Question / Help Lagging/Skipping frames recording on brand new system.

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EdSoundhead

New Member
Hello all. Hopefully some of you will be able to help me as I am going crazy after trying to setup obs again after building a new rig. I'll try to provide as much detail as possible so you folks can see why I feel like I've tried everything.

The Specs:
CPU: Intel i7 7820x OC'd @ 4.6ghz (w/ Corsair H115i)
GPU: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2 Hybrid OC'd
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z 32gb DDR4-3200
MOBO: MSI X299 SLI Plus
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
RGB: All the RGB.
3 Acer Predator monitors, although I only game on 1.
Games run on Samsung 960 Pro 1TB SSD, recording to Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm HDD.

The Problem(s):
I have been trying to record gameplay (tried BeamNG.Drive and GTA V stock) at 4K 60 fps, emphasis on the 60 fps part. The games themselves play wonderfully at 4K 60 fps, OBS on the other hand, not so much. I've recorded various test videos (one of which I will include a link for at the bottom so you can get a better Idea of what I'm talking about) and OBS either fluctuates horribly from 20-60 fps or when I get the settings dialed in using CRF, gets lagged frames. I've investigated log upon log and it has been driving me crazy that while my actual quality of the video is pretty good, the overall smoothness of the videos is horrendous. The GPU/CPU do not go to 100% when respectively dialed.

What I've tried:
Get ready for this, I've tried drastically lowering game graphics settings, standard and advanced output modes, recording format, audio quality, NVENC and x264 with all forms of Rate control. Ultrafast, superfast, and veryfast cpu usage presets ( I've found that ultrafast yielded the best result when combo'd with CRF 20, though it still failed to create a smooth 60fps and the file sizes are a lot larger than I'd like them to be but thats not my biggest concern), tried down scaling to both 1440p60 and 1080p60, all different downscale filters and process priority to the same failed result. I've investigated various logs and noticed both skipped and lagged frames when using x264 or NVENC respectively. I've seen lagged frames as low as 0.1% in a ~60 second GTA V recording that while smooth, are still noticeable in the video. I have the newest graphics drivers, reinstalled OBS, and disabled various Windows processes and programs that I though may be interfering.

I also tried shadowplay, and it has a similar problem, which is really what concerns me about this.

Logs (With multiple examples in each file):
https://pastebin.com/YMBzuhyA
https://pastebin.com/Z1Rc2ab2

4K "60 fps" Video:
https://youtu.be/PxGqjyrlE60
It's most noticeable at the beginning of the video, while it may not seem to bad to some, it seriously bothers me how un-smooth it looks and I'd like to fix it if possible.

I've exhausted what seems like all online resources trying to find a fix for this problem, so hopefully someone will have a solution or a suggestion for me before my PC winds up shattered out in the middle of the street (lol). Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
 
Fenrir

Fenrir

Forum Admin
1) Turn off multi-adapter compatibility on the game capture source. Why did you even turn that on?
2) It's your video card that is being overloaded. Make sure you're capping FPS in the game at something reasonable.
3) You seem to be VASTLY underestimating just how insanely difficult it is to encode 4k 60fps in realtime. Even with your system, you will have a very hard time achieving that without running into CPU/GPU bottlenecks.
4) Try using the simple mode recording presets, with the NVENC encoder. This is likely your best chance at getting something stable at 4k 60fps.
 
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EdSoundhead

New Member
Thanks for the suggestions.I turned on multi-adapter compatibility mode earlier when I was like "screw it, try everything" and forgot to turn it off. I had seen during all the google searches I had made that it was going to be difficult but figured ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, might as well try. I'll give the simple mode another try here in a bit. If I could ask, because I am a not incredibly well versed when it comes to encoding technology, is the hardware/software just not there yet for 4K at high frames? Would going for SLI GPU's and/or recording to another ssd improve it or just would it just be a waste of money for minimal improvements?
 
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Fenrir

Fenrir

Forum Admin
SLi (and any multi-GPU setups in general) is a nightmare for capture. Not only that SLi is, at best, a headache to maintain.

If you were not gaming on the same system you were trying to encode from, that hardware would manage 4k 60fps without issue. It's the face that you're running both the game (which is taking up a SIGNIFICANT amount of your system's resources to manage 4k in the first place) and trying to encode at the same time. It's just too much for current hardware, without spending an obnoxious amount of money on eliminating overhead with a second capture PC that can take 4k 60fps input.
 
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EdSoundhead

New Member
Alrighy, thank you for the information. I was considering a second PC in the future for streaming so I might end up going down that route. Actually I have my old rig still which has a i5 4690k, 8gb ddr3, and a gtx 970, but I assume that wouldn't be enough for 4k encoding even if thats all its doing correct? Also, I ran a quick test on BeamNG.Drive in simple mode with NVENC at indistiguishable and the results were..... amazing. I could have sworn I tried that already but thats the best its run in the last two days i've been calibrating it. Thank you again for the info and I believe your suggestions have done the trick!
 
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EdSoundhead

New Member
So unfortunately I spoke too soon. The fps on the recordings (I was looking at just the preview earlier, which looked good and the fps counter at the bottom right said it was at 59.94, my mistake) and the fps is still choppy. I looked in the logs for the recording using simple mode and high quality settings, however there was no lagged frames recorded. I copied the recording settings from the run in the log and went to advanced mode, and re-created them, and even lowered a few of them. The fps drops remained the same but again they weren't recorded in the log, I had GPU-Z open and the highest load the gpu hit was only 67%, and the CPU wasn't even close to that. I'm starting to become really confused because while earlier we determined it was a hardware bottleneck that was causing this fps issue at 4k, it remains when the resolution is downscaled, and fps set lower in obs. Is it not possible to get a stable 60 fps at any resolution in obs if I'm playing the actual game in 4k? Any help would be greatly appreciated. https://pastebin.com/6a13dNma
 
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EdSoundhead

New Member
So after some more tinkering this morning I have nearly given up hope. I've tried everything. I even downscaled everything to 1080p and still can't get a smooth 60fps. If anyone has anything they think will help please let me know.
 
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EdSoundhead

New Member
So in a strange turn of events, I went to record my Xbox One with an Elgato HD60 Pro (not using obs), and noticed that this weird fps stutter carried over there as well. So now my concern turns from obs to my some sort of display/gpu setting. I will update if I find a fix in case anyone having this issue in the future could find a possible solution.
 
Fenrir

Fenrir

Forum Admin
Can you get a clean log of a 1080p 60fps session where you have issues?

To make a clean log file, first restart OBS, then start your stream/recording for ~30 seconds and stop it again. Make sure you replicate any issues as best you can, which means having any games/apps open and captured, etc. When you're done select Help > Log Files > Upload Current Log File. Copy the URL and paste it here.
 
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