgoing bitrate: 147 kbits/s
Estimated bandwidth: 100Mbps
Packet loss: 0.00% (10.81% frame loss)

On top of this I was overclocking my GPU and the game was running extremely smooth on my desktop. However, Steam Link was getting less than 30fps constantly.

Any insight into what is holding up the quality?

Edit: I should note that the stats said "Slow Network" in yellow. However, this would be perplexing as the internet we have is fiber and can get speeds that should easily be able to handle this. I downloaded the game itself in about 20 minutes

First do a factory reset of the Steam Link to make sure you remove the 100mbps hack and any other manual tweaks; it solves nothing and causes tons of problems.
Then join the Steam Client beta and enable Nvidia encoding and NVFBC. Set the Quality to Balanced and try streaming a couple of games. Then upload your streaming.log to pastebin.

[Tucu]

Originally posted by ant0ni00:

I've given up trying to stream Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. It's the only game that streams horribly. Literally everything else works perfectly when streaming.

Host Machine: Desktop
- CPU: Intel i5 Quad Core @ 3Ghz
- RAM: 16GB DDR5
- GPU: nVidia GeForce GTX960 w/4GB DDR5 RAM
- HDD: 500GB

Streaming Client: Laptop
- CPU: Intel i7 Dual Quad Core (8CPUs) @ 2.4Ghz
- RAM: 16GB DDR5
- GPU: nVidia Quadro K1000M w/1GB DDR3 RAM
- HDD: 1TB

Host settings for In-Home Streaming:
- Hardware Encoding

Client settings for In-Home Streaming:
- Hardware Decoding
- Quality: Fast. I previously had it set to balanced but moved it because I noticed no difference in quality from any of the three settings on any game.

Throughput:
- 30Mbps. I previously had it at unlimited but it caps out at 100 - 130Mbps anyway so I figured why risk the latency since AC:S was already sluggish and unplayable.


I've noticed that when you're in a really detailed part of the enviroment the FPS just dies. This is because the bandwidth also dives. I'm getting around 2Mbps when in the heaviest detailed areas, and about 100Mbps when the game is paused. It's not my router. I went and bought a commercial grade router to run streaming and I've tested it extensively. In even went so far as to only allow my streaming laptop client on the 5Ghz band of the router. B/G/N is turned off. A/C only. Only one client on the wireless network. Host machine is wired at 1Gbps.

I plan on wiring both machines tomorrow just to see what happens. However, the whole point of me having my setup is so I can use my laptop as a wireless client anywhere in the house.

To restate. Only Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is having severe streaming issues. Every other game is fine. And I mean all of them, including Thief, which is also a bastard to even the best GPUs.

In your case try joining the Steam client beta in both PCs (if you have not done it yet). Then enter Big Picture Mode in the host. Goto Settings->Streaming->Advanced Host Options and enable NVFBC. On the Client set the Quality to Balanced (the recommended setting for wireless setups). Then check the logs to see if the Averages and standard deviations have improved.

[hchastain888]

Originally posted by dqtl74:

Your internet type is irrelevant because Steam IHS uses your LAN (local) network. How are the host PC and the Link connected? Wired? Wireless?

By quality do you mean the picture looks bad? Is it blocky with compression artifacts and such? Or do you mean it seems jerky and not smooth? The jerkiness is caused by your stream limiting the FPS to 30 and the high amount of frame loss you seem to be getting.

Slow network errors indicate you are not getting sufficient (I'm assuming wireless) speed to maintain the bandwidth you have selected (in this case 100Mbps). From the stats if you are getting slow network errors at the current bitrate (around 30Mbps) your network will not be able to handle 100. I've heard the Link does not do well on wireless regardless.

It also seems you have your integrated graphics enabled and Steam is using that for encoding (Intel QuickSync). This shouldn't affect encoding performance, but I'm unsure because I don't use it. I would try disabling the iGPU and use your 760's Nvidia encoding as your display latency seems a bit high. Does anyone know if your encoder affects the display latency? I use Nvidia encoding and Intel decoding on the client and get around 30ms.

Both my computer and my Steam link are wired, hooked into the ethernet ports. I've always operated them that way. The picture quality is jerky, it lacks the smooth play that I have on my desktop. I'm not running on wireless either, like I said. I'm still getting the slow network. I have the bandwidth set at "Automatic" and I'm still having the same problems. Steams ini files are set at 30 MBits/s again (the odd thing is that they were set that way when I went in to edit the files back to 30 from the 100 I thought I set it at.)

Where do I go to disable the Intel QuickSync. I tried opening up the Intel HD Graphics Control Panel but the program doesn't open. How do I disable the iGPU? Also, what is NVFBC?

[hchastain888]

If it helps, I did a network test on my desktop computer, where I'm streaming from. Its the same network Steam Link is wired into. Here are the results...

Ping: 20 ms
Download Speed: 123.2 Mbps
Upload Speed: 92.15 Mbps

The speed test was done by Ookla. This test was done on my desktop computer. With this type of network it should be plenty for streaming. I'm at college at Purdue, I live in a frat essentially, I put that info if it give s you any insight

[kreiselhoschi]

Originally posted by hchastain888:

If it helps, I did a network test on my desktop computer, where I'm streaming from. Its the same network Steam Link is wired into. Here are the results...

Ping: 20 ms
Download Speed: 123.2 Mbps
Upload Speed: 92.15 Mbps

The speed test was done by Ookla. This test was done on my desktop computer. With this type of network it should be plenty for streaming. I'm at college at Purdue, I live in a frat essentially, I put that info if it give s you any insight

THIS has nothing to do with IHS, your internet connection is not used. That´s why it´s called InHome streaming. ;)

Given you would only have 100Mbit/s network speed in your local network - it still would be sufficient. The Link is throttled to 80MBit/s but the way Valve handles the overhead is somewhat misleading and it shows wrong values (more that there should be) of 120 to 130 MBit/s in the overlay.

Unfortunately, you don´t post your logs. Please check what the ServerBitrate is compared to LinkBandwidth. It may be that the bitrate in the In-Home Streaming settings needs to be manually set to a lower value. A good guide to streaming logs and ho to read them can be found here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/homestream/discussions/0/540733523404402134/


You should check the settings of your TV, too: Streaming Latency: <1ms input, 98.82 display
That´s nearly 100ms latency only caused by your TV. Did you try switching to PC-Mode or Gaming / etc.?

[Dav]

Originally posted by kreiselhoschi:

You should check the settings of your TV, too: Streaming Latency: <1ms input, 98.82 display
That´s nearly 100ms latency only caused by your TV. Did you try switching to PC-Mode or Gaming / etc.?

I thought display lag was the amount of total lag between the image being processed on the host and being displayed on the client. The total encoding and decoding time and not input lag.

[hchastain888]

Here are some of the log results

"BandwidthLimit" "15000"

"AvgClientBitrate" "75.395126342773437"
"StdDevClientBitrate" "13.838971138000488"
"AvgServerBitrate" "8570.1982421875"
"StdDevServerBitrate" "0"
"AvgLinkBandwidth" "100000.0078125"

[hager13]

Hello,

i don't wanna open a new thread as the title perfectly fits. I have never been able to set up a stream which is acceptable for me in regards of quality. All i get is like youtube quality. I have wired Gigabyte LAN and set the Bandwith to 100Mbit. The stats say the estimated bandwith is 130Mbit but incoming bitrate never surpasses 30000 kbit.

Host:
i5 3570@4Ghz
GTX 970

Client
i5 4200U
GT 750M

Hardware decoding and encoding is activated. Quality is set to beautiful. Can anybody help me or is this already the maximum IHS can provide?

[Dav]

Originally posted by hager13:

Hello,

i don't wanna open a new thread as the title perfectly fits. I have never been able to set up a stream which is acceptable for me in regards of quality. All i get is like youtube quality. I have wired Gigabyte LAN and set the Bandwith to 100Mbit. The stats say the estimated bandwith is 130Mbit but incoming bitrate never surpasses 30000 kbit.

Host:
i5 3570@4Ghz
GTX 970

Client
i5 4200U
GT 750M

Hardware decoding and encoding is activated. Quality is set to beautiful. Can anybody help me or is this already the maximum IHS can provide?

Unfortunately IHS will never be able to provide you with an exact 1:1 replica of the image displayed on your monitor (or whatever your host PC is hooked up to).

You could try manually editing your desired bitrate using the method described below:

Originally posted by loler_SK:

Ok guys, I finally found a solution for this issue. Until the steam developers fix this hard-limit bug, you can use this workaround:

As you know, you can set "30Mbps" as the highest bitrate in the steam client settings. "Unlimited" does not work with HW acceleration enabled. So what you have to do is manually edit the steam settings file in any text editor and set the bit rate to any desired value. I've set it to 100000 (100Mbits) and it works great, real stream bitrate is around 80 Mbits and video quality is GREAT.
Steam setting file can be found in:
"c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\xxxxx\config\localconfig.vdf"
and the value you have to change is called "BandwidthLimitKBit" "100000" (for 100Mbits).
So close the steam app, find your settings file, change it, launch steam and enjoy the high quality streaming again.

To steam developers: Please let us choose bitrate higher than 30Mbit, if we have hardware/network for it. It's year 2015, 30Mbit is a joke, Gbit lan and AC routers are standard for many users. Thank you for your hard work anyway.

PS: do not change your steam client settings afterwards, or your bandwidth settings may get overwritten.

[hager13]

Hmm i have tried this but it does not seem to work. The description says "real stream bitrate is around 80Mbits", but mine is always between 20-30Mbits no matter what.

Restarting steam resets the value i edited.

[Dav]

Originally posted by hager13:

Hmm i have tried this but it does not seem to work. The description says "real stream bitrate is around 80Mbits", but mine is always between 20-30Mbits no matter what.

Restarting steam resets the value i edited.

Steam has to be closed while you edit the config file and you can't open the settings while Steam is open or it will reset to default values.

[pofcorn]

Intel Quicksync has pretty bad image quality, in my experience. Try increasing the iGPU memory available in the BIOS.

Also, if you start big picture mode on the host and go to the streaming options, you can choose between the nVidia encoder or the Intel one. As to why this option doesn't exist in the normal interface, I have no idea.

edit: also, 30mbit is all that's needed for 1080P. It's the same with the nVidia Shield (or Moonlight for other Android devices.) Anything more and you increase CPU usage and latency for not that much image quality.