Question / Help Big time stuttering in Mass Effect 3 just with OBS open (not recording)

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ravenex86

New Member
This is a new issue that's cropped up and I have no idea why, I've run OBS to capture Mass Effect 3 before in the past without any issues, and I don't see this issue with other games with OBS open either.

Here's the log file just from having OBS open while ME3 is open (not even recording): https://obsproject.com/logs/ufxnGxKOJ6g7iQYz

There's just a huge drop in FPS / stuttering as soon as OBS is opened and I don't know why. I've messed around with some settings but really it's beyond my expertise, all I know is that it used to work fine and now it doesn't and I don't know what changed.

I've started using NVIDIA Inspector recently to try and limit frames and I have a global setting in place to limit FPS to 45, mostly as a way to try and reduce heat and prevent the GPU from working overtime on older games but honestly kind of out of my depth with it I'll freely admit. I tried restoring to default to see if that helped (no limits) but it didn't. Any help is appreciated thanks.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
No output session in the log, so not able to diagnose the cause of stutter.

Open OBS. Start recording or streaming. Observe your issue. Stop the output. Upload the Current log from the Help menu without quitting OBS.

18:09:09.690: - source: 'Game Capture' (game_capture)
18:09:09.690: - source: 'Display Capture' (monitor_capture)

You don't want two full screen sources (game and display) in the same source, this is likely to be unreliable and non-performant.

OBS is a compositor and switcher, it's doing most of what it does even when not actually recording or streaming, and this is especially true if you're using a hardware encoder like NVENC.
 
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ravenex86

New Member
Narcogen said:
18:09:09.690: - source: 'Game Capture' (game_capture)
18:09:09.690: - source: 'Display Capture' (monitor_capture)

You don't want two full screen sources (game and display) in the same source, this is likely to be unreliable and non-performant.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the response. I do have both a Game Capture and Display Capture sources, but the Game Capture source is always on mute; will that still cause an issue? It didn't seem to before but I could of course be wrong.

Lordy lordy, was it really that simple? I just tried a recording session after removing Game Capture completely from sources and viola the stuttering was completely gone. I had a feeling it would be something that would reveal my total lack of knowledge on how to use this program. I always thought the "mute" or "hide" option would mean the hidden source wouldn't be causing any resource drain. Looks like I was wrong. Here's the log file from a recording session though, just in case you can spot any issues:

https://obsproject.com/logs/2B6FWjD_OQcPvlHa

Thanks again.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
It's better to have those sources in separate scenes or scene collections, even if inactive. Being hidden does not guarantee not having a source consume resources or cause conflicts.

00:11:51.506: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 108/22778 (0.5%)

Small amount of encoding lag. If it's not enough to cause you a problem, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
R

ravenex86

New Member
UPDATE: actually was able to fix this by switching from Display Capture to Game Capture instead. Perhaps this has something to do with my new monitor but all I know is the stuttering is completely gone and the capture is smooth as butter now. As it should be.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
Game capture is more performant than display capture and should be used whenever possible. Display capture is a last resort.
 
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