Black Screen Window Capture on Laptop

[Fables72]

I have recently started streaming (Not a gaming stream) and using what I have on hand. I am using an older laptop. An HP Envy 17 - 2100. Specs are here: Specs
Windows 10 older than 1909.
I am fairly new to OBS for streaming. One problem I am having is trying to do a window capture. I get nothing but a black screen from it. I suspect it is from the gpu setup in the laptop. Something like an Intel gpu path (I believe it may be integrated in the cpu) and the AMD Radeon. Power saving gpu / High Performance gpu setup I believe. All the "fixes" I see on the net start out go to Nvidia control panel. Hmmm I have an AMD. I cannot find similar settings that they show in the Nvidia panel.
I do think this is also affecting browser source as well. Not getting overlays loading in.

Basically, I am wanting to bring in youtube videos into my screen every once in a while.

Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this or something to try out to fix it?

 

[Fables72]

I just found the guide here and am trying some of the trick. Still, if you have ideas, please post them up. Thanks.

 

[Fables72]

OK. The guide helped. Getting widow captures now but had to take OBS to Power Saving gpu. Chrome is locked but that will be my next step. Unlock Chrome for High Performance GPU and bring OBE back to it.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

That is, as you are aware, a REALLY old (10 generations) CPU, optimized for battery life, not the computationally demanding task of real-time video encoding. And laptops will thermally throttle, further limiting power required for demanding workloads.

I recommend monitoring hardware resource (CPU, GPU, RAM, Disk I/O, etc) utilization [for ex. using Task manager’s Performance tab and/or Resource Monitor] to see if your system is being maxed out with your settings. And the fix of using GPU encode offload, as you noted, isn't an option for you.

So, IF you can get it to work (and I wouldn't count on much), you are going to need to highly optimize the Operating System and OBS for an under-powered system. There are those using almost as old CPUs who have things working, but they really are experts in OBS. Are you ready/willing to invest that much time? And that laptop came with a really slow hard drive. That may well hinder you, and I'd look to borrow a SATA SSD to see if it helps

As for doing so to make copies of YouTube videos... you are better off using alternative methods to enable downloading YT videos.

 

[AidenDavis]

The best method is to get a better computer, because your old computer is having difficulty running OBS, with lagging or black screens. You can try some software that takes up less memory (lightweight) such as ScreenREC, Recmaster, FBX Game Recorder, and so on.