DistroAV - Network Audio/Video in OBS-Studio using NDI® technology

DistroAV - Network Audio/Video in OBS-Studio using NDI® technology 6.1.1

ButcherDude

New Member
What are the best stable settings with minimal audio lag that you all have found? I've been struggling the past month or so with the audio skipping or cutting out on occasion since the latest OBS update
 

Acey05

Member
What are the best stable settings with minimal audio lag that you all have found? I've been struggling the past month or so with the audio skipping or cutting out on occasion since the latest OBS update
It's a long list, but short story is, if you set your Audio to "Unbuffered" (under AV), it should work (although you still get the occasional 1 second audio cuts and any new Stream will have static for a few seconds at the start) while losing slight game/network performance.
Also make sure to restart your OBS between games.

---

Long story: Every since AFTER OBS 27 (and that period of time with a specific revision of NDI + Windows + Nvidia updates related to WDDM), anything that "spikes" your PC usage from a "low state to maximum state" (mostly on weaker PC's I think) will start lagging the audio.

Please note nVidia is especially notorious for their Audio DPC Latency issues ever since the 1000GTX Series, and no one has tried to find a proper workaround (other than making your CPU and GPU no idle and always work at 25% power levels or P1/0 State).

For example (depending on Hardware and Drivers): Start OBS > Start Game = Audio Lag. HOWEVER, if you Start Game > Start OBS = No audio lag UNLESS the game does some fancy loading where they switch power states on you hardware (ei; old games like Deus Ex 2).

If game is hitting upper limits of your Hardware while doing extra work (ei; UE5 Game caching Shaders), you get Complete Audio Dsync at best, 3-9 seconds of cut audio at worst.

If Game has multiple options for Audio, try and switch them around before you start streaming or recording, since changing them Mid OBS usage will sometimes completely break the audio and requires restarting both OBS and the Game.

Some people reported setting Audios channels (both OBS and PC, as well Mic) to 44Khz instead of 48 Khz improved the Audio Lag issues (I personally saw no difference and it's placebo at best).

People with more expensive GPU (which have 2 Encoders) reported not having these issues compared to Mono-Encoder cards (like the x60 Series on nVidia).

Some people reported disabling the Intel Microcode related to Meltdown improved the issues (it improved performace for me, but not the Audio issues).

Some people reported Software for Mice and Keyboards (ei; ICUE) can be another source of issue. I can confirm that, but they're usually an issue for your entire PC and not only OBS (especially ASUS Crate).

Don't ask my collectively everyone decided to break stuff right around 2022.
 

Jaybonaut

Member
Really odd. For some reason today I get random stutters every few seconds on the 2nd PC and I never did prior to that. I uninstalled both the NDI and DistroAV apps, and then manually made extra sure to delete their folders, then reinstalled. This is on Windows 11 for both machines.

Main specs:
-Gaming
5900x
32 gigs
RTX 3080
-Streaming
5700x
32 gigs
RTX 3060

GE800 is the router, which has all 2.5 and 10 gig ports. Running a fairly new firmware 1.2.1. I tried resetting the network settings in Windows, tried Framesync, etc.

I've been using this for years and only now is this happening. I wonder if it is some Windows update or some bug with the router's firmware, etc. I don't get it. I've tried re-adding the source after deleting it, etc. It will be smooth and then chug like it's dropping frames even though OBS does not report any dropped frames.

2nd PC settings - CBR/6000, 2 sec, fast, high, none

If I use a single pc to stream it's smooth as butter but I want to continue using the 2 pc setup I've had for years.

I wonder if it is a setting in the router? I have Flow Control turned off on the NICs, the router for WAN and LAN. I do not limit game capture fps.

? can anyone assist
 

Tivvy

New Member
Ran perfectly (besides minor audio blips) yesterday now I have the same issues as Jaybonaut. Did some windows/gpu driver updates and rolling back gpu driver updates did not fix the issue. (Using DDU, although not in safe mode)

Choosing "Lowest" for "Bandwidth" makes the source less of a slideshow but that's not what I'm looking to use. It's also still not the full 48fps I'm looking for. Tried restarting router multiple times and ran a bandwidth test for it, looks like very stable half gigabit per second.

edit: added info
 
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Tivvy

New Member
~Half gigabit for reading, ~.9 gigabit for writing.
edit: Actually the "Lowest" bitrate setting does produce stable 48fps after double checking, was just the preview that looked off.
edit: Audio also looks stuttering from the preview with "highest" bitrate on the video btw. Changing framesync on/off, sync mode does nothing to alleviate the problem as well.
 
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Tivvy

New Member
In Task Manager, my "Send" is stuck at average 50-70 Mbps (jumps around +-30%) when operating the software to send dynamic video output (and with static content as well), while using LAN Speed Test it goes up to 500 Mbps write 900Mbps read when interacting with a folder on the stream PC. (from the gaming PC)

edit: Minor additions. Also sending to a different OBS instance on the same PC seems to work without problem on both systems btw.
edit: Same issues when relaying video from stream PC to game PC. Although max Mbps sent is even lower.
 
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RayneYoruka

New Member
Chiming in from the DistroAV team since these has been reported within the discord server. I normally test within Windows 10 with all updates being disabled to avoid any variables.

There has always been the knowledge of windows 11 messing things from time to time.. specially when OBS ran in the background and not as the focused window.

All of you with issues mind checking the latest windows updates and the windows build of your systems?

Reporting within the Github would be better yet we can't ask every user to do that. Once I have enough information I'll be creating a bug report.
 

RayneYoruka

New Member
I do have the same issue. On sunday it worked fine. Today there is stuttering. Router is Fritzbox 6690.
Really odd. For some reason today I get random stutters every few seconds on the 2nd PC and I never did prior to that. I uninstalled both the NDI and DistroAV apps, and then manually made extra sure to delete their folders, then reinstalled. This is on Windows 11 for both machines.

Main specs:
-Gaming
5900x
32 gigs
RTX 3080
-Streaming
5700x
32 gigs
RTX 3060

GE800 is the router, which has all 2.5 and 10 gig ports. Running a fairly new firmware 1.2.1. I tried resetting the network settings in Windows, tried Framesync, etc.

I've been using this for years and only now is this happening. I wonder if it is some Windows update or some bug with the router's firmware, etc. I don't get it. I've tried re-adding the source after deleting it, etc. It will be smooth and then chug like it's dropping frames even though OBS does not report any dropped frames.

2nd PC settings - CBR/6000, 2 sec, fast, high, none

If I use a single pc to stream it's smooth as butter but I want to continue using the 2 pc setup I've had for years.

I wonder if it is a setting in the router? I have Flow Control turned off on the NICs, the router for WAN and LAN. I do not limit game capture fps.

? can anyone assist
Ran perfectly (besides minor audio blips) yesterday now I have the same issues as Jaybonaut. Did some windows/gpu driver updates and rolling back gpu driver updates did not fix the issue. (Using DDU, although not in safe mode)

Choosing "Lowest" for "Bandwidth" makes the source less of a slideshow but that's not what I'm looking to use. It's also still not the full 48fps I'm looking for. Tried restarting router multiple times and ran a bandwidth test for it, looks like very stable half gigabit per second.

edit: added info

Pinging in case the forum doesn't do it.
 

Tivvy

New Member
Chiming in from the DistroAV team since these has been reported within the discord server. I normally test within Windows 10 with all updates being disabled to avoid any variables.

There has always been the knowledge of windows 11 messing things from time to time.. specially when OBS ran in the background and not as the focused window.

All of you with issues mind checking the latest windows updates and the windows build of your systems?

Reporting within the Github would be better yet we can't ask every user to do that. Once I have enough information I'll be creating a bug report.
Gaming PC
Win 10 Pro 22H2
OS Build: 19045.6216
Today's Update added: KB5063709

Streaming PC
Same as above but added update above was 2 days ago and things were fine.
 

Jaybonaut

Member
Pinging in case the forum doesn't do it.
Here you go. Let me know what else you need. OBS 31.1.2. Note that Tivvy is reporting the issue with Windows 10. I use all CPU encoding btw. Switching to NVENC shows the exact same issues. Must be a Windows network thing, has to be. Single PC is smooth as silk.
 

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Running:
  • Windows 11 Pro Release 23H2
  • NDI 6.2.1.0 (also affected 6.2.0.1)
  • DistroAV 6.1.1
Please observe the following scenarios:
  • OBS Studio -> OBS Studio: Does NOT work
  • OBS Studio -> NDI Studio Monitor: Does NOT work
  • VTube Studio outputting NDI -> NDI Studio Monitor: DOES work
A recent Windows update, KB5063875, causes NDI streams emitted from an OBS Studio session to stop working properly, causing the stream to be choppy. The fix is to uninstall the update

I haven't updated to 24H2 yet on any of my production streaming systems to test this yet.

--Katt. =^.^=
 
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Jaybonaut

Member
Uninstalling the windows update fixed two instances of this. Please tell me this has been reported to Microsoft.
We are getting more information via this link:

 

Jaybonaut

Member
Note: runtime 6.2.1 is now available.

Regarding the issues - apparently VMix, DistroAV team, NDI team, Newtek, Neowin, and Microsoft are all aware of this problem and are monitoring the github entry.
 
Note: runtime 6.2.1 is now available.

Regarding the issues - apparently VMix, DistroAV team, NDI team, Newtek, Neowin, and Microsoft are all aware of this problem and are monitoring the github entry.

For the record, the runtime update does not address the issue as I had described.

As of right now, I need to remove two updates from Win11 23H2, KB5063878 and KB5063875. Removing '878 by itself isn't enough. If '875 is present, it must also be removed for current NDI (in the context of DistroAV) to work properly.

--Katt. =^.^=
 
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