Chronic random lagging issues with OBS

[Shugler]

Hey everyone,

I recently started recording my gameplay of Alan Wake 2 and would have random bouts of huge lag while recording on OBS. I figured my gpu was outdated (RTX 2060) so I upgraded to a RTX 4060 and while the gameplay certainly looks much better, I'm still having lag issues while recording and I cannot figure out why.

I just recorded two videos back to back and the first one looked silky smooth, but the second have some heavy lag issues. I'm really hoping someone can help me figure this out as I keep having to go back and re-record footage and it's very time consuming.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Here is OBS log from the last record:

https://obsproject.com/logs/25e1rreSKYrBXO0X

 

[Matishzz]

I note that your PC is a ferrari without wheels, what I mean is that you have a 4060 with a r5 3600 I would say that you would have to change your processor for a better one if you would provide me your motherboard I could provide the next best upgrade that you could do but well that is not the focus of this conversation

I notice that the audio buffer was completely full causing a delay of 303.39ms as seen in the following part of the log

20:28:57.982: Source Desktop Audio audio is lagging (over by 303.39 ms) at max audio buffering. Restarting source audio.

And an encoder load of 28.8% together with a delay of 1% is observed in the following part of the log

22:57:12.143: Output 'adv_file_output': stopping
22:57:12.143: Output 'adv_file_output': Total frames output: 202943
22:57:12.143: Output 'adv_file_output': Total drawn frames: 202757 (204799 attempted)
22:57:12.144: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 2042 (1.0%)
22:57:12.144: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 59079/204796 (28.8%)

You have a good configuration, H264, CQP (17), P7, HQ, High, qres, b-frame 2, lookahead on and psycho_aq on.

I am a bit suspicious of these last two, try disabling Look-Ahead and Psycho_AQ and related to the audio buffering try disabling DVR or it is usually solved by restarting OBS or going to CMD and doing

net stop audiosrv
net start audiosrv

 

[qhobbes]

1. Audio buffering hit the maximum value. This is an indicator of very high system load, will affect stream latency, and may even cause individual audio sources to stop working. Keep an eye on CPU usage especially, and close background programs if needed. Occasionally, this can be caused by incorrect device timestamps. Restart OBS to reset buffering.
Source affected (potential cause): Desktop Audio
2. Multiple Game Capture sources are usually not needed, and can sometimes interfere with each other (scenes Youtube (Persona 3), Youtube (VTM:R), Youtube (Alan Wake 2), Youtube (Control) and Youtube (No Camera)). You can use the same Game Capture for all your games. If you change games often, try out the hotkey mode, which lets you press a key to select your active game. If you play games in fullscreen, use 'Capture any fullscreen application' mode.
3. Display and Game Capture interfere with each other. Never put them in the same scene (scene Youtube (VTM:R))
4. Record to MKV. If you record to MP4 or MOV and the recording is interrupted, the file will be corrupted and unrecoverable. If you require MP4 files for some other purpose like editing, remux them afterwards by selecting File > Remux Recordings in the main OBS Studio window.
5. Multipass, Look-ahead and Psycho Visual Tuning all use additional GPU. Disable those. Presets 6 and 7 may also use additional GPU so try P5 with Tuning set to Low Latency.

If still having issues, post new log.