Question / Help Lag when playing above recording framerate

M

mythrilguy

Member
So I wanted to record Destiny 2 on PC and anytime I try to record at 60fps and play above that fps, say around 90 when recording, the obs preview looks super laggy meaning the recording will be laggy, but if I cap the FPS at 60 it looks fine. I hate playing at 60 fps on my 144hz monitor. I tried changing the cap to 120, but it still was choppy, and I've changed my encoding settings to a lower bitrate setting and it still says my CPU is being overloaded, but in task manager my total cpu usage doesn't go over 75% at any point while playing. Is there something wrong with my PC or is there some settings I could change?

I'm using the basic Indistinguishable preset, but even if I lower it to High Quality the issue is the same.

Here is a log file.
https://gist.github.com/0cccb1741f8910049c7fc58abe883aeb

I want to record at 1920x1080 60fps, but also play at a higher framerate so it's smooth for me, but I can't seem to get it to work properly for me. It could be the game, but I have no idea.
 
I've no first-hand experience as to how Destiny 2 is for hardware resource usage (Optimized or runs like a dog with 3 legs/Console port) Benchmarks seem to put your fps output with default High Settings to roughly 80-120 fps range, for your PC setup.

I noticed you are using Window/Desktop capture, does Game Capture not work with Destiny 2? If it does, it is much better as Game Capture directly hooks into the game, instead of rendering everything you see, including Browsers, other programs and the desktop.

The single largest factor which will help you stabilize your Recording output is capping your fps to 60-63 (V-Sync induces input lag, use a program such as MSI Afterburner of EVGA Precision to cap your fps, 61-63 to try and mitigate any frame tearing if your monitor suffers it) - Note - The suggested fps cap limit is to limit GPU load as much as possible, whilst providing enough fps to allow for consistent smooth recording output. You could try capping your fps output to 75-85, it will help a little and will likely feel a bit more responsive on your monitor than ~60fps.

You could try reducing your in-game graphics settings, this will also assist in reducing GPU load.

As for the below changes, it won't help a lot though will reduce slightly the dropped frames. What it will do is give you a good base to tweak parameters from.

In Video Settings:
- Change your downscale filter to Bilinear.
In Advanced Settings:
Under Video:
- Change your YUV colour space to 709 (1080p and above uses it, 601 is 720p and below)
- Change your YUV colour range to Partial (Full adds extra workload, not really necessary unless you have a lot of banding issues with Contrast/Colour Output/ Just want maximum picture quality at the expense of performance)
-- Note: Partial is 15-235, Full is 0-255 Colour Space range, your GPU driver settings have to be running Full Colour Range for it to be seen by you (Crimson ReLive CP - They always reset it every driver update)

In Output Settings:
Using Output Mode: Advanced
Under the Recording tab:
- Change your Recording Format to .flv, there is no need for .mp4 file format and if your Game/OBS/PC crashes on you you lose your recorded footage, with .flv format you can retain what you recorded. OBS Studio comes with a built in Recording Re-Muxer, so you can convert to .mp4 if really needed for compatibility. You can locate it under File tab (Not in Settings, main window)
- Change your Preset to Recording, then select the blank preset so it automatically saves future changes to the settings below:

Be sure to test with multiple passes each change, so you have a reasonable idea of performance output with each setting:

Encoder Settings to change:
First, change View Mode to Advanced, this will allow for more settings to fine-tune.

For Variable Bitrate Latency Constrained Rate Control Method:
- Change your Target Bitrate to 50,000Mb/s <--- Adjust higher if no encoded/rendered frames dropped, lower if there are.
- Change your Peak Bitrate to 90,000Mb/s
- Change your Minimum QP to 0
- Change your Maximum QP to 42

For Constant QP Rate Control Method: (Change both to the same value)
- Change your I-Frame QP to between 15-23 <--- Adjust lower if no encoded/rendered frames dropped, higher if there are.
- Change your P-Frame QP to between 15-23 <--- Adjust lower if no encoded/rendered frames dropped, higher if there are.

Try OpenCL Transfer enabled, it seemed to help me stabilize the final output after tweaking other settings in BF4 on my i5 2500 non-k skew and r9 290X. Make sure to test each change for a good few minutes, best to revert the change before testing another so you can see the effect from a base.

Upload another logfile like your last (Perfect logfile to upload) and we'll go from there.
 
BornDownUnder said:
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Click to expand...
Bungie decided not to let OBS game capture work with Destiny 2. You suggested I cap my FPS, but that's not what I want to do.
"I want to record at 1920x1080 60fps, but also play at a higher framerate so it's smooth for me, but I can't seem to get it to work properly for me. It could be the game, but I have no idea."

I want to play above the FPS at which I'm recording at 60 fps on a 144hz monitor isn't fun. Sure it's doable but when my PC can handle the game at a higher FPS than 60, why should I be capping it?
 
R@de said:
Why doesn't game capture work?

Never mind, I see why --> https://www.bungie.net/en/Help/Article/46101

That's not good, window capture has bad performance hit. Maybe your only solution is to capture from your GPU output using external hardware?
Click to expand...

Window Capture compared to Game Capture is not significant enough of a difference to be causing an issue like this.

mythrilguy said:
So I wanted to record Destiny 2 on PC and anytime I try to record at 60fps and play above that fps, say around 90 when recording, the obs preview looks super laggy meaning the recording will be laggy, but if I cap the FPS at 60 it looks fine. I hate playing at 60 fps on my 144hz monitor. I tried changing the cap to 120, but it still was choppy, and I've changed my encoding settings to a lower bitrate setting and it still says my CPU is being overloaded, but in task manager my total cpu usage doesn't go over 75% at any point while playing. Is there something wrong with my PC or is there some settings I could change?

I'm using the basic Indistinguishable preset, but even if I lower it to High Quality the issue is the same.

Here is a log file.
https://gist.github.com/0cccb1741f8910049c7fc58abe883aeb

I want to record at 1920x1080 60fps, but also play at a higher framerate so it's smooth for me, but I can't seem to get it to work properly for me. It could be the game, but I have no idea.
Click to expand...

This is the important part of your log:

Code: 
16:51:06.186: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 574 (11.6%)

This means that your GPU is simply overloaded. I understand that you "don't want to cap FPS" but this is really the only solution. OBS requires some of your GPU resources to render the scene for output. If the game is using all your GPU resources, OBS will start to suffer. You can either turn settings down in your game to ease up resources, but if you're not capping FPS at something that your PC can hold stable, then you will have issues.
 
Fenrir said:
Window Capture compared to Game Capture is not significant enough of a difference to be causing an issue like this.



This is the important part of your log:

Code: 
16:51:06.186: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 574 (11.6%)

This means that your GPU is simply overloaded. I understand that you "don't want to cap FPS" but this is really the only solution. OBS requires some of your GPU resources to render the scene for output. If the game is using all your GPU resources, OBS will start to suffer. You can either turn settings down in your game to ease up resources, but if you're not capping FPS at something that your PC can hold stable, then you will have issues.
Click to expand...
Well it could be my GPU is overloaded, but it also happens in Rocket League, so... I would love to play at a high frame rate rather than play at 60. Why should I have to cap my FPS if my PC can handle the higher FPS? My FPS stays roughly withing 5-10 frames as it normally would when not recording and when recording so how could it be the GPU is overloaded?
 
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You'll have to experiment and see. Start by capping at 60 and make sure things work fine, then step it up to 70, then 80, etc. until you start running into issues.

Every single game will be different, as it will put a different load on your GPU.

However, it's important to understand that your GPU is not exactly the most powerful: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+RX+480

You might be asking too much of your GPU here. I know this sucks, but there is a good chance your GPU is not capable of running games above 60fps and running OBS at the same time.
 
Fenrir said:
You'll have to experiment and see. Start by capping at 60 and make sure things work fine, then step it up to 70, then 80, etc. until you start running into issues.

Every single game will be different, as it will put a different load on your GPU.

However, it's important to understand that your GPU is not exactly the most powerful: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+RX+480

You might be asking too much of your GPU here. I know this sucks, but there is a good chance your GPU is not capable of running games above 60fps and running OBS at the same time.
Click to expand...
WHAT? I DONT HAVE THE BEST, TOP OF THE LINE GPU OUT THERE? I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS THING. Really? Don't you think I don't know this? I said rocket league gives me problems and rocket league doesn't take much to run so I'm not sure how telling me that my gpu is to blame is the problem if RL gives me issues too.

I come here to get help and any threads related to this issue are squandered by people stating you just need to cap your FPS when in reality I shouldn't have to. I may not have a beast of a PC, but I sure as hell don't have a shitty one either.
 
The fact is that OBS uses the GPU as well as the CPU. If you run your game at high FPS rates, OBS will suffer. We know this from experience. The solution is exactly as Fenrir stated, cap your FPS to 60 and if that works well, increase it incrementally, testing and measuring as you go, to see what the max is. Getting angry at the people helping you will just get you ignored by the only volunteers on the planet troubleshooting this for people.
 
mythrilguy said:
WHAT? I DONT HAVE THE BEST, TOP OF THE LINE GPU OUT THERE? I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS THING. Really? Don't you think I don't know this? I said rocket league gives me problems and rocket league doesn't take much to run so I'm not sure how telling me that my gpu is to blame is the problem if RL gives me issues too.

I come here to get help and any threads related to this issue are squandered by people stating you just need to cap your FPS when in reality I shouldn't have to. I may not have a beast of a PC, but I sure as hell don't have a shitty one either.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry you don't like the answer here, and I'm not trying to insult you or your PC. There is no magic bullet. I don't think you fully appreciate just how intensive video encoding is on a PC. It's only been in the past few years that consumer-grade PCs have even been able to THINK about doing this.

You need to just take a step back, and curb your expectations. I don't know how I can explain what's happening any easier. If you don't believe me, try getting a tool like GPUz to monitor your GPU load before OBS is even open to make sure you have at LEAST 15% of overhead available to avoid overloading your system.
 
The only method to which you would be able to record and play a game at above 60fps with your GPU is if you were to use your CPU to record game play...

You could try Intel Quick-Sync to record, which is more or less the same as using the AMD encoder, though given the fact you have a 4 core without hyper-threading you will likely run into the same problems to a large degree.

Fenrir definitely has the best idea in moving forwards to the best compromise to be able to record at 60fps whilst playing the game at higher than 60fps, you may not like it and I can understand that you wouldn't given you have a monitor which here in Australia for a decent 24" monitor is towards $500 AUD if not more, around the region of $200 mark-up for the same in USA...
 
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