Has my system become too weak?

FW18

FW18

New Member
My streaming PC has an i7-11700 and an RTX 3070, as well as 32 GB of RAM (it was originally 16, but I upgraded it).

I do sports livestreams with four cameras connected to the PC via Elgato Cam Links. Here is an example of one of our recent broadcasts: https://www.youtube.com/live/XXqOLNVIYtA?si=uBx4WEKC91zYOWo1&t=1423. As you can clearly see, the image is constantly stuttering and also only runs at 30 fps.
About four years ago, when we started streaming, we were able to broadcast at 60 fps without any problems. Here is an example from back then: https://www.youtube.com/live/NUS-eq3vHXU?si=5yqPewh9DZt4Adpa&t=4972.

For about a year now, it hasn't been running smoothly, and it feels like it's getting worse instead of better. I've tried almost everything, but nothing has really helped. My latest theory is that OBS has simply evolved in recent years and my system couldn't keep up. But before I make the big investment to replace it, I'd like to get your expert opinion on this.

Is my PC too weak? Should I replace it? If so, what should I look for in a new PC?

Thanks in advance!
 
FW18

FW18

New Member
qhobbes said:

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...
obsproject.com obsproject.com
Click to expand...
Thanks for letting me know! I'm not at my streaming PC right now, but I'll do that ASAP.
In the last stream, we only used a single camera to ensure smoothness, and there were no problems. However, I'll try to find a log file from a problematic stream.
 
qhobbes

qhobbes

Active Member
Make sure that your Cam Links are spread out evenly as possible with your USB Host Controllers. You can use USB Device Tree Viewer for this. Here you can see a USB 3.1 controller with Cam Link 4K and USB 3.2 controller with HD 60 X.
usbtree-2cats2controllers.png
 
FW18

FW18

New Member
TheStonedSpider said:
The problem is probably obs. Everybody having issues with high encoding and a slew of issues with the new updates.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your opinion. So would you recommend switching to another software? I have already tried out vMix, but they specifically say that my system is too weak - which it was when I tried.
 
FW18

FW18

New Member
qhobbes said:

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...
obsproject.com obsproject.com
Click to expand...
So this is the log file of our last stream: https://obsproject.com/logs/sewEqo8CfAv1oKcW
But we only used one camera and no replays in order to reduce lagging.

This is another one where we used three cameras and no replays: https://obsproject.com/logs/ibFN2Tzv4MolaVQJ

Unfortunately there is none from a stream with the full setup plus replays.
Is there still something important to be learned from this?
 
koala

koala

Active Member
Your system isn't too weak. Your CPU and your GPU are quite powerful and they are capable to sustain quite some load. The 2 logfiles contain perfect streams and recordings from OBS' point of view - no lost/lagged frames. Also no errors from the camera data streams. From the OBS side it looks perfect.
You set OBS to 60 fps, and according to the profiler section at the end of the logs, every single video encoding session was with 60 fps (all 16.666666 ms).

So it's possible that's something outside of OBS, for example on Youtube's side. I know Youtube might downgrade a stream from 60 to 30 for low motion or low bitrate streams, but yours isn't one of that - it's decent bitrate (10000) and your sports is definitely high motion. All your capture cards are grabbed with 60 and 59.94 fps (try to update the 59.94 ones to plain 60), so there's no secret downgrade inside OBS.

If you record to disk in addition to stream, what fps does the resulting video have? I don't talk of the videos you get with the source record plugin, I mean the "main" video that is created if you press the "Start Recording" button below the "Start Streaming" button. Set the encoder for recording to "(same as stream)" to get directly to disk what OBS is supposed to send to Youtube.
 
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FW18

FW18

New Member
Good to know, thank you for your analysis.
I should mention, however, that OBS doesn't display any errors during streaming. There are no dropped frames, and CPU usage remains constant at around 20%. The Task Manager also shows that the system isn't even at half capacity. However, I can see in the preview that the image is stuttering. I therefore think that OBS is transmitting it to YouTube that way.

When I test the stream offline, it usually works without any problems. The issues only start when I begin streaming and recording in OBS. YouTube then reports that it's not receiving enough data. My internet connection is excellent, by the way – 1000 Mbps up and down.

It might also be important to note that we use a plugin called "replay source," which records the last 5 seconds from all four cameras so we can play replays. I've been gradually removing this in recent streams, which has reduced the system load. As a result, we were able to stream at 60 FPS instead of 30. But as I said, three years ago it worked with all replays and 1080p60, so I'm stumped...
 
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