Question / Help Impact of recording to HDD vs SSD (Apex Legends recording issue)

[NachoFox]

So Apex Legends was released yesterday and here I was, silly old me, thinking that I would be able to DL it, whack my stream on and get some nice new-game views on Twitch and YouTube. However, it appears that the game did not want to play ball with me and regardless of what graphics I set the game to, OBS was dropping frames whenever I tried to record. (average 60fps but dropping to 52 and 43 regularly, which was hugely noticeable on the recorded footage).

I need to make this very clear, my in-game performance was not affected in the slightest. I tried my standard 2460x1440, all settings up to max, game ran fine, OBS did the drops to 52 and 43. I tried 1920x1080 with all graphical settings on the lowest, tried capping the framerate etc., OBS drops to 52 and 43.

Now I am aware that recording footage to the same disk as the game is running from is, generally, a bad idea. However I'm waiting on a new, bigger SSD to arrive than my current 250gb, so I have the game installed on my HDD for now, with footage being recorded to that same HDD. This is nothing new however, I've done this with plenty of games, including CoD Blackout, and the recordings have worked absolutely fine. And I've had games previously have this exact same issue, except they've been installed on an SSD with the recordings going to the HDD.

So my question is this. Would recording to an SSD make a difference in OBS framerate, would it prevent the random drops? And would having a game on one SSD and recording to a second SSD be any better? The stats part of OBS told me that I was getting "Rendering Lag" with a time of 1.1ms per frame, however I've not had chance to see how this differs from other games. I'm also currently at work so I will add a log later if it's needed to help solve this issue.

I've heard talk of Windows 10 prioritising games over OBS which has seen similar issues to the above for other people, however I'm not sure a lack of power can really be attributed in this situation given this is not the most graphically intensive game I've tried to record, and yet is the only one I've ever had issues with in 1920x1080 resolution.

Any ideas? (I will add a log when I get home if it will help)

My PC:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080ti 11GB
Intel Core i7 8700K (6-Core, 12MB Cache, Overclocked up to 4.6GHz across all cores)
32GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x16gb)

 

[koala]

So my question is this. Would recording to an SSD make a difference in OBS framerate, would it prevent the random drops? And would having a game on one SSD and recording to a second SSD be any better?

No. A bigger SSD does not change anything with fps, just like a bigger luggage compartment in a car will not make the car driving faster. Only a more powerful engine makes a car running faster, and if you speak about PCs, its engines are CPU and GPU.
Game and recording running on different SSD/HD will not change fps either. All current SSD/HD are able to handle writing video streams fast enough. A SSD helps with loading times when you start an app or change maps in a game, that's all.

You have a very powerful PC. It should handle streaming and recording well. Make sure Windows Game Mode is turned off, so Windows doesn't prioritize your game and throttle OBS.

 

[NachoFox]

You have a very powerful PC. It should handle streaming and recording well. Make sure Windows Game Mode is turned off, so Windows doesn't prioritize your game and throttle OBS.

I've seen a few notes about WGM, i'll take a look at turning that off tonight and see if it makes an improvement

 

[NachoFox]

So a quick update: WGM being turned off has unfortunately done nothing for me, and whilst I'd like to blame the game, many other people appear to be streaming and recording it completely fine.

I found two potential fixes, neither of which are ideal.

1. Turn my camera off - this seemingly sorted the frame drops out for the most part, but obviously isn't great when streaming.
2. Play the game in windowed mode - this came with it's own difficulties, with random frame drops in-game even on low graphical settings.

I can't help but feel like I'm missing an obvious trick.

 

[Merc]

I was having a similar issue last night when streaming to Twitch. OBS just dropping frames while the game was running perfectly. I lowered or disabled several settings in Apex Legends and it seemed to help. I feel like the GPU was just getting maxed out but I'm not entirely sure because like I said, the game ran fine. Somewhat new to the whole PC gaming thing so if you figure this out please let me know.

Ryzen 2700x
RTX 2080
16GB DDR4 at 3000MHz (2 x 8gb)

 

[NachoFox]

I was having a similar issue last night when streaming to Twitch. OBS just dropping frames while the game was running perfectly. I lowered or disabled several settings in Apex Legends and it seemed to help. I feel like the GPU was just getting maxed out but I'm not entirely sure because like I said, the game ran fine. Somewhat new to the whole PC gaming thing so if you figure this out please let me know.

Ryzen 2700x
RTX 2080
16GB DDR4 at 3000MHz (2 x 8gb)

I don't think it will be a GPU specific issue, the GPU is like a cookie monster (for lack of a better metaphor) and will take as much power as is available, despite being able to function with less. So you will always see this getting close to maxed out, because it's always going to use as much as it can. (And with an RTX 2080 or my GTX 1080ti - power for something like this is not a problem).

It looks like the most obvious answer is that OBS is being put to the back of the queue so to speak, so the game eats as much of the GPU as it can, leaving none for OBS. In older versions of windows and even earlier windows 10, this wasn't the case and OBS would take what it needed first and the game would take the rest (knocking a few FPS off the top line, but when the top line is like 200, this makes no difference). However in the latest version of windows 10, OBS takes the power 2nd. Disabling Windows Game Mode should in theory help to prevent this from happening, but unfortunately in my case it's not fully fixed the problem.

 

[Merc]

Thanks Nacho! Appreciate the info. I'll have to try this out tonight when I get home from work.

 

[GMJoon]

The problem remains. Ive tried everything mentioned above, and also tried lowering all the settings to the lowest in game. Nothing worked. I really hope there is a patch for either Apex, Windows 10 or OBS soon.

 

[NachoFox]

The problem remains. Ive tried everything mentioned above, and also tried lowering all the settings to the lowest in game. Nothing worked. I really hope there is a patch for either Apex, Windows 10 or OBS soon.

Hey @GMJoon, I appear to have sorted my stream out, this might not work for you but:

For anyone still struggling with this, it's not a fix for everyone, but if anyone has a G-Sync monitor, try turning G-Sync off for any effected games. Along with all of my above fixes, plus this, my stream and video is practically perfect on every game now, including Apex Legends which was the game which really wasn't liking my OBS. I did have a new audio issue which i noticed watching the stream back after, but this is likely for other reasons which I'll need to look into tonight.

My other fixes below, again, for reference:
1. Fully update windows 10 to the latest version (people have suggested going back to get rid of an update which caused this issue, but it's impractical and opens your PC up for viruses etc.)
2. Once updated, search for "Windows Game Bar" - Turn this off
3. Search for "Windows Game Mode" - Turn this off (This basically forces the PC to put all GPU power into a game, leaving none for OBS, so turning it off leaves a bit more free for OBS)
4. Fully update your graphics card
5. Whichever game you are trying to record and stream, add an in-game FPS limit to it, 120 works for some, but 60 is a safer bet.
6. OBS keeps scenes playing in the background to allow you to swap to them, you can right-click on webcam's, videos and audiotracks, and you can turn these to "disable when not in use", which will free up some power for OBS (although does make scene transitions look a bit less smooth unless you use studio mode to do it.
7. If you use a webcam, make it a lower resolution for you gaming scene, typically people only use a small image for their webcam whilst streaming, so having it at 1080 is pointless and using power that is unnecessary - you can keep it at 1080 for a full-screen scene, but make sure "disable when not in use" is ticked so that OBS is not processing this all the time.
8. If still struggling after all of these, or maybe even try it before any of these to avoid the hassle, if you use a G-Sync monitor, turn it off for any affected games whilst recording/streaming. (Go to Nvidia control pannel, search or navigate to G-Sync, turn off whilst recording/streaming)

 

[GMJoon]

Hey @GMJoon, I appear to have sorted my stream out, this might not work for you but:

For anyone still struggling with this, it's not a fix for everyone, but if anyone has a G-Sync monitor, try turning G-Sync off for any effected games. Along with all of my above fixes, plus this, my stream and video is practically perfect on every game now, including Apex Legends which was the game which really wasn't liking my OBS. I did have a new audio issue which i noticed watching the stream back after, but this is likely for other reasons which I'll need to look into tonight.

My other fixes below, again, for reference:
1. Fully update windows 10 to the latest version (people have suggested going back to get rid of an update which caused this issue, but it's impractical and opens your PC up for viruses etc.)
2. Once updated, search for "Windows Game Bar" - Turn this off
3. Search for "Windows Game Mode" - Turn this off (This basically forces the PC to put all GPU power into a game, leaving none for OBS, so turning it off leaves a bit more free for OBS)
4. Fully update your graphics card
5. Whichever game you are trying to record and stream, add an in-game FPS limit to it, 120 works for some, but 60 is a safer bet.
6. OBS keeps scenes playing in the background to allow you to swap to them, you can right-click on webcam's, videos and audiotracks, and you can turn these to "disable when not in use", which will free up some power for OBS (although does make scene transitions look a bit less smooth unless you use studio mode to do it.
7. If you use a webcam, make it a lower resolution for you gaming scene, typically people only use a small image for their webcam whilst streaming, so having it at 1080 is pointless and using power that is unnecessary - you can keep it at 1080 for a full-screen scene, but make sure "disable when not in use" is ticked so that OBS is not processing this all the time.
8. If still struggling after all of these, or maybe even try it before any of these to avoid the hassle, if you use a G-Sync monitor, turn it off for any affected games whilst recording/streaming. (Go to Nvidia control pannel, search or navigate to G-Sync, turn off whilst recording/streaming)

I turned on Adaptive v-sync and made sure I had the game in Fullscreen mode. This capped the game to 60fps and then it was just a matter of setting the graphics settings so that I had 60fps "to spare". As long as I had 120fps combined obs got 60 and the game got 60.

EDIT I also set my monitor to 60hz. It seems like it helped.