in-game fps drops when obs is open (not streaming or recording)

[syiona]

i'm not sure what's wrong but ever since recently i've had bad fps drops when playing games with OBS open, even if it's idle. literally just opening OBS causes this lag and fps drop. i've had the same scenes and sources before and everything was just fine; it just recently became a problem. i have tried all of the following:

• running as admin
• hiding preview
• using the "close file when inactive" setting on all possible sources
• turned off hardware acceleration
• turned off windows game mode
• turning off vsync and capping fps to 144
• reinstall obs completely

i am trying to stream at 1080p60fps. these are my specs:

• amd ryzen 7 3700x
• 16 gb ram & 16 gb memory
• nvidia geforce rtx 2080 super

here is a recent log. also, my internet upload speed is 22.6 mbps.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Lots of previous threads on this.
short version - lots of real-time video rendering workload when OBS starts, 2X workload if you are using Studio Mode. Then there are whatever effects, filters, plugins you have installed/running (and your log shows many such). So yes, *depending* on your setup, a significant hardware resource utilization impact when starting a demanding app like OBS is not unreasonable.
Running as Admin is bad from a security standpoint (presuming your normal user account does NOT have local admin rights). Running OBS as Admin is done as a work-around an OS GPU scheduling limitation. And doing so says to prioritize OBS over other apps, like a game.

Have your researched the impact of having a 144Hz monitor but capturing at 60fps? ie maybe you should drop screen refresh rate down to even multiple of capture fps, like 120Hz?

 

[syiona]

Lots of previous threads on this.
short version - lots of real-time video rendering workload when OBS starts, 2X workload if you are using Studio Mode. Then there are whatever effects, filters, plugins you have installed/running (and your log shows many such). So yes, *depending* on your setup, a significant hardware resource utilization impact when starting a demanding app like OBS is not unreasonable.
Running as Admin is bad from a security standpoint (presuming your normal user account does NOT have local admin rights). Running OBS as Admin is done as a work-around an OS GPU scheduling limitation. And doing so says to prioritize OBS over other apps, like a game.

Have your researched the impact of having a 144Hz monitor but capturing at 60fps? ie maybe you should drop screen refresh rate down to even multiple of capture fps, like 120Hz?

yes i have tried dropping the screen refresh rate. same issue. i have spent hours and days reading threads on this issue and nothing seems to have worked, that's why i'm asking again. i just don't understand why it only became an issue now. like i said i have had the exact same scenes and sources before but this wasn't happening, and i have even tried to clean install an earlier version of obs but it still happens.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

most likely you have had Operating System (OS), game, and various driver updates over time.. any one, or a combination of those can cause issues (especially when running a system at or near a limit). And MS really struggling with code quality in recent years. and they are distracted now by the steaming mess that is their every other OS release, Win11 in this case

The challenge for me, is that without comprehensive real-time monitoring at the OS level, it is hard to know where a bottleneck is occurring, and therefore how to resolve. And most users do the equivalent of driving a car blind-folded and have no idea when they are naturally running into trouble (obstacles). Hopefully someone with a gaming background can provide more targeted advice, if any is possible.

 

[bravoleader80]

I have the same issue, if you guys find any solution let me know. I have tried all of the above of course with no luck

 

[eduardocf2]

Hello everyone! I believe i have found the solution.

After long trying, changing fps, resolutions, etc... i found that my problem was that i was using a MEDIA SOURCE, all i had to do was DELETE ALL MY SCENES, create a new one from and pinpoint the exact source that was causing my problem, turns out, it was a video from a "media source" i was using.

Hope this can help you all!

 

[rocketro]

Hello everyone! I believe i have found the solution.

After long trying, changing fps, resolutions, etc... i found that my problem was that i was using a MEDIA SOURCE, all i had to do was DELETE ALL MY SCENES, create a new one from and pinpoint the exact source that was causing my problem, turns out, it was a video from a "media source" i was using.

Hope this can help you all!

this worked for me as well, thanks dude.

 

[ZeDfriT]

Hello everyone! I believe i have found the solution.

After long trying, changing fps, resolutions, etc... i found that my problem was that i was using a MEDIA SOURCE, all i had to do was DELETE ALL MY SCENES, create a new one from and pinpoint the exact source that was causing my problem, turns out, it was a video from a "media source" i was using.

Hope this can help you all!

Could you explain it better?

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I'm guessing, but as I had a similar issue. In my case, the issue I had was a 4K MP4 video, recorded on phones and tablets, and edited I was using as a Media Source in a scene. The decoder on certain specific videos, depending on how encoded, was consuming excessive CPU and causing system issues
Rather than the scorch and burn approach of deleting all OBS Scenes, simply checking ahead of time the hardware resource utilization impact of one's resources (1 by 1) should have accomplished the same thing. This does mean having the discipline and knowledge to do real-time hardware resource monitoring (and interpret the results).

 

[Trixz2007]

i'm not sure what's wrong but ever since recently i've had bad fps drops when playing games with OBS open, even if it's idle. literally just opening OBS causes this lag and fps drop. i've had the same scenes and sources before and everything was just fine; it just recently became a problem. i have tried all of the following:

• running as admin
• hiding preview
• using the "close file when inactive" setting on all possible sources
• turned off hardware acceleration
• turned off windows game mode
• turning off vsync and capping fps to 144
• reinstall obs completely

i am trying to stream at 1080p60fps. these are my specs:

• amd ryzen 7 3700x
• 16 gb ram & 16 gb memory
• nvidia geforce rtx 2080 super

here is a recent log. also, my internet upload speed is 22.6 mbps.

Well hello I just wanted to share what worked for me if anyone else has this issue.

1.) Fix any missing files Obs displays at launch of OBS
2.) On game capture source make sure SLI/Crossfire is unchecked (( This was checked for me idk why it fixed As soon as i toggled.))

 

[Letrix]

Does anyone found a solution?
I only have the game and OBS open with nothing but the game source.

 

[TimboDeluxe]

What seems to have fixed it for me after alot of trying, was disabling/deleting all docks, except for the ones, that are standard OBS docks. If you log in to twitch, obs might already open twitch chat (and such) as docks. I noticed a lot of browser sources in task manager sucking resources when obs is opened. it seems that docks are also browser sources. especially my stream elements events have taken alot of resources. After i got rid of all docks but the standard OBS ones, it at least fixed it for me for most games.

 

[WendyJr]

i'm not sure what's wrong but ever since recently i've had bad fps drops when playing games with OBS open, even if it's idle. literally just opening OBS causes this lag and fps drop. i've had the same scenes and sources before and everything was just fine; it just recently became a problem. i have tried all of the following:

• running as admin
• hiding preview
• using the "close file when inactive" setting on all possible sources
• turned off hardware acceleration
• turned off windows game mode
• turning off vsync and capping fps to 144
• reinstall obs completely

i am trying to stream at 1080p60fps. these are my specs:

• amd ryzen 7 3700x
• 16 gb ram & 16 gb memory
• nvidia geforce rtx 2080 super

here is a recent log. also, my internet upload speed is 22.6 mbps.

Hello! I know you probably already fixed the issue, but I was struggling so hard with this that I'm going to tell what solved the problem for me for anyone else looking for it.
I read all the comments and what made sense for me was deleting multiple sources until I find out which one was the problem. In my case it ended up that I had multiple screen captures active at the same time (even if they were disabled, they were there). I had one of each (capture screen monitor, capture game and capture window), then what worked for me was deleting the first two.

Hope it can help!

 

[WendyJr]

Does anyone found a solution?
I only have the game and OBS open with nothing but the game source.

Hello!
I read all the comments and what made sense for me was deleting multiple sources until I find out which one was the problem. In my case it ended up that I had multiple screen captures active at the same time (even if they were disabled, they were there). I had one of each (capture screen monitor, capture game and capture window), then what worked for me was deleting the first two.
I suggest you create a new scenes collection and go deleting some sources until you find out which one is causing the problem.

Hope it can help!

 

[davidrev]

I have the same issue, if you guys find any solution let me know. I have tried all of the above of course with no luck

Did you find any solution?

 

[FeLONeTheWorst]

For anyone who still has this issue. I eliminated it by disabling the preview and running the OBS minimized on the same monitor where my game runs. The problem for me was the obs running on my secondary monitor. (I have 2 1440p 144Hz monitors). Now, you can't see in realtime what is happening with your stream which can be mitigated by running NDI plugin on your second PC (i use a laptop for streaming and PC for gaming) or by watching your own stream on a Smart TV or mobile. It's not elegant but it works. I hope this helps someone. Cheers

 

[FeLONeTheWorst]

For anyone who still has this issue. I eliminated it by disabling the preview and running the OBS minimized on the same monitor where my game runs. The problem for me was the obs running on my secondary monitor. (I have 2 1440p 144Hz monitors). Now, you can't see in realtime what is happening with your stream which can be mitigated by running NDI plugin on your second PC (i use a laptop for streaming and PC for gaming) or by watching your own stream on a Smart TV or mobile. It's not elegant but it works. I hope this helps someone. Cheers

*EDIT ..

Also the Nvidia Broadcast used for camera blur is eating around 20% usage on my RTX 3080 12GB on performance setting.

 

[Splission]

Hey ofcourse I’m here because I ran into the same issue. Located the media source and it worked. Actually my situation was a scene nested in another scene. I was putting a cam idea to use that I learned from Gael Level. Seems it worked fine having one scene nested within another until I tried to apply an effect onto that nested scene. The effect filter I applied was chromakey and it destroyed my fps (144 to 100). I noticed a 20% spike in cpu usage with the nesting in general, but yeah compiling an effect on that particular nest just wasn’t good. I nested my cam scene into my gameplay scene if you guys are wondering. Hope this helps

 

[Splission]

Hey ofcourse I’m here because I ran into the same issue. Located the media source and it worked. Actually my situation was a scene nested in another scene. I was putting a cam idea to use that I learned from Gael Level. Seems it worked fine having one scene nested within another until I tried to apply an effect onto that nested scene. The effect filter I applied was chromakey and it destroyed my fps (144 to 100). I noticed a 20% spike in cpu usage with the nesting in general, but yeah compiling an effect on that particular nest just wasn’t good. I nested my cam scene into my gameplay scene if you guys are wondering. Hope this helps

Okay scratch what I was saying. I mean it’s valid but not. It was the media source playback speed being at faster than 100% actually had it doubled. Forgot to switch it back to 100% but when I just did now I get to keep my media source and FPS!

 

[pollitoninja]

well, It seem to I had the same problem, fps drops with only opening obs, after reading your comments I started a new scene colection and saw my task manager going down from almos 40% cpu usage to 10 ish. I found it was a script. Timer hide or something like that, I used to use it with media.hide. Thanks for the tips I was going crazy with this.