3700x dual pc encoding lag = dropped frames

FortuN

Member
So, just bought a 2nd streaming pc. Thought it would do good at 1080p (ofc) and medium preset. However it drops frames alot. Using profile "main" it drops like 20 frames in like 2 minutes.

Setup is

Msi Tomahawk max
3700x
4gb @ 2400mhz (might this be a problem??)
660TI.

Any idea? I don't know if the ram could impact in this. While stremaing it only gets to around 3gb ram usage.
 

deFrisselle

Member
Yeah, I'd at least double the RAM Also, why the 660Ti and not an 1650 Guess you're encoding on the CPU then

As always, Please do a short streaming or recording session and post the log of it That will give some insight to the issue
Thanks
 

FortuN

Member
The thing is, OBS recommends, but says "not necessary" 4 gb of ram. I wonder if that at all could impact the frame drops. Im just using my really old pc, with upgraded mb and processor for doing the stream. I did previosly do it on my 3080 but the performance impact is to big for Warzone, so thats why i did a dual setup instead with elgato.
 

FerretBomb

Active Member
Latest logfile with 42 (0,2%) skipped frame due to encoding lag (cant post it in code form here since there is some shitty limit of 15.000 characters so had to find another website)
You can (and should) just attach the logfile itself as a file.

It looks like that contains multiple attempts, most of them with no encoding lag.
In your case, as there's no rendering lag, it's most likely just your CPU being over-loaded at Medium. The 4GB RAM could be contributing though, yes. Bare-minimum for Win10 IMO is 8GB, and prefer 16GB for a production system.

That said, if your gaming PC has an nVidia 1660 or newer nVidia card, NVENC delivers encoding performance on-par with x264 Slow with zero gaming impact. It makes 2PC setups effectively pointless, outside of some very limited edge cases.
 

FortuN

Member
You can (and should) just attach the logfile itself as a file.

It looks like that contains multiple attempts, most of them with no encoding lag.
In your case, as there's no rendering lag, it's most likely just your CPU being over-loaded at Medium. The 4GB RAM could be contributing though, yes. Bare-minimum for Win10 IMO is 8GB, and prefer 16GB for a production system.

That said, if your gaming PC has an nVidia 1660 or newer nVidia card, NVENC delivers encoding performance on-par with x264 Slow with zero gaming impact. It makes 2PC setups effectively pointless, outside of some very limited edge cases.

Theres no rendering lag almost, just encoding which is CPU. I've read on some on the Ryzen series and it seems it REALLY depends alot on ram and ram speed, like a lot. Just ordered 8gb 3600mhz to see if there is any difference.

About nvenc, as i said, i have a 3080 and using nvenc is indeed loweing the performance. As some states, it not only uses "a separate video encoder". I gave up using it as streaming since the drop is from like 135-145 fps to around 95fps in Warzone when using nvenc. Obs uses around 25% of GPU when using nvenc with a game. I know that some says that its just the video encoder and that the taskmanager is not displaying it right, but the massive fps drop is still there. And theres alot of people having the same problem with this sadly.

Also when using it, i notice that for example it has really hard rendering my webcam, making it blurry alot when playing, while x264 on medium did it better, alhough not perfect. And this is with a bitrate of 8000.
 

FerretBomb

Active Member
Most significant framerate drops like that with NVENC are due to the configuration in use; things like using CUDA-required encoding options, running at a split link speed, or the long-standing multiple refresh rate bug with 3D accelerated applications in Windows. That said, Warzone IS known to misbehave (due to being coded like crap) though some fixes for it are coming in OBS v27.

Really though, as you're sending to your second machine over NDI in that logfile, it's probably the encoding options you had set on the gaming PC. If it was the other two, the issue would persist assuming you're using OBS as the NDI sender. Unless you just had a crazy-heavy browser source or something stomping on the PCIe bus.
 

FortuN

Member
Most significant framerate drops like that with NVENC are due to the configuration in use; things like using CUDA-required encoding options, running at a split link speed, or the long-standing multiple refresh rate bug with 3D accelerated applications in Windows. That said, Warzone IS known to misbehave (due to being coded like crap) though some fixes for it are coming in OBS v27.

Really though, as you're sending to your second machine over NDI in that logfile, it's probably the encoding options you had set on the gaming PC. If it was the other two, the issue would persist assuming you're using OBS as the NDI sender. Unless you just had a crazy-heavy browser source or something stomping on the PCIe bus.

When i used my Asus 3080 for streaming some weeks ago didn't have any issues with dropped frames or anything. Just that the quality ain't on par really with the medium and it drops alot of frames. Even in Valorant from 330~ down to 240~. I've switched yesterday to the RC3 for obs 27 for the better compability with Warzone since the old one provided flickering when using Nvidia filters.

The NDI is only used for transfering my webcam since im using Nvidia Broadcast to make the background blurry with the 3080 card, since the streaming pc can't use Nvidia broadcast. Everything else goes through the Elgato (Game source and audio). Also tested without webcam (thus disabling NDI completly) to no help.
 

deFrisselle

Member
Though your audience is only able to watch at 60 FPS So, game framerate above that in game is just for you IMHO

Faster 3600/3800 GHz RAM would help if in the at least 8 Gb amount though, yeah, should be 16
I agree, you could have this all handily setup in a 1 PC system
I have an 3700X, 32 Gb 2800GHz RAM, and a 5600XT No game is going to use anywhere near 16 threads So, I could encode on the CPU or GPU
I used to stream PUBG on a Phenom II X4 encoding on an R9 270X with no issues Just a matter of settings and encoding config Oh, and wonky game
 
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