OBS ( OPEN BROADCASTER) ISSUES

So I used to be able to stream on twitch months and months ago fine using OBS, same with local recording. I fired it back up and i've adjusted all the settings in every direction and been googling like crazy and cant find any help. My issue is weird stuttering/jerky/choppy recording/broadcasts. the game will be playing smoothly, but the game in OBS looks like crap and jerks all over the place in the footage, even though in obs itself, itll say im getting 60fps.

has anyone had this issue before?

 

Sorry no. Maybe @D2 Ultima can give you some pointers.

 

Are you recording the same game, and using the 880M as the video adapter to record on? And what settings, and which version of OBS?

 

ive tried the 32 and 64bits. no difference. ive tried the x264 and quiksync and nvenc. no difference. even when i set it to the fastest encoder and lower the resolution. for some reason, the issue isnt as present if i play the game in windowed borderless versus fullscreen. like i said, i didnt have this issue before half a year ago. same settings. same specs. same set up. its weird

 

So same spec, same game, same setup? Could you tell me the game? And could you tell me what version of OBS? There's OBS Classic (old OBS) and OBS Studio (aka OBS Multiplatform).

 

how do you know which version? it just says obs. and it doesnt matter which game. its all of them. itll tell me in red '' high cpu encoding usage. lower settings'' and ive literally lowered the settings to even 480p and lowest quality encoding with fastest presets. my cpu usage will be around 40-60 percent even when gaming. clearly enough headroom with my i7.,...

 

Send me a screenshot of your OBS and a log file. There should be an option under "help" at the top where you can upload your latest log file to github. Send me that link, and make sure it's dated the last time you tried making a recording. I need it to have recording data in it otherwise I can't check or tell anything.

 

https://gist.github.com/a116a64aecb60141a778d89c212c37bb

i clicked analyze and its saying a bunch of false things.

heres what the output looks like. its jerky, but you can see my cpu usage is pretty low. like i said, its all games. just using battlefront as an example. when im actually playing it, its super smooth and fine. its just the output that looks jerky.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src=" " frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

1 - You are thermal throttling on your CPU. It is hitting 98c.
2 - You are thermal throttling on your GPU. It is hitting 92c.
3 - You are recording in 1920 x 1080 using "veryfast" with x264 on a CPU-heavy title that is GPU-limited... your CPU usage should be rather huge, but I suspect that its throttling is an issue.
4 - Maxed out GPU usage will cause stutter in OBS because you need some GPU power to record or stream. It is minute, but you would fare much better lowering the game's settings to get 60fps constantly with leftover GPU power, and then recording.
5 - You are using OBS Classic.
6 - Your bitrate is WAY too low to function for a clear 1080p 60fps recording. Try using about 25,000 to 40,000 bitrate and using NVENC with "high performance" (GM2xx is needed for "high quality" at 1080/60) or x264 with "ultrafast".
7 - Disable "CFR" if you're getting under the desired FPS in-game. It's forcing you to try and grab 60fps from a sub-60fps title in this case. In fact, I'd say disable it regardless of what you're doing.
8 - Don't sync audio to video timestamps. You have that option checked; uncheck it. It's to fix a problem you are unlikely to have.
9 - Have you tried it on any other game? For example, locking CoD: Black Ops 2 to 60fps and attempting to record should not produce such a choppy state; a single 780M can clear 60fps 24/7 in that game at max graphics.
10 - Later you raised the bitrate but made the compression "slower". Don't do that. The "slower" the x264 preset, the more compression (and thus CPU) it uses. Let me make this clear. 1920 x 1080 60fps recording using "slower" at 5000 bitrate *MIGHT* be possible on an i7-5960X at 4.6GHz. *MIGHT*.
11 - I saw you use NVENC with "autoselect" for the profile and "main". You may want to use "high" and "high performance" to record with, and you'll need far more bitrate for it to even be close to viewable. Like 12,000 with a 15,000 buffer for 1080p 30fps like you tried.
12 - Finally, are you recording to a HDD that SWBF is also installed on? And is your pagefile on that HDD and not your SSD?

 

everything is on my SSD. i dont use an HDD. and before i do any of that, should i download the other and newer version of OBS?

also i just put the game at low settings with vsync and got a steady 60fps and tried it again and it worked smoothly. i realized that this issue never happened with games that could stay at 60fps. when i used to stream a lot, i did bf4 and could get 60fps with no aa just fine, so thats why i never had that issue. so in the department of recording smooth gameplay fullscreen, im screwed?

can you tell me why with windowed borderless though i dont get any jerky stuttering? ultra settings and around 301-40fps yet OBS is still smooth? weird...

 

Probably your OS, the hooking type, and the window type. BF4 (and I assume possibly Hardline and SWBF) set their game as a "windows tool window" type of window, which means it doesn't count itself like most games or programs would. OBS wouldn't even hook to it at all back in the day; I had to tell Jim about it and have him patch in an exception to use game capture for BF4. If I were to take a guess... did you use monitor capture for borderless windowed recording per chance?

Anyway, there you found your fix, and this is why I asked the game in my first post and asked if it was the same game you tried years back. Newer version of OBS will probably do the same thing, but feel free to try; you can keep both installed and launch which one you want. You need excess GPU power to stream most games. Even if it's slight; like 4% of the GPU. It's why some games that'll max out FPS but not use 99% of a GPU (maybe 95% or so) will not produce this error in OBS. Xsplit tends to brute-force take the resources from one's PC first, and games and programs get them second, so when you're at the limit of your PC, you might find Xsplit to be more uhh... "reliable"... in that respect, but the resources they take are more than OBS or FFSplit or whatever else you might use and they own no "game capture" software, so that in itself makes them inferior (not even considering their price).

Please note that OBS studio is a very different program with a very different setup and a very different hook mechanic. If you note any problems using it tied to any programs, try opening OBS, deleting any captures hooked to anything that is giving an issue, then closing OBS and attempting to do whatever it is you were attempting to do. It's a change designed for stability of scene switching and such for streamers, but its compromise is that it's a bit of a headache for more advanced/knowledge-able users who want things to be separate (like a webcam being 720p in one scene and then 480p in another).

And do something about your temps. Even if it's slight usage with NVENC, OBS itself takes extra CPU and extra GPU usage from you, and that WILL add some modicum of heat. If you find your CPU temperatures are going to 98c during recording, you may either wish to reduce your overclock or increase your cooling somehow (liquid ultra, lapping your heatsink, propping the laptop, using a cooler room, etc). Same goes for your GPU, which mostly attained 993MHz, which on a 8GB 880M is asking the card to roast marshmellows for you, especially in anything running in, but not limited to:
- Frostbite 3
- Cryengine 3
- Unreal Engine 4


Edit: *dusts Livestreaming Master title and polishes it*

 

It means Open Broadcaster Software.