How to stop frame drops in a Twitch stream

Streaming is one of the most accessible activities in the gaming world. After all, you just need a stable internet connection and a gaming computer powerful enough to provide a smooth gaming experience to stream your games.

While your personality as a streamer and the game you’re playing will be important when it comes to capturing your audience’s attention, so should the quality of your stream. If you frequently drop frames during your live stream, it may be difficult for viewers to keep up with your stream.

In general, you may not notice when your stream starts dropping frames. Viewers, if you have, will notice these drops because the stream will freeze for a brief moment and cause them to miss a few seconds of the action.

If viewers have been complaining about dropping frames recently, you should fix the problem and improve your stream.

Here’s how you can stop frame drops during a Twitch stream.

Change your bitrate

Adjusting your bitrate will often be the fastest way to drop frames on Twitch. Bitrate stands for the amount of data you send to Twitch while streaming.

If you set the bitrate too high for a slow Internet, you will start to drop frames, which means you may need to slow it down. The higher this value, the better your stream will look, but there will be limits based on your system. Considering streaming shows can’t determine these limits on their own, you’ll need to find them through trial and error.

Reducing your bitrate by small margins won’t have any discernible effect. You can also try reducing your output resolution as it will reduce the number of frames that you will be working with.

After reducing your stream’s resolution and bitrate, it’s easier to upload visual input and eliminate frame drops.

If you haven’t adjusted your bitrate before, the process will be different depending on the software you use to stream. However, the internet is full of useful tutorials, and you can probably find one that explains how you can change your bitrate on your software of choice.

Spreaders who are unsure of their bitrate can watch this tutorial by Twitch, which shows the best bitrate settings for each resolution.

Troubleshoot your upload speed

When you stream on Twitch, you’ll be uploading more than you’re downloading. Most internet service providers (ISPs) only advertise the download speed of their packages, which means your upload speed may be slower than you expect.

Run a speed test to see how your upload speed compares to your download speed. On average, upload speeds of around 4.4 Mbps and 6.2 Mbps are enough for smooth streaming at 1080p at 30 FPS. Even increasing the FPS for your stream while keeping the resolution at the same level may require faster Internet.

Advertisers with lower upload speeds will need to contact their ISP and potentially upgrade their internet plan, which will have a variable cost depending on where in the world you live.

No streaming on Wi-F

Connecting wirelessly to your router will be easier than dealing with a cable, but the connection quality will likely be worse than a wired connection. While this can be hard to notice for casual players, it can make a difference when it comes to streaming.

If you experience frame drops when streaming on Wi-Fi, try connecting to your router using Ethernet cable.

Try different broadcast servers

Depending on where you live, you may have a few broadcast servers available to you. While this is rare, broadcast servers can crash and cause broadcasters to experience dropped frames and other errors.

If you live in an area with a lot of server options, try a different server to see if it makes a difference.

Restart your stream

In rare cases, you can start to drop frames due to software related bugs. People who spread useful information with debugging tools can try to figure out exactly what could be wrong with their streams. But restarting it can also fix the problem.

End your stream and exit the stream of your choice entirely. Combining this method with an Ethernet cable is also recommended as you will be covering multiple bases in one go.

Restart your router and change your DNS

A simple router reset can be enough to fix many connection problems. When you reset your modem, you will be assigned a new connection route between you and your ISP. This will also do the same for your connection to Twitch’s broadcast servers, and a fresh start like this can fix your dropped frames.

While resetting the router, you can also try changing your DNS. Most players use the DNS address provided by their ISP, which can also be disconnected from time to time. This can cause dropped frames or other connection problems.

Contact Twitch Support

If the quality of your connection is top-notch and your streaming software is optimized for the best experience, but you’re still experiencing dropped frames while streaming, you may have to contact Twitch.

In cases like these, Twitch will likely investigate the broadcast server closest to you and see if it has any issues. Once the broadcast server starts having problems with your ISP, the methods above won’t fix your frame drops and it’s up to Twitch to find the root of the problem.

When Twitch arrives, the expected arrival time of the fix will change. It can take hours or even days.