Question / Help Encoding overload/low cpu usage

[Axelflurry]

I've noticed recently that certain games (especially games that have a lot going on on screen) such as HOTS, BF5 Beta, etc. I'm getting encoding errors. I have a gtx 1070 and an i7 8700k so I assume my computer is good enough to be able to stream these. In the future i plan on streaming as well as recording at the same time so I would like to get this sorted out.

one thing to note, which i'm not sure would even affect this, OBS is installed on a hard drive that has been having problems recently when loading into games, where it will go slowly. I could possibly install OBS on my SSD instead but I'm unsure if it would help, and I don't want to lose my settings.



https://obsproject.com/logs/ihKLwwZ0PniQKi-j This is trying to stream 1080p

https://obsproject.com/logs/fHDawlW8K-URLMMn This is after switching down to 720p where the issue is less prominent but still there occasionally

 

[Axelflurry]

bump

 

[Deleted member 121471]

1) I recommend using NVENC instead of x264 "very fast" and to test again;

2) Limit the number of capture sources on the same scene collection to avoid performance hits, like your first log shows;

3) If not using it yet, cap your ingame FPS using VSYNC or frame rate limiters (ingame, Rivatuner, etc...);

4) Do try to install OBS on the SSD and save recording to the SSD, to confirm if it's affecting performance as well.

 

[Axelflurry]

Before your reponse, I tried hots in 720p without changing any other settings and it worked fine without any encoding at all (unless I just didn't notice). Still used x264 encoder and everything else, but used window capture instead of game capture. I will do your suggestions as well though.

But you're saying my first log showed a lot of capture sources that were affecting performance?

 

[Deleted member 121471]

Before your reponse, I tried hots in 720p without changing any other settings and it worked fine without any encoding at all (unless I just didn't notice). Still used x264 encoder and everything else, but used window capture instead of game capture. I will do your suggestions as well though.

But you're saying my first log showed a lot of capture sources that were affecting performance?

All the sources in the same scene collections are loaded, whether they are active or not and can have an effect on performance.

Either create different scene collections per game streamed or limit it to just a single game capture source on the scene collection you already have instead of having 3-4 loaded at same time. Just change which executable it is linked to.

I only mentioned NVENC because it has near equal quality to x264 "very fast", allowing the now free CPU threads to be available entirely to the game streamed and other apps you may have running. With your setup, 1080p@60FPS is a breeze with NVENC, something that CPU encoding will struggle with if the game streamed is CPU-bound enough.

 

[koala]

4) Do try to install OBS on the SSD and save recording to the SSD, to confirm if it's affecting performance as well.

Installing OBS on a SSD affects the loading time of OBS (starts a bit faster), but it does not have any impact on recording or streaming performance. So it is not necessary to reinstall OBS to move it to SSD. It's more important that OBS is installed under c:\Program Files (x86), because it inherits special access permissions from that directory, which is required by a few games and/or security software to make game capture work.

In contrast to this, recording to SSD has a little bit of impact. Usually, the impact is negligible, because all modern HDs from the last years are able to sustain the required bitrate. The only thing you should not do is recording to a USB drive that is connected via USB2. USB3 should be fine, but make sure the connection is really USB3.