Question / Help Frustrated with jerky recordings

[Muskoka Iracing]

Getting very frustrated trying to create smooth video. If I'm using OBS wrong, please tell me. I have other software i could use for video composition if that's the case, but it will add more steps, more work to do so.

What I'm trying to do, I believe is pretty straight forward: I want to record a video game replay file. (The replay file is already saved, so all I'm really doing is playing it back in a format that can be edited.)

When I create my scenes and what not, and run them in OBS, that part of the project is flawless. Splash screens, titles, animations...all run perfectly.
When I transition to the video game replay, the recorded output has issues. There are no dropped frames in OBS, no overload, CPU usage in less than 10%, everything gives the appearance that its outputting just fine. The info showing in the status bar are really not very interesting, everything seems just fine. When I watch the the finished composition, I can see what can on describe as a stutter, hiccup, or a jump. And, its at a regular interval, about once per second. Audio sounds flawless at all times, audio does not skip or stutter.

I have scaled back the output from the base canvas size of 1920*1080, changed frame rates, changed bit rates, bit rate type, file format, save location. I have literally tried everything I can think of to make it easier to handle, all of course which impacts quality. Nothing I've tried has had a noticeable positive effect, to stop the stutter. I can most certainly make it worse, but making it better seems elusive. I don't know what else to try.

Having said that, I created a new "RECORDING ONLY" profile, and yesterday the output was just fine. I used the same process today to create another video, using titles , transitions, all the same type of elements as the preceding days project. Even using the RECORDING ONLY profile, the video again has lagging issues. I went to bed dejected after viewing the output, as I am again back to square one (after having thought I finally got past the issue).

The computer is more than adequate for this...

ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 mainboard
AMD FX(tm)-6200 Six-Core Processor (3.8Ghz) OC'd to 4.2Ghz
16 Gb Corsair Vengance DDR3 Ram
Samsung 256 Gb SSD
OCZ Vertex III 128 Gb SSD
Nvidia GeForce 1060 6gb OC video card

What can I do to solve this problem???
I know I should post a log, as soon as I get on to that computer I will post a log of OBS, but I'm not sure what info it will have that's relevant, as the project was saved, closed, and I shut the computer down last night. But I'll post whatever is there shortly.

I would say my understanding of computers, software, and the production process is near-expert level, but I'm tormented by this....

 

[Muskoka Iracing]

The log in question...

 

[carlmmii]

Log does not show any render/encoding lag, as stated. I will mention though that your OBS version is out of date (that version has a broken auto-updater). I doubt that will fix things though.

Could you try this? Set up a fresh scene collection, and just have your game capture source added. Do a test recording, see if you still get the stuttering.

If you do still get the stuttering, then remove the game capture source and replace it with a display capture source, and do a test recording.

 

[Muskoka Iracing]

Sure. That should be easy. I think i did that at one point ( ran a recording of ONLY the transitions, and a separate one for the game cap).

Does it matter that the game capture is of a recording of the game, not live from the game? Will post my results here, thanks

And, I'll update OBS while I'm at it...

 

[Muskoka Iracing]

Update

Updated OBS. i didn't realize it was gonna hose my audio settings, so took a few minutes to re-add those and rename them. No biggie.

FYI, I'm running triple screens, and this has been a bit of a problem for some, at least that I've read.

So...

Created a new, empty scene collection, using then profile Recording Only
- New test scene, New source, Game capture, specific window only.

I noticed that I could not drag the grab handles to only capture the middle screen. The red selection area encompasses the entire 5760x1080 area. I can resize that, but it only resizes the entire 3-screen area bigger or smaller.
I can align the screens in the preview window (the left side) to show only the center area (canvas size 1920*1080), and that's what displays in the right (live) window. I guess that's essentially the same thing as what I had previously. But I wonder if OBS is looking at the entire game window as a capture, and its using up resources for 2 1920*1080 displays that will never get looked at.

The first test I ran was recording a live session. Reviewed that video and it looked stellar
The next recording was made by Replaying the first video, and recording the replay. Again it looked great, indistinguishable from the original
Test # 3 was made while now running all the helper apps (voice command, telemetry, overlays etc). and that again looked great.

So far each test recording was done from the in car, cockpit view.

The last test I ran, well now we are getting somewhere. Again i ran the same replay file, but this time instead of taking to viewpoint from in car, I started switching up cameras. I did notice some jitter here, but it wasn't the same as my initial problem. I was getting a regular, almost once-per-second video jitter. Just one frame it would seem, or once group of frames. hard to tell. So, now that i start to go to external cameras I start seeing jitter things. Not all cameras do this.

So, I guess I'm seeing that the issue isn't OBS (which is good news, and I appreciate everyone's indulgence with figuring this out)., It may have a lot to do with certain cameras that are selected to view the replay. That will present another problem for me to resolve, ans the cameras will change as the venue changed.

I haven't tried a project with transitions, but I had a feeling I know the result of that. The transitions wont have any negative affect.

 

[carlmmii]

I'll be honest, I completely overlooked the 3x monitor resolution in the logs. Nvidia surround unfortunately has always had a huge hit on performance, mainly because you're essentially driving nearly equivalent of 4k, but through a pipeline that has to stitch everything together awkwardly.

That said, to answer your question of how it's capturing... OBS is capturing the entire 5760x1080 area because that is what monitor resolution you're effectively using. The NVidia drivers treat everything as one giant monitor, so even switching to display capture would result in the same deal with having to grab the entire area.

As far as how to manage it easier in OBS, you can actually crop it down. This will have a marginal impact on things, but it should at least help a little bit. Just right-click on the layer and go to edit->transform, and set your crop values for left and right to 1920. If you want, you can also hold alt while you drag the red bounding box and this will let you move the crop area, but since you're looking to specifically capture the middle monitor's area, using exact pixel values works best here.

Shifting gears (har... driving puns)... the stutter you're seeing when changing cameras. Is this something that is noticeable in-game, or something that only shows up on the recording? Can you post the logs of your tests, so we can see if there's any kind of rendering lag that might be showing up with camera switches vs static camera?

Also... what's your GPU usage during all of this?

 

[Muskoka Iracing]

So, i guess my first question is - do I really NEED Nvidia surround? I mean Windows manages 3 screen just fine for the desktop, and with Iracing , I'm telling it to use Multi-Projection and 3 screens, not 1. I guess that is more of an Iracing question, than an OBS forum question though.

When I first set up OBS a while back, I was trying to capture everything that is on my screen while racing... helper apps, overlay etc. Display capture was awful, and it actually affected in game so bad I couldn't drive more than a few car lengths. So that's why i elected to go with game capture, specific window..etc. I have also figured out how to add over lay elements after the fact (or at least when recording or streaming), and they are differnt than i see in car. more useful to someone casually watching.

There is no stutter in game. video is flawless. Watching the replay from with the Iracing EXE is stellar.
The in-car tests were spectacular in their smoothness.

I will check for log files from tests or rerun tests later and get back. If you want o see the effect of the stutter, the last video i did is up on youtube and I can't watch it.... but, other people are less critical than I, so I left it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxH...9oqomoWXApbjZvE0N48_hv3LiH9f7hxy-JX_VL7NMMgtw