Question / Help Elgato HD60 very choppy/stuttery on stream, webcam overlay works fine

R

Rikaay

New Member
I use an Elgato HD60 to stream my PS4 gameplay. I used to stream from my laptop via NVENC which worked just fine, but recently got my hands on a Optiplex 3020 with an i5-4590 @ 3.30 Ghz quad core. NVENC didnt give the best quality so I want to switch to x264 and this i5-4590 should be able to handle the superfast preset pretty well.

Did a fresh win10 install, updated all drivers, installed latest version of Elgato Game Capture and OBS and set up my stream:
  • x264
  • superfast
  • 3500 bitrate
  • keyframe interval: 2
  • canvas 720@60, same output
  • Elgato set to HD720 profile @ 60fps
Everything works fine untill I start my stream and after a minute the Elgato video capture starts to get really choppy, distorted and laggy. My webcam shows perfectly fine, it's just the Elgato. I don't get an encoder overload warning and CPU doesn't go above 90%. The choppy and distorted video also shows in OBS preview. I used the exact same settings as I did on NVENC which worked perfectly fine on my laptop.

Things I tried to fix the problem:
  • Switch elgato to USB 3.0 port
  • Tried ultrafast preset
  • Different bitrates
  • Different settings on the Elgato (1080 downscale to 720 / Custom resolution / 30 fps)
  • Reinstalled all drivers and software
  • Dissabled and removed all other sources
  • Enable buffering on the Elgato
  • Updated all drivers on PC
Nothing I tried seems to fix this problem. According to the log files this isn't a encoding or CPU issue, the webcam runs perfectly fine on stream. An example of the choppy video capture on stream can be seen here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/237252873

Here's the log file: https://gist.github.com/477a1fa8b1614e890665cf4eb9283720
 
Your log file doesn't show any actual streaming. Do a 5 minute or longer stream of high action content and post that log.

Set the base resolution to be the actual resolution as its output from the PS4. Are you actually playing in 720p?

You have a USB capture device as you know, and a USB web cam. This can saturate the USB bus and cause problems due to lack of USB bandwidth. Eliminate the web cam and see if it improves. If yes, then set the web cam to a lower resolution, like 480p, instead of 720p.

If eliminating the web cam doesn't help, then your computer's USB bus probably isn't fast enough. Return the USB capture device and get a PCIe version instead. I'd recommend this regardless, actually, to avoid problems. USB sucks for video capture.
 
Boildown said:
Your log file doesn't show any actual streaming. Do a 5 minute or longer stream of high action content and post that log.

Set the base resolution to be the actual resolution as its output from the PS4. Are you actually playing in 720p?

You have a USB capture device as you know, and a USB web cam. This can saturate the USB bus and cause problems due to lack of USB bandwidth. Eliminate the web cam and see if it improves. If yes, then set the web cam to a lower resolution, like 480p, instead of 720p.

If eliminating the web cam doesn't help, then your computer's USB bus probably isn't fast enough. Return the USB capture device and get a PCIe version instead. I'd recommend this regardless, actually, to avoid problems. USB sucks for video capture.
Click to expand...

The log was taken from a 4 minute test stream. I play on 1080, but my OBS canvas is on 720p to reduce load on pc and prevent downscaling issues. The video capture from Elgato is set to 720p 60fps.

I even tried without webcam but the problem still persist. The only thing that works is setting the Elgato to 30 fps, but that would be a serious downgrade. The pc has a USB 3.0, but the Elgato is only USB 2.0 and plugging it into the 3.0 port didnt work either.

Going for a PCIe version isn't an option as I bought it second hand. I got this HD60 specifically for streaming from my laptop.
 
Its better (usually) to set your base resolution to the actual resolution hitting your video capture device, then use a downscale in OBS to set the encode resolution.

Check your computer and see if you have multiple usb root hubs, and try to put the Elgato on one of them all by itself.
 
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