Question / Help How does priority class effect stream?

[willll162904]

Hey guys so firstly i just want to say i apologize if this topic has been answered somewhere and i missed it. I just have one quick question. In advanced, what does process priority class do exactly? I ask this specifically because i have been keeping this at above normal as recommended, and it seems that has been limiting my fps ingame. I can stream lower end games fine (cubeworld, minecraft, csgo, and some older cods) but it has been giving me stuttering issues in bo2, bf3 and harder to run games. My fps is playable, but the stuttering causes it to be a very unenjoyable playing experience. i dropped this down to normal and the stuttering went away. What am i losing by setting this to normal? What does it effect in the stream by not having this at above normal? Thanks!

 

[R1CH]

Normal is the normal setting, oddly enough. If you don't know what advanced settings do, you really shouldn't be changing them.

 

[willll162904]

alrite thanks for the simple quick answer r1ch. also.. in the startup and troubleshooting guide, one recommendation in the advanced section is to have opencl=true in custom x264 options. what does this do if you know? I didn't notice a quality, or performance increase when i enabled it, but i wasnt sure if it does something significant on a coding level.

 

[Kharay]

It's not the Troubleshooting and Startup Guide. Not the official one anyhow, there is no such thing as an official Troubleshooting and Startup Guide. If only there were. It is my Troubleshooting and Startup Guide; it even says so in my very signature; the very place you found it. Anyhow, what Process Priority Class will do is, well, obviously make OBS a higher priority to Windows (multitasking and all). This could indeed lead to the situation where game FPS is affected.

However and I have to note this -- even on my aging i5 760 I do not lose a single FPS ingame over using Above Normal instead of normal. Which to me suggests you must be on an ancient CPU and/or must be taxing your system extraordinarily hard in any of a number of different ways.

As far as OpenCL is concerned; have a read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL -- TL;DR version: It will make your GPU assist a bit more on the encoding process.

 

[dodgepong]

I don't think opencl=true should be a blanket recommendation. It can make things buggy and can be confusing, and should only be used by people who realize what they are doing. By making it your "default" recommendation, it's inviting people to use it blindly, which is a bad idea for something as complicated and unstable as OpenCL.

And process priority is something to be adjusted on a case by case basis. Messing with process priorities can lead to system instability, and I don't think it should be changed from Normal unless you're having performance issues.

When doing general advice for OBS, my recommendation is the same as R1CH's: don't touch the Advanced settings unless you understand what the thing is that you're changing.

 

[Kharay]

Well, already took out the Above Normal but may do the same for OpenCL indeed. Since it does indeed seem to still be causing some issues to some people. Heck, I'll just go do that now.

 

[willll162904]

It's not the Troubleshooting and Startup Guide. Not the official one anyhow, there is no such thing as an official Troubleshooting and Startup Guide. If only there were. It is my Troubleshooting and Startup Guide; it even says so in my very signature; the very place you found it. Anyhow, what Process Priority Class will do is, well, obviously make OBS a higher priority to Windows (multitasking and all). This could indeed lead to the situation where game FPS is affected.

However and I have to note this -- even on my aging i5 760 I do not lose a single FPS ingame over using Above Normal instead of normal. Which to me suggests you must be on an ancient CPU and/or must be taxing your system extraordinarily hard in any of a number of different ways.

As far as OpenCL is concerned; have a read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL -- TL;DR version: It will make your GPU assist a bit more on the encoding process.

ok thank you for responding. I am ont on an ancient cpu or gpu atm. My cpu is an i5 3570 atm @ 4 ghz with a gtx 660ti overclocked to 1175

 

[Kharay]

What are you streaming, normally? Because, I can stream Minecraft, DOTA2 and other (semi-)modern titles just fine with my far older hardware, even with Above Normal. Just curious.

 

[willll162904]

Oh that is why. I can stream almost all the games i stream on above normal fine ie older cods csgo minecraft cube world, but in black ops 2 and bf3 i get stutters. Also im doing 720p 60 fps

 

[Kharay]

Well, BO2 is a very poorly optimized title; it has a pretty shoddy engine. So it stands to reason that that one might cause some issues.

 

[willll162904]

Yes that is true kharay. With battlefield and the priority class at above normal i was getting 70 or more fps but it was stuttery. Probably playable for some people, but not for my taste. When i bumped that down im getn 90+ constant which is more than playable for me :)