Question / Help Choppy/Laggy Recordings - settings for 2015 MacBook Pro

[Guardians_Warcry]

Recently I've taken to switching from using an Elgato (and it's accompanying software) to using OBS with a Magewell USB HDMI+.

For the first little bit I was able to get some solid recordings off of my MacBook Pro, now i'm finding the recordings are getting choppy for no reason. The only thing I've done is update OBS and firmware on my Magewell.

I have been attempting to move the settings around a lot to see what would work and nothing seems to help. I've even dropped the bitrate for recording down to 1500 (yes, i am not excluding a 0, i did mean 1500). Recording looks like crap but still was choppy and laggy even at that low a bit rate.

I have the log files attached from back on 9-16-2018 where I was recording successfully without the choppiness at 40000 bitrate, 1080p@60fps from my playstation. It was a 2.5hr session followed by another recorded couple hour session later after dinner that same night. There are like 3 points in the 2hrs where audio sync went out about 17 frames and corrected itself shortly after again. But other than that the video quality was fantastic and not choppy.

The second log file attached is from yesterday 10-06-2018 where i recorded for a brief few minutes with 35000 bitrate, 1080p@60fps from my Playstation. This one starts off fine but eventually at about 1min it starts to just lose a little bit of frames, then slowly descends worse after about 1min:30sec and just looks like you're watching a PowerPoint Presentation of what still photos showing what not to do in Overwatch. lol

I'm attaching a link to an unlisted video where this second file takes place so you can see what i mean. it's only a couple minutes long, starts off great and slowly decays into madness. https://youtu.be/JSTD6-aENlE

Any ideas how i can correct this?

My mac's specs are as follows:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-Inc, Mid 2015)
Processor 2.8GHz intel Core i7
Memory 16GB Ram
Graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536MB (+AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching)

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

I also know there are a lot of messages in there regarding the Audio Device being unable to respond or be retrieved.

I have just taken it out of the settings and am going to attempt again in a couple of hours. In case OBS was trying to retrieve this and the error was causing issues.

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

Nope, did nothing. But the error did cease to appear.

I am just puzzled why this just started happening when it was working great before on the same machine.

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

Also, only other thing that would have changed in the system before hand was VLC - I downloaded that after the Sept. 16th recording date. I do see there is a difference in the 2 files where it disables something because VLC wasn't found, where as the one from October 6th shows it loads something from VLC - could this be part of it?

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

So things went smoother yesterday, I had just moved the place it writes the file to an external hard drive (USB 3.0).

Seems to have eased up the processing. I originally didn’t think that would be too much of an issue since the laptop’s drive is a solid state, but guess it was still too much to compute back and forth on the same drive?

Dunno, i’m Going to continue testing to make sure yesterday’s sessions weren’t a fluke

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

Well, sadly - using the same setup i thought had it working smoother to was not working for me yesterday either.

Has spots where it was working fine then goes to stutter city again.

Anyone have any input as to why it sometimes recording is completely great and then a different day it just bogs down? Like i have nothing else running, have gone into quite other applications that aren't needed. Heck, I made sure yesterday to leave the machine completely shut down and only started it up to begin recording.

 

[Narcogen]

Okay-- VLC is not relevant if you're not using VLCas a source.

Update OBS, you're using an old version. Go and download directly from the site, the auto-updater is broken in the version you're using.

Don't record to MP4, use MKV and remux-- a crash or interruption of a multi-hour MP4 recording session will result in a completely unrecoverable file.

1080p60 is taxing. There's no way you'd get anything watchable out of that at a bitrate of 1500. 10000 would pretty much be a minimum there, more suited to streaming than good quality recording.

I don't see any obvious problems in the log other than the sync issues with the pro tools aggregate device. I'm wondering if the issue is thermal throttling and thinking you might want to install MacsFanControl and up the speeds while recording; I wouldn't be surprised if after 2-3 hours of recording 1080p60 footage things might get a bit warm.

 

[Guardians_Warcry]

Thanks Narcogen.

Yeah, the 1080p@60fps was what I was using on my Elgato HD60 using their software. So, I figured it should be able to handle it with OBS and my Magewell.

I can still use that instead of OBS for now while i’m Working on fixing this for recording.

The 1500bit rate was actually me constantly reducing the quality to see what would be the lowest it would run smoothly at, and it actually got that low still stuttering a bit.

The heat thing is a great idea! Is MacsFanControl in the App Store? Also? Good to know the update option is broken.

I was planning on restoring my Mac to a back I took from an almost fresh install. I do it once a year and it helps my Mac run as new (gets rid of all the extra clutter that has built up, and I just save all my files to externals). So perhaps I’ll try your suggestions then go that route afterwards.

Also, I have seen the MP4 vs MKV suggestion come up while i’ve Been researching my issue here last couple of weeks. I get the idea to prevent issues, any chance it’s lighter on the cpu to write to that too? Or they just the same consumption and it’s purely for safety of the file from issues?

 

[Narcogen]

MacsFanControl is free, but it's not in the store.

https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control

No CPU impact depending on what container you use. It's just that using MP4 is a ridiculous risk with no advantages.

Lowering bitrate doesn't work that way; you're not making the computer work less hard by reducing bitrate. To do that, reduce resolution or framerate, or don't use CBR, use CRF and set a high number for low quality.