How to fix these strange lags or frame drops?

K

Knampf

New Member
Hello

When I record with OBS, I have frame drops that I shouldn’t have with this PC and these settings. I used MSI Afterburner when recording to see CPU and GPU usage and other things. The CPU usage doesn’t exceed 20 – 25% at a resolution of 1440p and the GPU doesn’t exceed about 50%. The prority of OBS is set to highest. I did benchmark tests and CPU and GPU can each go to 100%. The CPU temperature is not shown to go over ~70°C and the GPU temperature isn’t shown to go over ~60°C. It would be very unusal if a CPU does thermal throttling at 70 to 80°C. I did malware scans and cleaned a bit up. I disabled the “Gaming Mode” in Windows settings. I tried many different settings in OBS and CBR bit rates of 1501, 2501 and 5001 and they all lag.

I recorded Overwatch at 60fps with low settings with a base of 2560*1440 scaled to 1280*720 with bicubic scaling and got lags. It could also be that I’m nitpicky but I don’t think that’s the case because the lags/frame drops are clearly seeable and I don’t see that in videos on YouTube for example.

I’m not sure what and what not to write here, so I leave it with that and attach the log file of the session in which a video like this was recorded.
 

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  • 2020-12-02 08-47-00.txt
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K

Knampf

New Member
Hello again

I’ve tried everything you wrote and the problem is still there. Windows doesn’t say it needs updates, I ran OBS as admin, did the video settings in your reply and switched the game mode settings.

I couldn’t change the monitor to 60Hz in 1440p. The option was shown and even confirmable but he would remain 59Hz. In some further testing, I changed the resolution of the monitor to 1080p and could set 60Hz. I recorded another video with OBS settings at 1080p max at 60fps and it still lagged.

The utilizastion of CPU and GPU stayed as low as before. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any lags or frame drops before either CPU or GPU reaches 100%, right?

Thanks for the tips.

Here’s the latest log to be sure:
 

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  • 2020-12-02 13-09-48.txt
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rockbottom

Active Member
A few observations:

1) It could be your hard drive causing the lag, try writing to a different drive.

2) Your Nvidia drivers are older than dirt, update.

3) You're running at least 1 program that causes conflicts.

Wiki - Known Conflicts | OBS

This page has moved to https://obsproject.com/kb/known-conflicts.
obsproject.com obsproject.com
 
Last edited:
K

Knampf

New Member
Update: I updated the Nvidia drivers, had MSI afterburner off when recording after your advice and changed the save location from HDD to SSD where OBS is located again. It didn't fix the problem but thanks for the tips.
 
K

Knampf

New Member
On 30fps, it looks choppy and laggy, especially in a game like Overwatch. I can tell you how I noticed the lags on 60fps: There were clearly visible stutters every 5 – 10 seconds and I went into Shotcut to see what it is. There are repetitive frames very often, for example at minute 3:15:04 is the same frame as at minute 3:15:03 when there was clearly movement at 60 fps. The recording should have the same frame sequence at 60fps as the game at 60fps, right? Here’s the latest log:
 

Attachments

  • 2020-12-02 16-30-50.txt
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K

Knampf

New Member
Yeah, it definitely got better. It's still some dropped frames every 15 - 20 seconds or so though. It might be the monitor, I'm doing some further research. First I had MSI Afterburner off but there were some new tasks called "Nvidia Share" with installing GeForce Experience that I couldn't turn off. New log:
 

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  • 2020-12-02 18-31-22.txt
    16.5 KB · Views: 35
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rockbottom

Active Member
Nice, now try going back to your original recording resolution & frame rate. I think you'll be fine.

I don't do much with Expirience, I only log in when I'm updating drivers. At minimum, make sure the In Game Overlay is turned off.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
BTW, there's no dropped frames in your log now. But you may be seeing some stuttering. If you're still having trouble getting your monitor set @ 60FPS, just set OBS so it matches your monitor.
 
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