Question / Help GPU Usage Increases When Not Streaming- Why Is This?

[Mark Weiss]

Just curious about this. GPU Usage is 8% when streaming and 18% when not streaming. I also notice CPU usage seems to increase slightly when OBS is in Standby mode. Most software, when idle, goes to 0% CPU/GPU usage.

So when I'm not streaming, in order to let my PC's energy consumption drop to the lowest level, I have to quit out of OBS. Otherwise the CPU clock remains 4.57GHz when the machine is doing nothing.

What processes are OBS running when not streaming that could account for this?

 

[koala]

OBS isn't doing nothing while it is idle. In fact, it still does all the work it does during streaming, just without encoding the data and sending it. All capturing and compositing is continuously done as long as OBS is running, to create the preview that OBS shows.

The surprising difference between CPU usage idle and streaming is due to the power saving mode of the CPU. If not under full load, the CPU throttles. Since OBS still does some work, the CPU appear to be loaded heavier in throttled mode, since it does not have full computing power. While streaming, the CPU isn't throttled, so it has all computing power, so OBS takes less part of that full power.

As far as I remember, you can do nothing about that behavior, except using as few sources as possible and building less complex scene compositions. Try disabling the preview - perhaps OBS stops compositing, thus using less CPU. But completely 0% CPU is probably not achievable.

Also, if you have Browser sources active, they may consume computing power if they have some Javascript continuously running.

 

[Mark Weiss]

It's not that. My CPU is running other tasks as well, so the clock is at 4.57GHz most of the time.
But the most change is the GPU. It's utilization goes way UP with OBS is not streaming. I doubt if that's due to power saving mode.
But then, I decided to see how much power the PC was REALLY using, by looking at the Kill-A-Watt P3. Streaming uses 23 watts more than not streaming. So I guess that supports your statement. Perhaps the GPU clock is idling down and Windows Task Manager doesn't account for this and makes it look like the utilization went up.
Curious that other apps don't exhibit this behavior.