Question / Help Games feel sluggish when streaming - GTX 1050 ti & i7 8700

[Juliann6]

For some reason my games feel sluggish when streaming them compared to when I am not streaming.
Its something that effects me for sure because I always like to enjoy my game play in the best way possible.
There is no issue with fps although I do feel as my gpu could be bottle necking my computer and am using NVENC to stream.
When playing, the majority of the time RAM is being used at about 50%.
Could definitely feel the slow game play while playing Rocket League, could easily notice the difference.
It isn't such a huge issue but something that would help me a ton to enjoy my game play more. Thanks!
If anyone has any suggestions I would highly appreciate it.
My Specs:
i7 8700
GTX 1050 ti
12 GB RAM

https://obsproject.com/logs/qsmOMKu0_55taZab

 

[Narcogen]

NVENC uses a dedicated hardware encoder. Using it won't affect game performance.

There's no significant rendering lag in your log:

23:19:11.751: Output 'simple_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 8 (0.0%)

 

[Juliann6]

Would you agree it could be a hardware issue that’s causing the effect? Which NVENC preset would you suggest ? Been on default so far.

 

[Narcogen]

With the only information available being "feels sluggish" no, I wouldn't be able to say it's necessarily a hardware issue, no.

Which NVENC settings you choose will impact the quality and reliability of your stream, not your game. Which settings will work best for you depends on your network connection, your hardware, the application being captured, the settings of that application... it's very particular and the best way to find the best settings is to experiment.

 

[Juliann6]

Thanks for the response, I highly appreciated the help

 

[Narcogen]

You're welcome!

 

[TryHD]

NVENC uses a dedicated hardware encoder. Using it won't affect game performance.

while this is true, routing the image to obs and rendering overlays does affect game performance, it depends on the engine how much the game gets sluggish. Trackmania Forever would be a example where you really can feel it badly if you record/stream at 1080p or higher.

 

[DEDRICK]

Is your 1080p monitor 144hz or higher? or just a plain Jane 60Hz

 

[Narcogen]

while this is true, routing the image to obs and rendering overlays does affect game performance, it depends on the engine how much the game gets sluggish.

Yes, but this occurs whether you use GPU encoding or CPU encoding. In fact, GPU encoding incurs less additional load because frames from the game don't leave the GPU during compositing or encoding; they only hit the PCI bus when they're finished. I pointed this out because some people are under the impression that switching from CPU to GPU encoding puts more load on the GPU, but it doesn't, because the hardware encoder on the GPU is dedicated to that purpose, and this means those frames don't hit the PCI bus until encoding is finished.

This is why ShadowPlay and similar programs that record directly from the GPU incur less load, but also why they don't allow arbitrary overlays like OBS does.