Question / Help Having issues with my Elgato capture card and obs studio

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Rab1dGaming

New Member
I am running a dual pc stream setup using an elgato hd60 pro capture card. I have searched and searched multiple sites with no luck fixing my issue of choppy video. both pc's are well within the requirements of the card and obs software, yet I cannot seem to find a combination of settings that will provide me with smooth video feed. When I view the captured image through the elgato game capture software it is smooth as silk with no lag or choppiness, yet obs studio can't seem to provide smooth video from this card. I have tried everything I could find over the last few days and was hoping to get some input and help from you guys that are also using this same setup.
 
C-Dude

C-Dude

Member
Log is incomplete you need to have a recording/stream in there. Stream/record for a few minutes with the settings that you are getting the issue then stop the recording, wait a few seconds and then upload current log.

My bad, I forgot it wasn't mentioned in the link.
 
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Rab1dGaming

New Member
https://gist.github.com/cebbc5c823f63d2c22fd39164de53ebd

I was reading through the log myself and noticed the frames being skipped due to encoding/rendering lag. Before deciding to build a 2nd pc dedicated to the encoding and recording I was able to stream on my single gaming pc without this lag, my only issues were frame drop in certain games and not being able to use a high enough preset to provide the quality I wanted.

My gaming pc specs are very similar in a lot of ways to the streaming pc.

Gaming PC

  • AMD FX-8320 Black (4.5ghz OC @ 1.45v)
  • Team Dark Series 24GB DDR3 1600 (3x 8GB)
  • Gigabyte GTX1070 G1 Gaming 8GB
  • Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
  • Xigmatek NRP-HC1001 1000w Modular PSU
  • Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD (OS)
  • Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD (Games)
Streaming PC

  • AMD FX-8320E
  • Kingston Hyper-X 8gb DDR3 1600
  • Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3
  • EVGA 500w PSU
  • Kingston UV400 120GB SSD
  • Western Digital Black 1TB HDD
  • Elgato HD60 Pro
 
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C-Dude

C-Dude

Member
I'm not sure why but the dropped frames are caused by your pc not being fast enough. Since your 2nd pc only has integrated graphics it makes sense that the frames are being lost by both your CPU and GPU. (encoding lag is caused by CPU, rendering lag means GPU)

Its weird do you have anything else on your streaming pc that uses a lot of CPU/GPU?

Definitely in your settings do your scaling in the video tab instead of the output tab. Leave your base resolution at 1920x1080 but change your scaled resolution to 1280x720 (use Lanczos downscale filter) make sure to uncheck resize output box in streaming settings.

Other than that idk maybe your CPU is defective or AMD integrated graphics don't work well with OBS. I'm really not sure.
 
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Rab1dGaming

New Member
Nothing else is running, its a fresh install of windows and have only installed stuff related to the stream.

I don't think the cpu is the issue, but maybe that the integrated graphics are not enough, I have a few low end gpu's around I just need to find to see if that would help it.
 
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Rab1dGaming

New Member
First of all I want to thank you for helping me.

Second, I decided to do a test by moving the card from the streaming pc and into the gaming pc. I then plugged the streaming pc's hdmi into the card after installing the drivers and opened up obs and added the device as you normally would. During the preview on the stream pc I was already getting video lag which got worse with recording/streaming. I streamed a 5 minute gymkhana video(if you haven't seen any of them they are very fast paced) and had no issues what-so-ever with the video while using the card in my gaming pc. framerate,quality, ect was all top notch and smooth as silk.

Now to me this confirms this: 1. The Elgato card is fine and has no issues. 2. My obs settings are not the issue and 3. There is something not performing properly in my streaming pc.

I know my gaming pc has slightly beefier specs, but the performance difference of the 8320E(stream pc) compared to the regular 8320(gaming pc) is not drastic enough to cause this much of a difference(even though the gaming pc is overclocked). The only thing I can see making a difference would be the rendering performance considering the gtx 1070 vs integrated.

I admit the motherboard in the streaming pc was a factory refurbished motherboard and I did forget to mention that when I installed the hd60 in the streaming computer I was getting wierd audible noises coming from the hardware itself that only occur when using the pci ports(confirmed same symptoms on both pcie ports on the stream pc motherboard). This did not occur at all when installed in the gaming pc. So while I still think I may need a low end gpu to help out the rendering side in the long run, I think I may have a bad motherboard on the stream pc causing the entire system to have performance issues.
 
C-Dude

C-Dude

Member
That could be right. Its weird because usually if you were getting issues with hardware they would not work at all.
I dont know how well integrated graphics work in OBS. maybe try putting your GPU in the streaming pc and seeing if that works?
 
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Rab1dGaming

New Member
Due to the position of the pcie slots I can't fit a dual slot gpu in at the same time as the capture card. I found an old radeon hd4550 that woukd fit but it doesn't have hdmi so I need to find my dvi adapter to try it out. I do still think the motherboard has issues given the noise from the hardware when using pci.
 
R

Rab1dGaming

New Member
C-Dude said:
That could be right. Its weird because usually if you were getting issues with hardware they would not work at all.
I dont know how well integrated graphics work in OBS. maybe try putting your GPU in the streaming pc and seeing if that works?
Click to expand...
Well I finally found one of my old extra gpu's(an old radeon hd 4550) and threw it in the stream pc to see if that would help. Eliminated the hardware noise I was experiencing, and also am now able to get smooth video from the capture card and stream with no issues, still working on getting the recording settings set perfectly.

I plan to purchase a newer low end gpu to use in place of the 4550( doesnt have hdmi output) and the other spare card I have(GT 620) has too thick of a heatsink to install next to the capture card. If you have any suggestions on a thin profile low end card I would appreciate it.

Thankfully this means I don't have to mess with the hassle of returning the current mobo and replacing it. A bit of overclocking and a modern dedicated gpu seems like it will solve the issues I was having.

https://gist.github.com/12d860e04e081829e9690d017fa1c42d

this is the current log file if you happen to see anything I should address still
 
C-Dude

C-Dude

Member
you still are dropping a ton of frames

22:44:15.691: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 10675 (36.5%)

which is caused by your GPU. Which is fair sense the 4550 is extremely weak. I don't know how powerful of a card you would need. There aren't a ton of options. But maybe something like the gt 730. I'm not sure if that would be powerful enough or if it would be overkill.
 
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Rab1dGaming

New Member
C-Dude said:
you still are dropping a ton of frames

22:44:15.691: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 10675 (36.5%)

which is caused by your GPU. Which is fair sense the 4550 is extremely weak. I don't know how powerful of a card you would need. There aren't a ton of options. But maybe something like the gt 730. I'm not sure if that would be powerful enough or if it would be overkill.
Click to expand...
Yeah i knew the 4550 wouldn't be able to handle much but it was worth using as for testing. I was looking at the 710-730 cards. I did manage to find a flexible pcie 1x riser cable that would let me move the capture card to a different slot location. Now I just need to confirm which card will do the job.

I did some research on the passmark score of certain cards vs my current integrated radeon 3000 and intels integrated hd 4000. I know of a few streamers personally who use intel integrated in their streaming pc's without issues so I am assuming any card which scores equally or higher than the intel is likely to work without a problem.
 
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