# Set Replay Buffer Max Ram



## loopy2mn (May 7, 2020)

Heyo! i've fallen completely in love with obs's replay buffer but the 8GB ram limit makes it almost pointless for me, i record on 50000 Bitrate With CBR, and i have 128GB of ram, i know this seems like a one off situation, but i've seen quite a few threads asking for it. and it's not even on the list of features to vote on. this feature is above and beyond all other flashback softwares potential. i urge you to give us a customizable ram assignment for the flashback. i don't even understand why it offers an estimated memory usage if i can't even give it to the program, mine currently pumps out with my settings 1 minute and 52 seconds worth and don't get me wrong this is beyond amazing compared to nothing. but i feel for those of us who use this feature even if it had an "at your own risk warning" i would be unbelievably grateful! at the moment i've settled with dropping my bitrate heavily to allow breathing room which does pump out a much nicer 5-6 minutes but that is at the risk of video quality and im a complete quality whore!. please consider this!


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## dodgepong (May 7, 2020)

loopy2mn said:


> it's not even on the list of features to vote on


Feel free to add it to the list yourself!

Alternatively, there is this potential solution, which is more widely applicable: https://ideas.obsproject.com/posts/777/replay-buffer-to-an-ssd-hdd-instead-of-ram


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## loopy2mn (May 7, 2020)

Goodness! did not expect a reply from the Admin themselves! awesome i'll add it immediately! i wasn't aware we could add it ourselves aha! just curious if you know, any guess at how hard that would actually be to impliment?


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## dodgepong (May 7, 2020)

Perhaps a better question is why you're trying to use such a large replay buffer? What need does the replay buffer meet in this case that a regular recording does not?


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## loopy2mn (May 8, 2020)

we normally play for several hours and i'd hate to spend several hours sifting through clips for one moment, paradoxically if we have a really funny league game which can last up to 45 minutes i don't want to smash replay buffer every 2 minutes. where as if im writing about 50GB for our 2 hour playsessions to go in the bin i'm going to burn through an SSD in a very short amount of time. i guess it's a quality of life that would make a world of difference to me? and some others???


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## dodgepong (May 8, 2020)

Have you considered using the InfoWriter plugin? It can log timestamps to a log with a hotkey, and then you can skim through the recorded file later to those timestamps: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/infowriter.345/


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## loopy2mn (May 8, 2020)

i have indeed! there are several times when something hilarious is said and then i hit record, and it all dies down. point is i can save all those moments with this feature. i'm not sure why i need so many reasons to want this feature?


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## dodgepong (May 8, 2020)

You don't need reasons to want this feature personally, but you do need to sell us on the feature.

Our responsibility is to everybody who uses OBS. The OBS Project has a limited development team and an enormous user base, so when someone wants a new feature, we have to ask ourselves several questions, such as:

Does this make the program more difficult to understand or use?
I would argue that this makes it harder to understand, because now users have to understand what RAM is, how much RAM they have, and how their bitrate and quality settings affect their RAM usage for replay buffer. Is RAM something that users _should_ know about? Sure. Is RAM something that we want to _require_ users know about? No. It should "just work".

How many users are affected by a lack of this feature?
According to the April 2020 Steam hardware survey (which self-selects for higher-end gaming systems), 92.48% of users have 16GB or RAM or less. 49.82% of users have 8GB of RAM or less. Thus, the number of users who both have copious amounts of spare RAM and a need to record long videos at high bitrate is extremely minimal.

Can the need that this feature meets be met in some other way? How difficult are the workarounds?
This is why I'm asking you why you want to do this, and to see what the shortcomings are of the other solutions. It sounds like the main alternatives would be:
Record at a lower bitrate
but you don't want to sacrifice quality

Implement saving of replay buffers on a disk drive
but you're concerned for your SSD's lifespan, though this solution would probably be more appropriate for the majority of users based on the amount of RAM people have in their systems above

Do a normal recording and save timestamps to edit later in an editor
But I guess that's a giant hassle for some reason



So are we going to implement a feature that affects a very minimal number of users and has a reasonable workaround that just requires using an editor? Maybe, but right now it sounds pretty low priority to me. So again, it's your job to convince us that it's worth our time to implement this.


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## gkndy07 (May 13, 2021)

I'm a little late to the party so hopefully this is still seen. But I think I can add a bit more to the request of more than 8GB for the replay buffer.

@dodgepong your main argument is that adding more than 8GB to the buffer makes things a bit too complicated for non-technical users.  It should "just work". However it doesn't have to be a complicated setting. It should be pretty simple to create a disclaimer saying to not exceed a percentage of memory and how to check what you have available.

You mentioned 92.48% of users have 16GB or RAM or less. So for the majority of users, OBS already allows them to use *half* of their total system memory just for the replay buffer. This is already some heavy memory usage for somebody that doesn't have a clue what memory is. I feel that it would be better to remove the artificial 8GB limit for those that know what they are doing. Then for those that don't, the disclaimer at the bottom would give them a rough estimate of how much memory they should be using and how to avoid performance hits.

I know you will want an example of why I can't simply record instead, so here it is: Say I want to play Apex Legends with my friends for 6 hours in a day. Normally these matches take anywhere from 20-25 minutes. It is far easier to click save from the replay buffer after a good match, versus starting/stopping a recording before and after each match, then deleting files that I don't even need. Remember, my primary focus here is to play video games with my friends - not to micromanage recordings.

At 1440p, the 8GB limit caps out at just over 6 minutes of video. So if I decide a match was a keeper at the end, then I've only captured the last 6 minutes of a 20 minute match. Now I know I can reduce the resolution to 1080p or lower the bitrate. But why should we have to do this?

Does this issue affect the mass majority of your users right now in early 2021? - No.
Does this issue have a relatively simple solution that will make a lot of users happy? - Yes.
Do you lose potential users to Nvidia ShadowPlay because of this? - Absolutely.


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## qhobbes (May 13, 2021)

Solution for OP: Create a RAM Disk using a program such as ImDisk and have OBS record to that drive. Then copy file to SSD if you want to save it.


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## dodgepong (May 13, 2021)

gkndy07 said:


> Do you lose potential users to Nvidia ShadowPlay because of this? - Absolutely.


I'm confused, why aren't you using ShadowPlay to begin with? If all you're doing is recording raw gameplay footage, it sounds like that's the more appropriate tool for you, and you don't need OBS at all.

If you think the OBS team is "scared" of "losing" users to ShadowPlay, you're wrong. I would prefer people use the right tool for the job they are doing. ShadowPlay is a specialized program that might be more appropriate for what you're trying to do.

OBS is not game recording software. It's video production software that has the ability to record games.


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## gkndy07 (May 13, 2021)

My point wasn't to be "scared". It was why can't OBS do it all? ShadowPlay is extremely limiting in the recoding settings. Why send people away to a different software instead of being open to feedback?

I provided a pretty simple solution to the issue and you haven't addressed why this can't be added. You said to "sell" you on the idea -  so as a business I would think you would want as many users as possible.

I really don't see the negative side to adding this feature. Selecting an amount lower than your system memory isn't anymore complicated than selecting the correct video encoder for your recording. I guarantee most non-technical users are looking guides on how to set this stuff up anyways.

OBS is not game recording software, but many of your users do use it for the purpose.


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## LoveBatts (Oct 23, 2021)

OBS: "We don't allow you to allocate more than 8GB of RAM to recordings because we want OBS to be easy to use by the masses.  We don't want users using all their available RAM and getting confused."

Also OBS...


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