As other have said, compression is the culprit.
a lot of cable-modems these days also do on-the-fly compression to their head-end, and that can also artificially inflate speedtest results, even when not using a VPN. Speedtest.net seems to use hugely compressible data (they're idiots), which leads to massive inaccuracies.
Try the http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest speedtester, or http://www.testmy.net/ tester. They both actually use properly incompressible data, which is the only way to get accurate results.
Some shady ISPs will boost priority to speedtest.net so connections appear to be faster.
Try an alternate site like http://www.testmy.net and see if the results are the same or not. If you have a smartphone I would also recommend testing on both the phone and the computer.
If any of those results vary the problem can be isolated.
Your packets may take a different path to twitch than they do to speedtest.net
Some shady ISPs will also give speedtest.net higher priority than other connections so people think their connections are faster than they really are. You can test with an alternate like [http://www.testmy.net](testmy.net) to confirm.
Well I would use a real speedtest that isnt bought out by ISPs such as testmy.net. If your internet is really this fast, you should be fine though. I'd recommend 720p60fps, your pc should be able to handle it.
Don't use Speedtest, it's usually inaccurate, use testmy.net
Other than that, nice guide!
If anyone wants more info, I also recommend reading through the "Best Guide of 2015" Full Guide for Stream Beginners! and Beginner's Guide to Streaming :D
Depends, give a check to testmy.net and see what you are paying for now. Use this as your baseline and whether or not you are currently satisfied with it.
Netflix currently recommends 25 megabits for 4k, due to the way streaming works you could most likely stream a second one simultaneously without paying for 50 megabits.
Phone and laptop netflix will use less bandwidth, email/browsing does not take too much bandwidth but will burst up during certain high traffic events. (Youtube, uploading large attachments, etc)
When you mention torrenting movies do you want to watch them right away or do you often leave them downloading on a computer overnight?
Depending on the level of tech savvy you and your roommates have you could setup a technology called QoS to guarantee higher priority to latency sensitive things like gaming which could allow better utilization and performance of a crowded network.
Use TestMy.
I'm on the AIS 50mb/sec package. I get 50mb/sec within SE Asia irrespective of time of day; I get 26mb/sec from Los Angeles, which is to be expected due to TCP RTTs.
No throttling, AFAICT.
Don't use speedtest, is usually inaccurate. Use testmy.net instead.
What are your results when using this?
When you say "stutters a lot" do you mean the framerate? Or do you mean that the video buffers a lot?
Also, don't use speedtest.net, it's generally inaccurate, use testmy.net instead.
It's generally not advised to stream from a laptop as you tend to run into performance issues.
What do you have your CPU preset on? You could try using a faster CPU preset as that will give you better performance, but at the cost of quality.
Don't use speedtest, they are usually inaccurate. Use testmy.net instead.
Put your specs into this estimator and it'll give you a good idea on where to start for your settings.
testmy.net will tell you if it's your network speed that's causing the issue (Click "Test My Internet +" and select "Combined").
I have slow downloads while I'm at my SO's house, because the Internet there is slower (~8 Mbps download). I don't have slow downloads at my house, because the Internet is faster (~20 Mbps download).
Another thing to consider is the time of day you're downloading the file. The game files are coming from Nintendo's servers, so if it's a peak time of day for people to be downloading software or using the eShop, then you'll experience a slower download speed. I almost always download my games between 2am-8am EST, and even with the slow connection at my SO's house, the downloads don't take too terribly long.
Don't worry networking is a special dark art on it's own so asking questions is the right thing to do when you are unsure.
If you want to check your speeds then I recommend using Testmy.net in the future but everyone has their own favourite they trust.
Ok I just needed to make sure I understood what you were saying.
Let's start from the beginning again, can you tell me if you are using wifi or ethernet and what your ISP advertised speed is then can you run a speed test using testmy.net and let me know the combined results please.
I'm guessing the each floor is on a different circuit breaker?
Just out of curiosity can you run a speed test using testmy.net on the PC and then afterwards run it on your phone while sitting at your desk and tell me the speeds please.
Orange light tells me it's connected at 10mpbs which is strange.
You most likely have the Windows update issue so revert your last update and then reinstall it and check your speeds with Testmy.net.
Powerline adapters rarely get the advertised speeds as it depends on so many factors outside of your control.
Can you run the speed test Testmy.net on the following devices and let me know the speeds so I can work out where the issue is:
Phone on wifi
Your PC on powerline
3 a different device plugged into the same powerline cable as the PC
Range depends on many things like what the house is made of and also your neighbor's wireless networks.
Is your PC portable or do you have a phone that you can run Testmy.net on next to the router and the room you are having the problems in and let me know both the speeds.
What is testmy.net showing?
Powerline isn't great technology to be honest and from my experience in the field is on par with wireless but that doesn't mean this is causing your issue here.
If you want to know what speeds your ISP is giving you then use testmy.net but steam and chrome do the downloads in megabytes so you need to convert those to the correct format to understand.
Ok CAT7 is fine.
Can you run the following for me please:
On your PC run testmy.net and let me know the speed
Using exactly the same cabling test the Max with the same site and tell me the speed.
Also have you got any WiFi cards in use on your PC at the moment?
That sounds like a server side issue not a client side issue.
Use testmy.net and report back the speeds it say, run it a few times if you think you have an intermittent issue.
Ok this is something we can test then.
A few questions then to start:
Are you running WiFi or ethernet?
Have you tried other devices to see if they suffer from the same problem?
Have you run testmy.net on the combined option?
Thanks I'm going to look that up quick in the mean time can you run this network test and also let me know what speeds you should be getting.
If you could then disable the WiFi and run the same test on ethernet so I can compare them that will help me too.
There is no set answer, you would need to have enough bandwidth to deliver the stream and your other network traffic.
802.11ac is the current standard and will provide more bandwidth than most need.
802.11n is the old standard and would probably be ok, it's largest issue is the 2.4 ghz modes which are subject to a lot of interference and can slow down in crowded areas. But if you are just at home that is unlikely to be an issue.
How fast of an internet connection do you have at home? This is where your problems will most likely be if you do not know you can run a quick speedtest through a site like testmy.net to get an approximation.
If you could provide your upload speed, OBS settings, and your PC specs that'd be a great start! :D Use testmy.net for accurate results.
You mention that your internet isn't great so 1080p streaming probably isn't a viable option for you.
>I'm also not sure if it's twitch or not as I've been trying all of their servers, and even moved to Hitbox to see if I could stream there, with no luck.
You answered your own question right there. This along with the fact that everyone else in your house is having issues streaming too means it more than likely your ISP.
What are your results when using testmy.net?
Don't use speedtest, it's usually inaccurate, use testmy.net instead.
There's a couple basic troubleshooting things we can try.
Clear your cache and do a hard reload (CTRL+F5).
Disable all your extensions, one of them may be causing it.
Try a different browser, this will help determine if it's a browser independent problem or not.
Also try testing in an incognito window.
>Nvidia GeForce Experience (Beta)
When streaming through there you are using Nvidia NVENC, not x264. So you are doing your encoding through your GPU not your CPU. x264 will always give you better quality per bitrate than any other encoder.
I suggest you switch to OBS (It's better than Nvidia Experience anyways).
Set your bitrate to 2500, downscale to 720p, set your FPS to 30, and make your CPU preset to "veryfast."
You should see an improvement in quality and if you want you can increase your bitrate higher/use a slower CPU preset/stream at 60fps, this is just a starting point. Just know that the higher the FPS you stream at, the lower the quality gets.
>the moment I hit 4Mbps my stream buffers
What's your download speed? Use testmy.net to get an accurate estimate.
Also, I don't recommend watching your own stream from the same PC you're streaming from.
Try all of the ingest servers, not just a couple.
When your bit-rate drops, do your other network activities drop as well? Say if you've got a Skype call going does that drop for a second? Does your game lag at that time? What speed do you get at http://www.testmy.net/upload
Implying speedtest.net test results are at all reliable regarding the true speed of their flash based test. I recommend using http://www.testmy.net as they are the only testing website that has given me truly raw and unbiased results.
I see that you've tried quite a few things, even going so far as to replace hardware.
Just read through your post history, is this test really reporting that you have an upload rate of ~750kb/s?
If so, that's an issue.