Question / Help Can't Run Games in 1440p while cloning 1080p for stream

[HotelCharliHill]

Hi, everyone, this forum has been super helpful and I've had fun for a year streaming high quality video and captures. Unfortunately after doing some upgrades I can't stream. I originally ran hdmi from my Gaming PC's GPU to a splitter (so that consoles could be on it to) then into my Pioneer Receiver (thought it'd be cool to play on my old 1080p TV with dolby 5.1 surround... sorta cool, but created too much secondary sound through my mic even with intense gating set up which is partly why I've eventually switched to headphones), and then into my Avermedia LGHD2 GC570 (in my Streaming PC) which can do 1080p @ 60frames, then pass through to the monitor. Needless to say there was MASSIVE signal impedence. Playing PUBG which is super competitive I felt behind the ball all the time, like I was taking damage in gun fights before even seeing the enemy shooting. It was obviously all the splitters, the receiver and TV not made for intensely competitive gaming, and so I upgraded to a ROG ASUS monitor with Gsync and high refresh rate, and sent it via DisplayPort directly from the GPU.

So now I have to capture the video. I tried running an HDMI from the HDMI port on my GPU to my avermedia, and cloning my 1440p screen. After some tinkering I could see the desktop scaled down onto this older 1650x1050 monitor, so that was a good sign (I could make it extended too but didn't want to). Then I opened OBS and set up the new video input, and I could see the gaming pc's desktop just fine. I could open google and youtube and everything transfered beautifully. Figured I was set, loaded up PUBG which I'd been playing at 1440p, and it was all blurry and gross. Looked at the graphics settings and it had reverted to 1080p with no option to go back up to 2560x1440p. I've been looking around on the net for weeks and seen workarounds that aren't helpful like "Just play at 1080p like the pro streamers" or "run OBS on your gaming PC" (obviously not helpful if I want my processing for the gaming, and a second PC processing the stream compression and or recording), or "Run OBS and send a copy to your second PC in a downscaled version" like what kind of a jumble is that? Plus it's still going to use more processing. The least cpu intensive method seems to be to clone and send a copy of the video signal, but as stated, for some reason games such as PUBG and SQUAD are forced to revert to what the capture card can stream. Why does it accept my desktop at 144hz at 1440p, but not the game?

Any advice? Anyone figure this out yet? Thanks again as usual.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

You could try to extend your desktop to the Capture card, instead of cloning. Then let OBS display a fullscreen preview on the capture card.
But as MS Windows has some problems with GPU accelerated programs on two different monitors with different refreshrates, it's possible that your gaming monitor will fall back to 60Hz, as soon as a GPU accelerated program is opened on the extended/cloned output to the capture card.

What about OBS NDI Plugin instead of the capture card? Maybe that's a decent alternative.

 

[HotelCharliHill]

You could try to extend your desktop to the Capture card, instead of cloning. Then let OBS display a fullscreen preview on the capture card.
But as MS Windows has some problems with GPU accelerated programs on two different monitors with different refreshrates, it's possible that your gaming monitor will fall back to 60Hz, as soon as a GPU accelerated program is opened on the extended/cloned output to the capture card.

What about OBS NDI Plugin instead of the capture card? Maybe that's a decent alternative.

thanks for the idea, but that sounds quite complicated. And yes, gaming monitor is 144hz, and the capture card is maxed at 60hz so that's probably why it reverts. What I think i'll end up trying is a Displayport splitter with one going to my gaming monitor, and the other going through a converter to HDMI into the lghd2 capture card. I believe that displayport 1.4 cables (or 1.2?) can support 2x 1440p @ 144hz because it can support 4 x 4k @ 60hz or something like that. Then it will be downscaled by the capture card.

My only concern is signal impediment. I bought the fastest gaming monitor I could so I don't have lost miliseconds like when i had everything running through a million splitters and a receiver... but i don't think it would be that bad.

 

[HotelCharliHill]

Okay, I'm actually going to try OBS NDI now because that's really the only alternative aside from playing at a lower resolution or buying a 4k capture card. Thanks for steering me in the right direction, I just had to figure it out for myself.