I´m sharing a fix that I found for a problem I had with OBS being laggy/chopped while streaming and/or recording even though I have what can be considered good specs.
(My specs are: RTX 2080 Super, Ryzen 7 3800X, 16 gb of Ram, 1440p).
In OBS my canvas is 1440p, and I stream to 1080p. Spoiler alert: the resolution was not the problem.
I was really frustrated because I saw how my fellow streamers with much less PC power than me, were playing and streaming flawlessly.
I don´t know why but since a video card driver update (I think it was mid november 2020), my gameplay in any game started with some spikes, it was playable though. The real problem started when I turned on the streaming or recording option in OBS, the gameplay felt sloppy, it was playable most of the time though -sometimes it went smooth for a short time, just to get a big huge spike in FPS-, but OBS streaming or recording was laggy and chopped as hell.
First of all I checked GPU usage in task manager (never had over 70%, not even on demanding games). 50%-70% of RAM usage, and less than 50% CPU usage (1%-4% in OBS). Temperatures were perfectly fine. Nonetheless I was having a hard time.
I tried several configurations (recommended, advanced, turning psycho visual off, look ahead off, simple). But the stream was chopped most of the time, and when it ran fairly (and rarely) smooth, the image was all washed out, and it just didn´t felt like 60fps. I was stubborn to downgrade my gameplay and canvas to 1080p and output to 720p considering my specs.
So after a lot of tweakings and experiments, HERE IS THE FIX:
That simple tweak had me running gameplay canvas on 1440p with capped 80-120 fps, while streaming or recording output 1080p 60 fps in OBS with no problem.
Every game I´ve tried is set to ultra (obviously removing V Sync and that sort of nonsense) with little to none spikes in gameplay (if there are spikes they doesn´t affect gameplay). Laggy OBS went away, and image quality improved, right now it is perfect for my standards.
The stream even improved a lot in games where I had problems before such as Apex and Rainbow Six Siege.
I have even considered to turn down the settings to "performance" to see how it works. But since it is working perfectly for me, I prefer not to.
Miraculously, now streaming in OBS runs perfect in any output configuration I set (Simple or Advanced). Right now my personal settings in OBS are set to advanced with default options turned on, nothing fancy, and bitrate to 6000 (recommended bitrate for 1080p).
Hope this helps anyone, because it is not an obvious solution. I was frustrated, and it took me several weeks of experimentation and tweakings (including the ones mentioned in this thread) to get this right. I already tried this fix on a friend´s PC (GTX 1070, i5, 1080p) and it improved her stream quality and the gameplay was smoother. So I think this tweak might help you even if you have a less powerful card than mine.
If you have knowledge that this adjustement has a negative effect, please let me know because I haven´t noted any.
(My specs are: RTX 2080 Super, Ryzen 7 3800X, 16 gb of Ram, 1440p).
In OBS my canvas is 1440p, and I stream to 1080p. Spoiler alert: the resolution was not the problem.
I was really frustrated because I saw how my fellow streamers with much less PC power than me, were playing and streaming flawlessly.
I don´t know why but since a video card driver update (I think it was mid november 2020), my gameplay in any game started with some spikes, it was playable though. The real problem started when I turned on the streaming or recording option in OBS, the gameplay felt sloppy, it was playable most of the time though -sometimes it went smooth for a short time, just to get a big huge spike in FPS-, but OBS streaming or recording was laggy and chopped as hell.
First of all I checked GPU usage in task manager (never had over 70%, not even on demanding games). 50%-70% of RAM usage, and less than 50% CPU usage (1%-4% in OBS). Temperatures were perfectly fine. Nonetheless I was having a hard time.
I tried several configurations (recommended, advanced, turning psycho visual off, look ahead off, simple). But the stream was chopped most of the time, and when it ran fairly (and rarely) smooth, the image was all washed out, and it just didn´t felt like 60fps. I was stubborn to downgrade my gameplay and canvas to 1080p and output to 720p considering my specs.
So after a lot of tweakings and experiments, HERE IS THE FIX:
- Open Nvidea Control Panel.
- Look for the option: "Adjust Image Settings with Preview". (Its the one that has the rendering of the Nvidea logo spinning)
- Under the image you will locate three options.
- Click on the third option "Use my preference emphasizing:..."
- Turn down the knob to "Balanced". I think the default position here is "Quality". I am no tech, but I have found out that turning it down won´t affect how the resources of your GPU are used, most importantly if you have a good or beefy video card.
That simple tweak had me running gameplay canvas on 1440p with capped 80-120 fps, while streaming or recording output 1080p 60 fps in OBS with no problem.
Every game I´ve tried is set to ultra (obviously removing V Sync and that sort of nonsense) with little to none spikes in gameplay (if there are spikes they doesn´t affect gameplay). Laggy OBS went away, and image quality improved, right now it is perfect for my standards.
The stream even improved a lot in games where I had problems before such as Apex and Rainbow Six Siege.
I have even considered to turn down the settings to "performance" to see how it works. But since it is working perfectly for me, I prefer not to.
Miraculously, now streaming in OBS runs perfect in any output configuration I set (Simple or Advanced). Right now my personal settings in OBS are set to advanced with default options turned on, nothing fancy, and bitrate to 6000 (recommended bitrate for 1080p).
Hope this helps anyone, because it is not an obvious solution. I was frustrated, and it took me several weeks of experimentation and tweakings (including the ones mentioned in this thread) to get this right. I already tried this fix on a friend´s PC (GTX 1070, i5, 1080p) and it improved her stream quality and the gameplay was smoother. So I think this tweak might help you even if you have a less powerful card than mine.
If you have knowledge that this adjustement has a negative effect, please let me know because I haven´t noted any.
