Streamlabs OBS is a great and very popular live streaming tool built on top of the open-source OBS platform, with lots of customization features and the ability to stream to multiple platforms at once.
Still, no matter how well you set up your widgets, layout, and recording settings, your Internet connection ultimately makes or breaks a successful stream. Whether you're going live on Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, or all 3 - you'll need fast and reliable upload connectivity in order to get the best video quality for your Streamlabs OBS stream.
When the Internet is bad, your stream can be affected by issues like dropped frames, buffering, pixelated video quality and even disconnects from the streaming server. When that happens:
- You appear unprofessional to your audience
- You may even lose followers, if this happens frequently
- The activity you’re streaming can also be affected - for example, you can lose progress in a game or people can miss important bits from a discussion or interview
Troubleshooting Streamlabs OBS Internet Issues
Why is your stream experiencing issues? Why does Streamlabs OBS keep disconnecting? How can you avoid dropped frames?
These are just a few of the questions that often come up in the live streaming community. As per this article from Streamlabs OBS, dropped frames, low stream quality and disconnects can have 2 main causes:
- High CPU / GPU usage - which causes lagged and skipped frames, which can affect the stream quality.
Solutions: lowering the quality, limiting FPS, use multiple of 30/60 FPS for your game settings, use hardware encoding instead of software encoding. - Network issues - causing dropped frames and disconnects.
Solutions: contact your ISP, choose another streaming server, restart your network equipment - more in this comprehensive troubleshooting guide.
Broadcasting with Streamlabs OBS requires a steady and fast Internet connection so your stream’s video quality doesn’t drop or disconnect. That’s why Internet connectivity is very important. Here at Speedify we get that - our service does everything to help live streaming - from optimizing live streams to making sure you never get offline during a stream.
Fix Streamlabs OBS Dropped Frames and Avoid Disconnects
Most Twitch streamers use Streamlabs OBS as their preferred platform for live streaming - it’s available for free, it’s got all the bells and whistles you may want, and it’s very user-friendly.
Since here at Speedify we help content creators from Twitch and other platforms improve their live streams, we always want to know exactly how much our service helps live streamers. So, we put Speedify to the test with Streamlabs OBS. This article shares the results we got from testing and how you can enhance your live streams.
Testing Speedify with Streamlabs OBS
How Speedify Helps Avoid Live Streaming Issues on Twitch with Streamlabs OBS
If you're looking to try streaming with Speedify and StreamLabs OBS yourself, here's a quick tutorial to help you get started:
Speedify - a Must Have for Live Streaming on Twitch with Streamlabs OBS with No Internet Issues
There are many online reviews and discussions where streamers agree that Speedify helps their live streaming. But we wanted to test it ourselves and see exactly how much it does that. Especially now, when we have the brand new Speedify protocol in place.
Test setup: our goal is to evaluate Twitch streaming improvements with Streamlabs OBS when using Speedify vs. not using Speedify. So we ran multiple tests for 2-4 hours periods, which is essential for how long Twitch streams last, on average. Data is according to the Twitch Inspector tool.
All tests were conducted via Streamlabs OBS Studio on a PC with the following configuration:
Operating system: Windows 10 19H2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 (4 core 8 threads), 3.9 Ghz
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1060, 6 GB GDDR5
Video source: 1080p video file
Video resolution 1080p
Streaming quality: 1080p
Twitch streaming server: AT (Austria)
Speedify server: Vienna (Austria)
Streamlabs OBS settings were left to their default, using optimized encoder settings, with the stream optimizer active.
Testing scenarios: we tested with and without Speedify using one or more of these Internet connections:
- Fibre optic 120 Mbps download / 60 Mbps upload
- Mobile internet: two 3G connections - 10 Mbps download / 5 Mbps upload
- Spotty Wi-Fi from neighbors
Here are the results:
|
Average bitrate (Mbps) |
Fibre 120 / 60 Mbps |
Spotty Wi-Fi |
Spotty Wi-Fi + 3G |
Spotty Wi-Fi + 2 x 3G |
|
Streamlabs OBS, no Speedify |
5724 |
4176 |
not possible |
not possible |
|
Streamlabs OBS with Speedify running |
5873 |
4667 |
5539 |
6350 |
Takeaways after testing:
- Even when using Speedify with a single fast connection (fibre), there’s an increase in performance of about 3%.
- When using a single slow and spotty Wi-Fi internet connection, Speedify improves the average bitrate by 12%.
- Speedify also got us 11% more on the average bitrate when we combined the slow and spotty Wi-Fi connection with 2 mobile data 3G connections of 10 / 5 Mbps each.
As shown above, Speedify truly improves the average bitrate, and thus, the quality of your live stream, even when used with a single Internet connection. Twelve percent might not seem like much, but if you translate that into dropped frames or video quality, it would be noticeable.
In fact, we are always testing Speedify with live streaming for each new release. We find that as the Internet connection has a higher packet loss rate, we see a higher improvement with Speedify than without it, especially with Speedify's UDP and Multi-TCP protocols.
Speedify Bonding Software vs. Hardware Bonding - LiveU, Peplink - Which Is Better?
Another much more costly solution for combining connections comes in the form of dedicated hardware rigs, such as the LiveU series or Peplink bonding routers. Ultimately it’s your choice, but here are the main perks Speedify brings to the table versus those hardware options:
- the Speedify protocol - opening up to 8 parallel sockets on each combined connection and intelligently utilizing them to prioritize your streaming traffic
- dedicated servers for those truly dedicated live streamers - more performance, closer to the streaming ingest servers, and guaranteed service level agreements.
- flexibility - you don’t have to carry a dedicated bonding device with you. Speedify can run on the device you’re streaming from. Or you can use Speedify to set up a custom dedicated bonding router on Windows or Linux, if you want.
- cost - only a small fraction of what you have to pay for the dedicated hardware.
And don’t take our word for it. Here’s what somebody whose company and job depends on successful live streaming has to say about Speedify:
Download Speedify
Speedify is the only app that combines your wifi, cellular, wired, and even your friend’s phone signals – and turns them into one ultra-fast and super secure link that keeps you all connected for the best possible live streaming, video calling, or just posting to your favorite app.
