Question / Help After creators update encoder overload

[Shinylux]

Hi, two days ago i recived the creators update for Windows 10 and i started to have some big issue with OBS.
Before the update i had no problem with my stream setup and never encountered an encoder overload, i'm streaming at 720è with 60 fps using a ryzen 5 1600, that should handle this setup quite fine.

I didn't change any setting in my obs and this is my situation now, i attach a log file in hope that some one with more experience than me can help me out solving this mystery.

I also tried to boost the priority of obs to above avarage with no success. I'm also streaming the same thing that i used to stream before this error, so it's not a change in the software i'm streaming or some "variables" of my stream changed

 

[BornDownUnder]

The logfile you uploaded does not contain any stream output. Can you start a stream, do everything you would normally do in the game for at least a few minutes then stop the stream, then upload the current logfile so I or someone else can further assist in troubleshooting.

 

[Shinylux]

I uploaded the wrong one, sorry! Here is a logfile with a 5 mins stream of Heroes of the Storm (not an heavy game and i streamed it a lot lately, so i know that it worked fine before). To be extra sure i also restarted the pc before the stream, so i know that no other programs were running in background.

 

[BornDownUnder]

Good news is you don't have any bandwidth related issues at all, you could even go higher in your bitrate for better quality output.
- Just make sure you are within Twitch.tv guidelines for bitrate and make sure you have quality options available on your stream so viewers can select a lower quality if they have trouble with buffering:
https://stream.twitch.tv/
- I would not go over 5.6k bitrate for Twitch as the limit is 6k. Using 5.6 bitrate for video you will also have an additional 160 for audio, which leave you 240 for the sometimes small spikes in bitrate when streaming.
An archived post from Reddit has some nice info:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/2dz7ru/bitrates_resolutions_and_quality/
- It is slightly outdated, only in regards to Twitch ingest limit which has increased to 6k.

Digression aside:
11:34:40.109: Output 'adv_stream': Total drawn frames: 16127 (16140 attempted)
11:34:40.109: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 13 (0.1%)
11:34:40.110: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 420/16069 (2.6%)

Your current x264 encoder options are taxing your CPU a little too much, multi-core CPU systems don't necessarily have to be hitting 100% to be struggling to handle the workload...
- Try faster preset, or even very fast preset.
- You could try High profile instead of Main, for a small increase in quality. The caveat is mobile device users that view your streams may not be able to decode the stream and therefore will not be able to watch it.

In your Video Options tab, you should change to Lanczos filtering for slightly improved picture quality as well. Your CPU will have no issue using this downscale filter.

 

[Shinylux]

I did a quick test and it seems to work, i found out that my previous problem was linked directly with the loading of videos on any kind of broswer (for example Edge with the stream opened to check it or the bot with music from youtube)

Lowering the encoder at veryfast and pushing up the bitrate to 5600 as you suggested and the audio to 160 seems to do the trick and i did a full test with no issue (also leaving a random stream in background and my bot loading music up from youtube), so thank you!

I prefer to say on Main to be sure to have the mobile users, also because i know that some of my usual viewers are from there :)

Also thank you for the tip on the downscale filter.

My only final doubt is this: why this sudden change? Is the creator update that actually did this or something else? Nothing else changed in my system beside that, so i'm quite shocked by this random derping in obs. Maybe i was before on the edge of "breaking" it and the CU just finished the job with some "under the hood" change?

Anyway thank you A LOT for the help, i was hitting a wall

 

[BornDownUnder]

I would say Fall Creators Update has hit performance a little...

I can't stream (Only tested to see if I could) Battlefield 4 at 720p60fps with my Ryzen 1600 and R9 290x using x264 encoder faster/fast/slow preset either.

I am also noticing slight performance hits recording at 1080p60fps in Battlefield 4 multiplayer (64 players on large conquest map) where before I could run at CRF 15 High profile UltraFast preset with the x264 encoder, now have to run CRF 18 Main profile UltraFast preset (Visual difference is almost completely negligible, unless in heavy contrast low bitrate areas)

That being said, I was thinking it was my R9 290x struggling to deal with the additional workload when doing ~100Mb/s average recordings, with your post I would say it is the Fall Creators Update.

The bitrate might be a slight issue for your mobile users, dependent upon their network bandwidth allowance, if they are in any region like Australia (It is really poor here, I pay $100+ AUD for 50Mb/s down, 25Mb/s up, get ~40Mb/s down, ~20Mb/s up)

Glad I could be of assistance!

 

[Lord Hepipud]

Personally I can confirm the performance issue since Fall Creators Update as well. Had to adjust some of my settings to prevent frame drops during the recording.
Played around with plenty of settings, BIOS, System and Driver Updates and nothing resolved the issue. It looks like Windows is either using more ressources now the CPU has to handle or it is simly blocking ressources / slowing down rendering.

If there is a solution available, increasing the performance again it would be awesome :D. Right now it seems to work with my new settings. In case you hit the problem, play around with preset, encoding, color scheme, resolution and or frames.