Question / Help Getting excessive encoding lag with one game only, the others are fine

StBehre

New Member
Hi everyone,

I read the stickies and also searched for my problem but couldn't find any solution for it (as the ones I did find are not working), also they were really old.

My problem:
At the moment I record 4 games (Ni No Kuni 2, Assassin's Creed Origins, Phoenix Point Backer Build, Doom 2016) in 1080p/60fps and they all run and encode fine with the exception of Doom. I get around 40-75% skipped frames due to encoding lag while in all the other games it's 0.0-0.2%.

In Doom 2016 I maintain 60fps easily (around 100-120fps without V-Sync). While OBS is recording, CPU usage is around 60-75% all the time. GPU usage is 45-60%. RAM usage is 75-80%. Performance wise there should be enough room as other games show higher usage.

I have tried all the solutions I have found with Google in various places:
- disabling Win10 game mode and game DVR
- running Doom in borderless window mode
- changing output to 720p (this reduced the skipped frames to around 30%)
- using "old" NVENC, not NVENC (new)
- turning off V-Sync or using adaptable V-Sync

Additionally I have tried:
- changing OBS process priority to above normal and high
- changing CQ value from my default 18 to 20 or 22
- testing all the presets (my default is max performance)
- using all profiles
- lowering the video settings in Doom to the absolute minimum (potatoe mode)
- changing file format from mp4 to mkv
- changing from CQP to CBR 4000 (that reduced the skipped frames to around 20% at least)
- recording to an SSD instead of HDD

Of course Windows, OBS and nvidia drivers are up to date. Also there are no other devices that can cause trouble (only one monitor, no 2nd GPU).

The most perplexing thing is that OBS recorded the tutorial level of Doom just fine when I played (and recorded) it the first time. Thanks to CQ18 this resulted in a file with a datarate of nearly 140.000 kbit/s. Everything I have recorded after this is lagging to hell and back - even the tutorial level.

I am really out of ideas except for buying a stronger CPU but I somehow do not think it's the cause of the problem because AC Origins has similar requirements and produces perfectly fine videos although it has higher CPU/GPU usages when ingame (CPU is 100% all the time for example).

Here is an example log: https://obsproject.com/logs/0GeKEbMnnrK3Uich

Thanks in advance!
 
D

Deleted member 121471

Try running Doom in OpenGL mode instead of Vulkan then retest.

Also, if you run the new NVENC implementation, use "Quality" preset and disable "Lookahead" and "Psycho Visual Tuning".
 

StBehre

New Member
It's already running in OpenGL 4.5, never tested it in Vulcan as I read somewhere that nvidia cards do not really benefit from Vulcan compared to OpenGL.
Quality preset and disabled lookahead and visual tuning did nothing unfortunately. Still at 40% skipped frames.

Edit: Out of curiosity I tried capturing in Vulcan and it does not work at all. Just a black screen and the log says "capture stopped" alot... it seems OBS is not able to hook into Vulcan at all.
 
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D

Deleted member 121471

Unfortunately, I don't have a NVIDIA card atm to test different settings but I recall DOOM specifically having a ton of issues when trying to use "game capture" on a few of my friends' streams, only "display capture" seemed to work reasonably well.

Could you try running OBS as administrator, disabling AVG antivirus and, if that doesn't help, a clean scene collection with only "display capture", for troubleshooting purposes?
 

StBehre

New Member
Yes, I found out by googling...
Display capture seems to improve it a bit but not by that much (still 20-60% skipped frames). Running as admin and disabling AVG does nothing.

I'm off to bed now but will continue to test tomorrow.
 

StBehre

New Member
I fiddled around a bit and found no way to improve the situation. I tried using x264 but this produced even worse results (as I expected).
I'm totally out of ideas :(

Edit: Ok, that's strange. In a last ditch effort I switched recording to my SSD again and now it works! I don't know why but now there are only 0.1% skipped frames due to encoding lag. The last time I tried it didn't work. Perhaps some wonky Windows system stuff so the SSD did not reach full performance. For now, the problem seems to be solved...
 
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