Question / Help How does my in-game frames per second drop so hard?

[Light And Magic]

First of all, if I did not say this before: Jim & team OBS, I truly appreciate all your efforts to bring us OBS on Mac too, I love to stream and could not do it without you.

That said: can the developers or any fellow streamers explain why my EVE Online frames per second drop from about 50 to 30 whenever I start OBS 0.10.1, even without streaming? I did more performance tests after my followers on Twitch noticed terrible frame per second drops (in-game, not in the broadcast) while streaming last Thursday.

Today I created a new scene with nothing in it, just to make sure it does not happen because of too much going on in my usual EVE scene. But even when using an empty scene and not streaming at all, in fact not running any of my helper tools (for audio channeling, webcam stuff, background music, etc) the frames per second dropped by 20 without doing anything.

The FPS's drop below 30 which gets noticed on Twitch and is a real bad experience for my viewers. If I can help fix this by testing and documenting what I do then let me know, this is almost a show stopper for me right now.

Keep up the good work though!

 

[c3r1c3]

Check and make sure that your system is running in dual channel mode for your memory. You can go to the Apple menu->About this Mac... after that it depends on which OS you're running.

Also there are a few other factors that can cause such drops. Posting a log to the thread is helpful in determining what the issue can be.

 

[dodgepong]

Sources in OBS MP are global, so they are active even when you are on a different scene, so switching to a new scene isn't a good test.

Can you post a log?

 

[Light And Magic]

I am running Mac OS X 10.8.5 and can not find whether my system runs in dual channel mode or not.

The speed does change when changing scenes: at least 10 FPS dropping when switching to the real scene with many layers compared to the empty performance test scene.

My latest log file:

19:37:12: OBS 0.10.1 (mac)
19:37:12: CPU Name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU W3680 @ 3.33GHz
19:37:12: CPU Speed: 3330MHz
19:37:12: Physical Cores: 6, Logical Cores: 12
19:37:12: Physical Memory: 24576MB Total
19:37:12: OS Name: Mac OS X (NSMACHOperatingSystem)
19:37:12: OS Version: Version 10.8.5 (Build 12F2518)
19:37:12: Kernel Version: 12.6.0
19:37:12: hotkeys-cocoa: Using layout 'com.apple.keylayout.Dutch'
19:37:12: audio settings reset:
samples per sec: 44100
speakers: 2
buffering (ms): 1000

19:37:12: video settings reset:
base resolution: 1920x1080
output resolution: 1280x720
fps: 30/1
format: NV12
19:37:12: No blackmagic support
19:37:12: Failed to start search for DeckLink devices
19:37:13: output 'adv_stream' (rtmp_output) created
19:37:13: output 'adv_file_output' (flv_output) created
19:37:13: encoder 'streaming_h264' (obs_x264) created
19:37:13: encoder 'adv_aac0' (ffmpeg_aac) created
19:37:13: encoder 'adv_aac1' (ffmpeg_aac) created
19:37:13: encoder 'adv_aac2' (ffmpeg_aac) created
19:37:13: encoder 'adv_aac3' (ffmpeg_aac) created
19:37:13: service 'default_service' (rtmp_common) created
19:37:13: coreaudio: device 'Soundflower (2ch)' initialized
19:37:13: source 'Desktop Audio' (coreaudio_output_capture) created
19:37:13: coreaudio: device 'WavTap' initialized
19:37:13: source 'Desktop Audio 2' (coreaudio_output_capture) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE Online' (scene) created
19:37:13: EVE game capture: Injected 'EVE Online' (2348, 'com.transgaming.EVEOnline')
19:37:13: source 'EVE game capture' (syphon-input) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE overlay' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Webcam overlay' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Richard webcam portrait' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE name Althaia' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Latest follower title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Latest follower' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Latest donation title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Latest donation' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Richard portrait' (image_source) created
19:37:13: Webcam: Selected device 'CamTwist'
19:37:13: Webcam: Using preset 1280x720
19:37:13: source 'Webcam' (av_capture_input) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE name Anna' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Online players title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Online players' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE Anna portrait' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Latest money donation' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE wallpaper' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE thanks for watching' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE be right back' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE name Gordo' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE pod-killed' (image_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE server time title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE server time' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE time to PLEX' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE time to PLEX title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Moderator title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Moderator' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Twitch name title' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Twitch name' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'EVE stream announcement' (text_ft2_source) created
19:37:13: source 'Performance test' (scene) created
19:37:13: EVE game capture: Injected server found: [EVE Online] InjectedSyphon (info.v002.Syphon.E57B7134-88B0-4508-B1F1-CFB79DE20A3A)
19:37:13: Unexpected pixel format: 0

 

[Light And Magic]

Check and make sure that your system is running in dual channel mode for your memory. You can go to the Apple menu->About this Mac... after that it depends on which OS you're running.

As I upgraded my RAM two weeks ago (from 12 GB to 24 GB) I double checked the speed of writing to these modules. I installed the old ones back, did some speed test, and put in the new ones and ran the same test. All tests report a RAM write speed of about 6000 MB/s so there is not difference in the setups. I use 3 modules, and also ran speed test with only 2 of each modues, the speed dropped to about 5800 MB/s (which surprised me by the way) -> EDIT: using the 3 modules puts the Mac into triple channel memory usage, gaining a few percent extra performance.

So the memory configuration does not seem to be a part of the drop in FPS.

 

[Light And Magic]

Important information after two hours of flying in EVE Online while changing software settings: I use CamTwist 3.0 to get my webcam video into the Mac. It advertises itself as a video source in Mac OS X, so OBS can pick it up and put it in the stream. When I start this all up my FPS drops a by whopping 35!

Of course streaming means I MUST use my webcam and I use CamTwist to enhance (mirror, zoom in, etc) the webcam video beofre OBS gets it. But the price is too high if these two tools do not like each other, so I will try to find something else.

There is of course still the issue of FPS dropping when OBS starts.

 

[keybounce]

Alright, I have a similar issue. I just tested minecraft, and found that I dropped from about 28-30 FPS to about 12-15 FPS. Display capture, retina display, converting from 1708x960 down to 854x480.

Issue happens just with OBS running; the overhead of doing both recording and streaming at the same time is maybe 1-2 FPS on top of that.

 

[fenque]

Alright, I have a similar issue. I just tested minecraft, and found that I dropped from about 28-30 FPS to about 12-15 FPS. Display capture, retina display, converting from 1708x960 down to 854x480.

Issue happens just with OBS running; the overhead of doing both recording and streaming at the same time is maybe 1-2 FPS on top of that.

I have the same problem, fps in the game drops to from 60 to 30-20 just from the fact that running obs with syphon inject

//gtx650

 

[Lain]

That's an incomplete log file. I need a full log with at least one recording or streaming session to gauge all the settings. If you're having FPS drops then it's almost always due to settings and/or PC specs. If your computer is good then it's almost always just settings.

Also you shouldn't have to use programs like camtwist just to get your webcam displayed, that seems very unusual to me.