I've tested a million settings over a few hours and I keep lagging

Bennyonwii

Bennyonwii

New Member

I only started having issues when I got a new SSD around 6 months ago & recently I wanted to get back into streaming & recording.

I've tested so much and I keep getting lag spikes every 10s or so only in recordings, my GPU usage never goes over like 20% unless I'm playing an FPS, I've also helped a few friends with OBS set ups and I'm just so lost as to what's causing it, OBS says it's a GPU issue but when I change my settings for it it doesn't fix anything and my GPU barely gets utilized on task manager. I'll try my best to be as active as I can to the thread, any help is much appreciated ^^
 

Attachments

Problem started with the SSD install so that may be part of the issue.

Anyway, there's some rendering lag/GPU overload. Set your monitors refresh rate to 60HZ. See if the lag goes away. Asking a lot from a 9700k with it @ 240HZ. Hi-refresh & framerates require more CPU.
 
that's fair, I'll test with capping fps to 60 aswell as 60hz
rockbottom said:
Problem started with the SSD install so that may be part of the issue.

Anyway, there's some rendering lag/GPU overload. Set your monitors refresh rate to 60HZ. See if the lag goes away. Asking a lot from a 9700k with it @ 240HZ. Hi-refresh & framerates require more CPU.
Click to expand...
 
For recording it's always recommended to use CQP instead of CBR. A CQ level 20 should be fine. Or only use simple output mode and select a good quality that your computer can manage.
Also, if you're using the Windows player to watch the video, don't. Try a better player like VLC.
You're recording goes into D: drive. Is this an M.2 SSD connected to the PCI port or connected as SATA? If it's PCI, your motherboard/CPU can manage multiple PCI without reducing drastically the bandwidth?
Also, the log file shows you only have 3Gb of free RAM, which is bad. Try closing other apps/programs/windows process to free more RAM.
 
PaiSand said:
For recording it's always recommended to use CQP instead of CBR. A CQ level 20 should be fine. Or only use simple output mode and select a good quality that your computer can manage.
Also, if you're using the Windows player to watch the video, don't. Try a better player like VLC.
You're recording goes into D: drive. Is this an M.2 SSD connected to the PCI port or connected as SATA? If it's PCI, your motherboard/CPU can manage multiple PCI without reducing drastically the bandwidth?
Also, the log file shows you only have 3Gb of free RAM, which is bad. Try closing other apps/programs/windows process to free more RAM.
Click to expand...
I'm messing with both 20k bitrate and CQP 20 and they're both very similar, I use VLC, my M.2 is connected to my PCI port, RAM is indeed a bottleneck but I wanna wait for prices to go down before going from 16gb to 32 (I think it's DDR4, it's 2400 MT/s).
I disabled gamebar and a bunch of performance related things in settings and there is a chance it fixed everything but I need to test it more.
Here is an example of it lagging (timestamps 0:25, 0:40, 1:10):
https://youtu.be/N_GOW_2yVgM (going to delete the video later today, it's 17:02 atm)
 
DakotaFST said:
That's not an answer to any of the questions. If it "must" be disabled, then I want to know why OBS is not capable of capturing the same audio that Steam is. I understand that it is some form of technical limitation, but if I'm going to have to deal with horrible audio in my $80 headset while recording, then I want to understand why the limitation is there when another program doesn't have it. Without the audio enhancements, the sound is hollow and flat.
Click to expand...

Shadefyre said:
I haven't really had any problems with audio lag, it's been an entirely visual issue.
I checked GPU-Z with the render test running and it was running at x16 4.0.
I'm not really sure how to just "get Shadowplay working". I assume that whatever is causing the problem is stemming from there, but I don't know what could be interfering with the encoder chips without also reducing the other GPU capabilities. Could it possibly be a mother board issue, if it's happened on two different cards, isn't a driver issue, and continued to happen on a fresh reinstall of Windows?
For sources, I've been mostly trying Game capture, however I've also been testing Display capture as well. I discovered there are some specific games that I can capture smoothly with Display (especially with emulators). However, there are other games that don't work any better with either.
I did try CQP (16) in my testing, but I was still getting the same issue.
Click to expand...

Bennyonwii said:
the recordings still lag just as much...
Click to expand...

Not surprising, still @ 240HZ & still overloaded. Load needs to be reduced. This is just wasting resources on a very thin system

OBS 32.1.0 log file uploaded at 2026-03-21, 16:07:29 (Active Log)


15:57:58.164: refresh=240

16:04:08.260: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 62 (0.5%)

Encoding Performance Troubleshooting | OBS

OBS Knowledge Base. Learn best practices to solve encoding performance issues
obsproject.com obsproject.com
 
Last edited:
SSD may be in the wrong slot, that would depend on your mobo's design. Check GPU-Z, make sure the 2070 is operating @ x16 4.0 & not x8 4.0.
 
Bennyonwii said:
I'm messing with both 20k bitrate and CQP 20 and they're both very similar, I use VLC, my M.2 is connected to my PCI port, RAM is indeed a bottleneck but I wanna wait for prices to go down before going from 16gb to 32 (I think it's DDR4, it's 2400 MT/s).
I disabled gamebar and a bunch of performance related things in settings and there is a chance it fixed everything but I need to test it more.
Here is an example of it lagging (timestamps 0:25, 0:40, 1:10):
https://youtu.be/N_GOW_2yVgM (going to delete the video later today, it's 17:02 atm)
Click to expand...
I'm no longer getting the annoying lagspikes after disabling the windows settings... I just recorded like 10> mins with different games & different GPU loads and it didn't lag like this. If there is anything else I can for performance that hasn't already been said aside from just tweaking the settings in the OBS output section they'd be much appreciated.
 
rockbottom said:
SSD may be in the wrong slot, that would depend on your mobo's design. Check GPU-Z, make sure the 2070 is operating @ x16 4.0 & not x8 4.0.
Click to expand...
thank you for saying this, I didn't realize GPU-Z existed, I feel a little silly. I don't usually encounter GPU bottlenecks, I was running @ x8 3.0, I'll get it to x16 4.0 asap
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top