Question / Help Bad FPS in OBS at all times(stream or not) but perfect FPS in Games and Other

[Brett Thomas]

I posted before around mid-NOV but I don't know that I ever received an answer.

Since early NOV I've been struggling with my stream for seemingly no reason. It has ALWAYS been running 60 FPS or at the lowest 45 FPS in short/rare spikes with every stream. The preview would always show 60, whereas the actual stream would be between 45-60. Completely reasonable dip at at that depending on what's going on, and especially it being streaming in 2k(25x14). Something changed though, in early NOV. I don't know what. It didn't JUST effect Destiny 2 though, it effected every game, even super low-end 2d indie games.

Things I've tried to fix it;
Streaming in 1080
Changing various settings including bitrate and the encoder
Various "capture" modes in OBS
Trying previous versions of OBS
Driver updates and previous drivers for my nVidia 1080
Different video settings in games(overwatch and destiny 2 are the main two)
VSync settings in games(seemed to help a smidgen with OBS, but ruined FPS in the actual game; it was an awful tradeoff)
Changing various settings in Windows like turning off the Game DVR and related gaming "features"
Reinstalling Windows clean, only a couple updates at a time, nvidia drivers, no other software other than DirectX/.NET/video/OBS/Visuals/etc
Eventually ending up full-circle

So recently in early NOV there was a Windows update. It seems the Windows update made some improvements in games(Seems to be at least a general +5 fps) among other things. So far I'm THINKING this may have been a causing factor with several versions of OBS, but i'm not 100% sure. I was doing what seemed to be pretty normal until the most recent update. Version 1709 for Windows 10 - KB4048951, KB4041994, KB2565063, KB4055237, KB4051963. I'm not sure which one of these is the latest unfortunately, or if they're truly effecting OBS.

My roommate streams at 720p, and has zero issues. With such a gap between our settings though, that makes sense.

Could someone please help me with this?

 

[Harold]

All those logs show you trying to do is stream at 1440p, not 1080p

 

[Brett Thomas]

Harold, that's besides the point but I'll generate a new log and attach it to the OP for you. I'll make sure(weird how I missed that...) it is in 1080.

The primary point is it streamed fine in 1440 until early-mid NOV, then something changed, and the FPS went to total crap of running a frequent 45 to dipping to 10 often... yet 50+ fps in the game.

 

[Brett Thomas]

Harold, I've added a 1080p recording. It was consistent around 35FPS in OBS but 70+ in Overwatch(at1440). Desteiny 2 was coming up as a Black screen... I guess due to their anti-cheat thing from what I've read.

 

[Brett Thomas]

Also, I've received this from Reddit;

Yeah windows changed it’s way it handled multi-monitor set ups I believe. I don’t know if this would help but its todo with the OBS preview for now the only way to fix it is to disable the OBS preview and enable it when you want to make changes. They are trying to work on a fix but give this ago.


Another way is to set both monitors to the same refresh rate.


Let me know how this goes as I’m not 100% this is the reason just another thing to try but hopefully someone else can help if not.


I'll try this too and update with results asap.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

At first, I thought Brett has the same problem, as I do (no dropped frames in log, but stutter in the recordings every now and then, some times for a few minutes).
Then I saw his log and there is just the GPU overload, which leaves not enough GPU headroom for OBS to render the scene fast enough.
"10:50:30.427: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1209 (43.6%)"
Cap your ingame FPS, so that the GPU load stays below 90%.

 

[Brett Thomas]

At first, I thought Brett has the same problem, as I do (no dropped frames in log, but stutter in the recordings every now and then, some times for a few minutes).
Then I saw his log and there is just the GPU overload, which leaves not enough GPU headroom for OBS to render the scene fast enough.
"10:50:30.427: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1209 (43.6%)"
Cap your ingame FPS, so that the GPU load stays below 90%.

Thank you Morpheus.

I've done a few more tests based off of what you noticed, and it definitely seems to come down to the GPU simply being overwhelmed between the consistent 18% that OBS uses just be being up and alive(stream or no stream), and Destiny 2(and most other games) eating up the rest of the GPU or too much and OBS suffers.

The only thing that's made a significant difference, is disconnecting any monitor besides my ACER, and otherwise setting the ACER refresh to 60 down from 144 if I want to stream Decent. Seems to be an nVidia problem... I should have listened about all those "Bad driver supports" complaints. They were right. I guess I'll be switching back to AMD soon... as I cannot stream with the current nVidia issues.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

The 144Hz+60Hz Problem (3d accelerated programs on both monitors) is Windows related, not Nvidia or OBS.

 

[SwaggBae]

How bad is it affecting your stream?

 

[Brett Thomas]

How bad is it affecting your stream?

It drops it to... 11 FPS within OBS that I've seen. It'll be more consistently around 25-30ish FPS even though it's set to 60. In-game I don't have any issues at all. I've limited the game 60 FPS through a config file. It's(the issue within obs) quite crippling.

The 144Hz+60Hz Problem (3d accelerated programs on both monitors) is Windows related, not Nvidia or OBS.

Super :T Would it be wise or reasonable to slowly uninstall windows updates(starting with the most recent) until I start seeing a difference?