Question / Help Lag in obs. Not in game. New GPU required?

N

NotNow

New Member
Have this bad choppy lag issue in certain games that goes away when I tab in and out of fullscreen - then back to fullscreen. No idea why.
If I have any window from the desktop visible over the game, the lag goes away.

Playing Subnautica now and the issue doesn't go away whether I tab in and out of fullscreen or not. Tried all kinds of game settings too.

Thought it might have been an NDI issue but it turns out recording in OBS (with stream PC disconnected) produces the same horrendous lag in busy scenes (e.g. fire, waves).

CPU is i5 8600k. Doesn't go over 50% usage.
GPU is rx 580.

Changing from CPU to GPU encoding makes no difference. MS Game bar is off.

Time for a new GPU?
(will add log file tomorrow).
 
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Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
Is Game Mode off as well? Windows 10 last update (October 2018) has toggles for Game Bar, Game DVR, and Game Mode. All negatively impact OBS performance.

Beyond that would need to see a log to comment.
 
N

NotNow

New Member
Here's a log file where I tried recording in OBS. (I don't normally record and don't need that function).
https://obsproject.com/logs/3qr3aIHrGb8ZxUM9

I went with current log file again.
CPU usage went up in the high 70's and temps went over 80 degrees. That's using x264 as the encoder for streaming and recording.
 
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N

NotNow

New Member
Here's a log file when using NDI to send the game feed over to SLOBS on my streaming PC:
https://obsproject.com/logs/bGt1doGCcEHYzNcS

I have a SLOBS log file too. https://pastebin.com/8uWGxSJP
One thing I did notice is that the Mbps receive over Ethernet on my streaming PC dipped drastically when the lag occurred (150+ when smooth).
I can't monitor the send speed on my gaming PC because, as pointed out in my OP, the stuttering stops when Task Manager is visible over the game.
 
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N

NotNow

New Member
Ok so I actually closed OBS and just used NDI scan converter to send the gaming PC screen over to SLOBS. Exactly the same issue, if not worse. Receive network speed down to single figures during graphics intensive scenes.
So not actually an OBS problem at all.

Also reminded me why I'm using OBS on the gaming PC at all: microphone audio issue. Can't get my head around VBAN. lol.

So this has to be a hardware issue, right?
 
N

NotNow

New Member
Soooo..
I tried everything and eventually it turned out using display capture instead of game capture in OBS solved the problem.

Doh!

Funny that scan converter didn't improve matters over OBS game capture.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
You're overloading your GPU.

21:54:27.183: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 156 (4.3%)

Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. 1080p60 is challenging and it looks like the app you're recording is not leaving enough GPU resources for OBS to render frames. This will affect your system whether you stream on the same machine or send via NDI, because they both need to render frames. Sending to a 2nd machine only helps with reducing encoder overload.
 
DEDRICK

DEDRICK

Member
NotNow said:
Here's a log file when using NDI to send the game feed over to SLOBS on my streaming PC:
https://obsproject.com/logs/bGt1doGCcEHYzNcS

I have a SLOBS log file too. https://pastebin.com/8uWGxSJP
One thing I did notice is that the Mbps receive over Ethernet on my streaming PC dipped drastically when the lag occurred (150+ when smooth).
I can't monitor the send speed on my gaming PC because, as pointed out in my OP, the stuttering stops when Task Manager is visible over the game.
Click to expand...

Your Game Mode is still on, because you can't turn it off on your version of Windows 10. Well you can, but you need to edit the registry.

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/disable-game-mode-in-fall-creators-update-windows-10/

I can tell by the way you said the stuttering stops when you have task manager visible. Game mode diverts GPU power away from applications when you are tabbed into games, when you tab out of games or dont have them in focus GPU is not diverted and rendering lag stops.
 
N

NotNow

New Member
DEDRICK said:
Your Game Mode is still on, because you can't turn it off on your version of Windows 10. Well you can, but you need to edit the registry.

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/disable-game-mode-in-fall-creators-update-windows-10/

I can tell by the way you said the stuttering stops when you have task manager visible. Game mode diverts GPU power away from applications when you are tabbed into games, when you tab out of games or dont have them in focus GPU is not diverted and rendering lag stops.
Click to expand...

What?!?

That's infuriating. I will deal with it... thanks for the info.

Might upgrade my GPU while I'm at it.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
You may not need to. Other users have reported dramatic results from disabling game mode, as it is practically designed to cause this problem.
 
N

NotNow

New Member
Narcogen said:
You may not need to. Other users have reported dramatic results from disabling game mode, as it is practically designed to cause this problem.
Click to expand...

I downloaded the latest windows update for my gaming PC and voila, no more game mode, no more problems.

MS need to get a grip.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
Yeah a lot of OBS users are not happy about that change having been made, and I know many who specifically avoided the last "creators update" because of problems caused by previous "creators updates", and therefore didn't know that this had happened.
 
koala

koala

Active Member
On the other hand, it proves that Game Mode is very effective on focusing all the computer's resources to the game, making the game run as smooth as possible, and minimizing any impact of rogue background processes. In the past I thought Game Mode was a placebo, because I never felt any difference, but I was in error.

I wish OBS gets an option, default on, that temporarily switches off Game Mode while OBS is running.
 
DEDRICK

DEDRICK

Member
This newest iteration seems to be pretty good at diverting GPU, so good that is has spawn a sea of lagged frames thread that 99% of the time is is Game Mode causing the issue.

I've posted the Game Mode snip easily 50 times in the last 2 weeks between here and Reddit
 
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