Question / Help Freezing or locking up even when idling not live

[TheGameCase]

Alright so here's my issue, A few weeks ago I started encountering dropped frames and issues on stream. OBS when I checked it was actually freezing up (sometimes the preview, sometimes the whole program), after the free it would return to normal and the stream could continue. This is now presenting itself when the program is just idling without being live. I've reinstalled Windows, replaced the HD, RAM, and GPU in the machine thinking I was having a hardware issue, reinstalled OBS multiple times, and have updated all the drivers that I can think of. This is a dedicated Stream PC (not doing any gaming) it runs only Snaz, OBS and Line 6 POD Farm (audio software).

Also Stream kbs goes from a solid 6k then drops completely to 0. Occasionally it will go from 6k down to 1.5k then jump to 15k then fail.

All systems on the PC are running well within their capacities. CPU / RAM /

https://gist.github.com/39f516c50a236d9ef568b212d86dc57a <--- current log; all symptoms present atm

 

[Harold]

A GT710 is WAY underpowered for what you're trying to do.

 

[TheGameCase]

A GT710 is WAY underpowered for what you're trying to do.

I've been running a 610 for about a year w/out a single issue. What's under powered about it? If I'm using x264 encoding (which is CPU heavy if I understand it right), the GPU isn't really doing all that much.

 

[Harold]

The GT710 is just that low end.

 

[TheGameCase]

The GT710 is just that low end.

I've been streaming at those same settings for a year now. I had these issues present with the GT610 I was using to stream flawlessly for over a year. I replaced the used GT610 w/ a new GT710 (bottom of the line I realize but still better than the GT610). All the graphics card in this machine is doing is getting an image on my monitor.

 

[Tha_Messiah]

A GT710 is WAY underpowered for what you're trying to do.

The GT710 is just that low end.

This really ticked all of the boxes of being unhelpful. And got on my nerves enough to actually create a user to rant about it.

The GT710 in this is not doing shit. The rendering is set to X.264 and is CPU only. If you took 3 minutes to look through the log, you could see that that card is not used for streaming, and the rest of the rig should be plenty fine.

I have no idea how you got the title of "Community Helper" when the rank "Community Pain in the rear" would be more fitting.

 

[Harold]

The rendering is set to X.264 and is CPU only. If you took 3 minutes to look through the log, you could see that that card is not used for streaming, and the rest of the rig should be plenty fine.

IF you took the 3 minutes you claimed I needed, you would have seen this:

19:02:13.060: Output 'simple_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1289 (51.7%)

I'm not the one saying the video card is the problem.
The log is.

You can be annoyed all you want, but rendering lags are ALWAYS video card problems. Either by the card being underpowered or improperly installed.

 

[Tha_Messiah]

x264 is CPU only rendering. He's not using NVENC which would otherwise make your statement true. If he was to use NVENC the card is not powerful enough. The PC has been able to do this, so unless there's been a change in the way OBS handles x264, it should not use the GPU for rendering at all.

Rendering is NOT always a graphics thing, I think you're confusing it with something else. And that line from the log just tells that the lost frames are due to stalls (program not responding) or lag (low rendering speed or other pipeline latency). That does not by default point to the GPU.

 

[Harold]

Scene composition happens entirely on the GPU because it's resource-cheaper to do so instead of on the CPU in 100% of cases.

You're talking about frame encoding with x264 vs nvenc. The GT710 doesn't support NVENC at all, so that's not even a factor.

 

[TheGameCase]

x264 is CPU only rendering. He's not using NVENC which would otherwise make your statement true. If he was to use NVENC the card is not powerful enough. The PC has been able to do this, so unless there's been a change in the way OBS handles x264, it should not use the GPU for rendering at all.

Rendering is NOT always a graphics thing, I think you're confusing it with something else. And that line from the log just tells that the lost frames are due to stalls (program not responding) or lag (low rendering speed or other pipeline latency). That does not by default point to the GPU.

Okay, how is rendering lag locking up OBS when I'm not even attempting to stream? I'm willing to admit I'm completely ignorant as to how all this works (maybe my ideas are all wrong), but shouldn't OBS be able to run just fine idling without streaming, even without a boss graphics card? I'm seeing the rendering lag, I'm also seeing rtmp errors and modules failing to load.

I'm sorry to be "arguing" with someone with obviously more experience than I have. I'm just at a loss as to how this was working just fine, and then suddenly starts dropping 50-70% of frames. I would've expected to see a gradual performance loss.

To continue down this line, my graphics card is shite, somehow I was doing fine, but now I'm not. My solution is much better graphics card in this case?

 

[Harold]

Try with the GT710 removed and instead use the intel integrated.
The ones in the Haswell generation are definitely more usable.

After that it may be time to get a more-recent GTX series card.

 

[TheGameCase]

Created a new scene collection and I'm not seeing any issues. What could I have added that would've caused this sort of issue?

https://gist.github.com/266b4b8f5682e2f4526c89311d271683

 

[Harold]

bit cups

 

[dodgepong]

Rendering is the process of compiling all the sources onto a frame. That is done on the GPU. Encoding is the process of compressing that frame into a video stream, which is done on the CPU when using x264.

If there is delay when rendering, that either indicates a slow source (such as a bit cup browser source) or a slow GPU (such as the GT 710).