Question / Help Dropped Frames due to rendering lag/stalls (Recording War Thunder)

[devilwalsh]

Hi all. I've been having trouble recording gameplay with OBS since I just started using it again. When I have OBS open and recording my game fluctuates anywhere between 70-85 fps depending on what I'm doing at the time, yet my output from OBS has an absurdly large frame drop despite not affecting my ingame performance much. My most recent attempt at recording yielded a frame drop of a whopping 72.1% despite negligibly affecting my ingame performance. My game graphics settings don't seem to fix the fps issue, only help slightly - I've played on everything from low to maximum and the recording changes from 72% frame drop (high settings) to 45% frame drop (low settings). I'm attempting to record at 60fps.

Here are my computer specs from MSI Afterburner, it's a Dell Precision 5520 Anniversary Edition:

CPU

Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz Logical cores : 8 CPUID : GenuineIntel family 6, model 9E, stepping 9 Tjmax : 100°C

GPU1

Display device : Quadro M1200 on GM107GL-A GPU Display driver : 391.25 BIOS : 82.07.b0.00.11 GUID : VEN_10DE&DEV_13B6&SUBSYS_07BF1028&REV_A2&BUS_1&DEV_0&FN_0 Multi-GPU role : master Registry key : \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0002

GPU2

Display device : Intel(R) HD Graphics 630 GUID : VEN_8086&DEV_591B&SUBSYS_07BF1028&REV_04&BUS_0&DEV_2&FN_0 Registry key : \Registry\Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video{3B9F1A13-5A2B-11E8-9BB1-8CDF67617FE0}\0000

Here's the log from me running the game on "High" (70-85 fps):
https://obsproject.com/logs/vOFLF9pbcTii_KKj
And here's from "Low" settings (game running on 100-115 fps)
https://obsproject.com/logs/28CidFM5yza4q_HY

Is it simply a lack of GPU power that means I'm unable to record with OBS, period?

 

[RytoEX]

Game settings will affect OBS performance. The biggest factor here is the FPS the game tries to render at. Capping your in-game FPS generally provides the most extra GPU headroom for OBS to work. Usually we recommend capping your in-game framerate at 60, or your monitor's refresh rate. Try that, and then try to record again with OBS.

If that doesn't improve performance enough, you may have to consider running OBS at a lower resolution/FPS instead, such as 1080p30 or 720p30. Using a lower FPS will have a bigger effect on performance than a lower resolution, but you can try experimenting there.

You should also not change the NVENC Profile to baseline. Leave it at main, or change it to high if your hardware supports it. You should also not change the b-frames value unless you have to. Generally, it's better to stay in Simple Output Mode and avoid changing these settings unless you absolutely have to.

You may also wish to check for newer NVIDIA drivers. The latest ODE driver for your GPU is R390 U8 (392.00), while the latest QNF driver is R396 U2 (397.93). The NVIDIA driver website explains the difference between ODE and QNF.