Question / Help 144hz/60hz two Monitors, General Information/Advice

[Wilk]

Hello fellow forumpeople.

I've been starting to stream a couple weeks ago, so I'm by no means an expert. I've been around youtube for about 2 years now, and I decided to try out streaming as well. Naturally, I've encountered some issues, which I was able to solve. Now, I've encountered one major issue that really bugs me.

I've been reading the several posts about pretty much the same issue, also google'd other forums and topics, yet I was not able to get a clear answer of what's causing the issue and if there is any working solution for that.

As you can tell from the title, I'm using a 2 monitor setup when streaming (attemping atleast). The first one runs at 144hz and is plugged to my regular gpu. The second monitor is plugged into my iGPU, due to the fact that it's a very old monitor and it only has a VGA interface and it runs at 60hz

Now I'm having the issue, when I'm playing a game which is not capped at 60 fps, it works just fine, until I start doing things such as previewing the stream or having the stream itself running on the second screen, I'm getting heavy fps flucuations and a very unstable framerate, while it still remains over 60fps it feels much worse. As soon as I move the window 'behind' my game, it'll stop doing that. I have disabled windows aero, that didn't solve the issue

Is there any way to keep the framerate constant on the gaming monitor? Previewing the stream isn't vital, but even the twitchalerts popup of a new follower causes a massive sway of framerates in the game, which is a deathsentence in some games, apart the fact that it's infuriating to not have a constant framerate. Also, not being able to preview the stream is a very useful thing to have, which I would not like to miss, if possible.

My current rig:

OS: Windows 7
CPU: i5-4670
GPU: GTX 770 2gigs
RAM: 16gigs @1600
MB: ASRock H87 Pro4
Current connection: 32 down, 2 up
Streaming @60 fps.

I haven't tried to stream with 30 fps, that might mitigate the impact on the performance, will do some more testing this weekend.

Another question, although I'm not sure if I should be posting that here or create a new topic instead.

Would upgrading my cpu (to a 4770 or 4790) and my gpu (970 or 980) help to increase the performance while streaming?


When streaming a downscaled resolution of 960x540, I had little to no impact on my performance. Naturally, the stream looked quite shitty, but I'm currently limited due to my upload. When I tried streaming/recording with settings at 1280x720, I had a heavy drop of framerate.

I've tried using x264, QuickSync or NVENC, all of them had a considerable drop of performance.

I'm not playing any new flashy games, neither do I play on max settings. I'm an Fpswhore, so I usually cut down my settings to medium to get a steady framerate.

The games I've tried streaming were c9 (probably unknown to most of you) and Smite.

Thanks in advance for taking your time in reading my mumbo jumbo.

Cheers,
Wilk

 

[dping]

Hello fellow forumpeople.

I've been starting to stream a couple weeks ago, so I'm by no means an expert. I've been around youtube for about 2 years now, and I decided to try out streaming as well. Naturally, I've encountered some issues, which I was able to solve. Now, I've encountered one major issue that really bugs me.

I've been reading the several posts about pretty much the same issue, also google'd other forums and topics, yet I was not able to get a clear answer of what's causing the issue and if there is any working solution for that.

As you can tell from the title, I'm using a 2 monitor setup when streaming (attemping atleast). The first one runs at 144hz and is plugged to my regular gpu. The second monitor is plugged into my iGPU, due to the fact that it's a very old monitor and it only has a VGA interface and it runs at 60hz

Now I'm having the issue, when I'm playing a game which is not capped at 60 fps, it works just fine, until I start doing things such as previewing the stream or having the stream itself running on the second screen, I'm getting heavy fps flucuations and a very unstable framerate, while it still remains over 60fps it feels much worse. As soon as I move the window 'behind' my game, it'll stop doing that. I have disabled windows aero, that didn't solve the issue

Is there any way to keep the framerate constant on the gaming monitor? Previewing the stream isn't vital, but even the twitchalerts popup of a new follower causes a massive sway of framerates in the game, which is a deathsentence in some games, apart the fact that it's infuriating to not have a constant framerate. Also, not being able to preview the stream is a very useful thing to have, which I would not like to miss, if possible.

My current rig:

OS: Windows 7
CPU: i5-4670
GPU: GTX 770 2gigs
RAM: 16gigs @1600
MB: ASRock H87 Pro4
Current connection: 32 down, 2 up
Streaming @60 fps.

I haven't tried to stream with 30 fps, that might mitigate the impact on the performance, will do some more testing this weekend.

Another question, although I'm not sure if I should be posting that here or create a new topic instead.

Would upgrading my cpu (to a 4770 or 4790) and my gpu (970 or 980) help to increase the performance while streaming?


When streaming a downscaled resolution of 960x540, I had little to no impact on my performance. Naturally, the stream looked quite shitty, but I'm currently limited due to my upload. When I tried streaming/recording with settings at 1280x720, I had a heavy drop of framerate.

I've tried using x264, QuickSync or NVENC, all of them had a considerable drop of performance.

I'm not playing any new flashy games, neither do I play on max settings. I'm an Fpswhore, so I usually cut down my settings to medium to get a steady framerate.

The games I've tried streaming were c9 (probably unknown to most of you) and Smite.

Thanks in advance for taking your time in reading my mumbo jumbo.

Cheers,
Wilk

first and foremost, Post your logfile from the help menu and copy the link here. This will help us see whats going on in OBS.

Next, watching your own stream in a browser will very often impact performance, try using internet explorer (which odly uses up WAY less CPU thean chrome or firefox).

third, right click on the preview window, select preview and uncheck "enable view" this will disable it. the preview window is sometimes known to cause issues with in-game fps,

Lastly, I 'm assuming you are doing 720@30fps. 2Mbps upload is not enough to make 720@60 to look good, recommended bitrate would be around 1200-1400bitrate and use 480@60fps with that bitrate. If all works well we can check out your CPU usage and maybe squeeze down the CPU preset once at 480@60fps.

 

[Wilk]

Thank you for your reply.

Here's the log

I recorded the footage, didn't stream that one, although the performance impact should be more or the less the same (atleast I hope so)

As mentioned, I was just testing the 720p settings to see how hard it would hit my pc in general. I'm getting a new connection in a couple weeks. The current streaming is done with a downscaling 960x540.

I suppose that there is no solution then to keep the framerate up on your main monitor if you have something on your second screen, thus making the 2nd screen pretty much useless :|

 

[dping]

Thank you for your reply.

Here's the log

I recorded the footage, didn't stream that one, although the performance impact should be more or the less the same (atleast I hope so)

As mentioned, I was just testing the 720p settings to see how hard it would hit my pc in general. I'm getting a new connection in a couple weeks. The current streaming is done with a downscaling 960x540.

I suppose that there is no solution then to keep the framerate up on your main pc if you have something on your second screen, thus making the 2nd screen pretty much useless :|

Incorrect. Use Internet Explorer as I said above. it will work better than chrome or firefox for watching a stream.

 

[Wilk]

But I don't watch the stream o_O That was an example of what's causing the fps issue. I only preview my stream in obs when streaming.

Apart from that, it seems that 60fps is much more power hungry than I thought :|

I'ma test it out nontheless, to see if it will make any difference in terms of fps.

Edit:

Same issue, FPS is unstable as soon as something starts moving a bit more in IE. Guess there is no solution then :|

 

[dping]

But I don't watch the stream o_O That was an example of what's causing the fps issue. I only preview my stream in obs when streaming.

Apart from that, it seems that 60fps is much more power hungry than I thought :|

I'ma test it out nontheless, to see if it will make any difference in terms of fps.

Edit:

Same issue, FPS is unstable as soon as something starts moving a bit more in IE. Guess there is no solution then :|

720@60 is mainly for top i5s overclocked, and i7s. Also overclocked 8core amds do well with 720@60.

 

[Wilk]

Seems like it, guess I need to pick up a new cpu in order to deliver 720p@60fps. Thanks for your answers.

 

[dping]

Seems like it, guess I need to pick up a new cpu in order to deliver 720p@60fps. Thanks for your answers.

Or try out NVENC or Quicksync. NVENC should perform better but they both should be able to do 720@60fps. these are both hardware encoders you already have. expect the equivilent of a 500kbps quality drop with hardware encoders when comparing the quality to x264.

typically, you'll need to make up that quality drop with a little more bitrate (about +500 to the bitrate)

 

[Wilk]

NVENC has sadly very poor quality once it gets a bit hectic on your screen. It's insanely useful for recording due to the minimal impact it has, but when streaming with OBS using that encoder, it still hits the performance alot more than the regular stream option through Shadowplay does (which is barely useful unless you only stream the game).

Quicksync is in between, it delivers a better quality, although hitting (mine atleast) performance more than NVENC, still considerably less than x264 does, which makes sense.

Due to the fact that the softcap is at 3,5k, I cannot crank up the bitrate higher, or rather, I shouldn't. I'll probably go for a new cpu, chances are my socket is not gonna see any new cpu model anyway, so I might as well give it a shot with a more powerful one and see if that helps to keep my framerate steady.

 

[D2ultima]

Wow, another user who understands that NVENC is fast compression and not good for streaming!

As for your issue, it's weird. Technically, your performance should not be hit by anything on screen 2 if you're using the iGPU to crank that out. Does disabling the preview for OBS help at all? You should still be able to see twitchalerts etc as they're in windows instead of in OBS.

If you wish to sort of cut down on excess system usage, there is a cut-down version of firefox called "Palemoon" which you could try to use. Chrome is a system resource devourer, and you did mention that it lags even with only twitchalerts being used. Which is weird to me; it's not supposed to do that at all.

 

[Wilk]

Thanks for the tips.

I'm not entirely sure why this encoder is better than that one, I'm not into the technical details there, but I have a working pair of eyes, so I can tell the difference in quality. I love Shadowplay for recording, especially since I can always leave it on in the background and feel very little to no performanceloss. But it's not bitratefriendly, so to speak.

Well, the performance itself isn't the problem, it simply doesn't grant me steady 144 fps on my main screen. Even when I have less than 50% cpu load. It's not a resource problem at that point. I suppose it's something that tries to even out the framerate on both monitors.

I reached the hardwarelimits when streaming Smite in 720p@60, hence I'll switch over to an i7. Hopefully HT is actually helping in that matter, I will see that in a while.

I use Mozilla, Chrome just chews on ram like crazy, even though I have enough, it bothers me to use weirdly/poorly engineered software.

 

[D2ultima]

Hyperthreading will immensely help. An i7 at 3.5GHz is equivalent to your i5 at 4.4GHz as far as x264 is concerned.

Just because 50% CPU load is shown doesn't mean that one core isn't near maxing. Maxed cores (especially core #1) can cause heavily single-threaded games to roll over and die in framerates. It's why for single-thread heavy games I use task manager to set my OBS' affinity to ignore core #0 for extra framerate and less hitching in those games. The problems REALLY show above 60fps. As a 120Hz screen owner I feel your pain.

I have 16GB and chrome settles somewhere near 5GB or so of usage. Sometimes. It can use more at times.

Try Palemoon and see.

The reason why the encoder is crap is because x264 can put much more compression on than NVENC and Quicksync and AMD VCE etc. Those last three encoders are fast, hardware-based encoders, which are designed for low-impact recording/rendering. They are meant to compensate with lots of bitrate for compression, and thus are bad for streaming with the low bitrates we are forced to use.

 

[Wilk]

Other than monitoring the taskmanager to see the cpu load, I can 'feel' what's happening. It's not a framerate drop that feels like your hardware is hitting the limits. The game runs smoothly, it's just swaying up and down, sometimes down to 72 fps, sometimes to 60 and it usually only takes 1-2 seconds to recover back to 144 fps.

I'm not sure how accurate the taskmanager is, but I look at the graphs representing each core.

I'll try to switch cores to see if that helps. I'll give it a shot with a new cpu. I guess getting a 2nd 144hz monitor could help, but that's just an overkill for me, I don't feel like spending 300 bucks on a monitor that's not used for anything that would benefit from having a higher refreshrate.

 

[D2ultima]

As someone with a 120Hz primary screen and a 60Hz secondary screen, I don't have your huge framedrop problem thing. I hope you leave the 144Hz 2nd monitor for a last resort.

 

[Wilk]

So, my cpu arrived this morning.

The issue with the 2 monitors still remains. I suppose the issue is lying somewhere else, not a hardwarebottleneck.

Streaming in 720p@60 definitely works better now, I am getting 30-40% better framerates with the new cpu, that one definitely helped out.

I'll see if I figure something out to keep my framerate constant.

 

[dping]

So, my cpu arrived this morning.

The issue with the 2 monitors still remains. I suppose the issue is lying somewhere else, not a hardwarebottleneck.

Streaming in 720p@60 definitely works better now, I am getting 30-40% better framerates with the new cpu, that one definitely helped out.

I'll see if I figure something out to keep my framerate constant.

Which CPU did you get?

Also, have you attempted to plug in both monitors to the same GPU? TBH, there is no reason why you couldn't try.

 

[Wilk]

i7 - 4790.
I had bad luck oc'ing in the past, so I tend to stick to regular hardware these days.

I did a couple days ago when my new monitor arrived. My old monitor does only have a vga interface, my videocard doesn't have that, so I would have to transform the signal, hence I opted in for a new monitor in general.

I'm starting to think it's some sort of software issue. It tries to match the framerates on both monitors as soon as something is being displayed on the second monitor that has a bit of motion going on.

 

[dping]

i7 - 4790.
I had bad luck oc'ing in the past, so I tend to stick to regular hardware these days.

I did a couple days ago when my new monitor arrived. My old monitor does only have a vga interface, my videocard doesn't have that, so I would have to transform the signal, hence I opted in for a new monitor in general.

I'm starting to think it's some sort of software issue. It tries to match the framerates on both monitors as soon as something is being displayed on the second monitor that has a bit of motion going on.

Your best bet is to not preview your stream or have another stream up while you encode. I've seen the preview window make a hexcore studder that and having a stream up. Best bet is when you do open a stream while streaming, use internet explorer to which.

Anyway, I know we've talked about this, but you are saying two things which is confusing,

you are trying to fix a problem that you say you aren't doing...

i.e. I get studdering when I watch a stream then you say I dont watch a stream while I stream later on,

so bottom line, what do you want help with fixing good sir :)

 

[Wilk]

Heh,

good point there, been contradicting myself there a bit.

I would want to preview my stream, although I can go by without it, I can keep track of things with twitchalerts as well. That didn't bother me so far (only once in 5 hours, neglectable)

I still don't think it's hardware issue, even displaying my taskmanager and speedfan causes a minor fps drop and a very wacky feeling game, which feels like it's running at 50 fps. Might be a problem with the game itself though.

It only affects the performance when being visible, if I 'hide' them behind the game on the main screen, there's no issue at all.