Question / Help Local Recording microstutter is driving me crazy.

[siren_shadows]

I'm having an issue where while playing rainbow six siege, I get a microstutter every few seconds in the recording. The game runs a solid 60 fps, my cpu usage is pretty low, and i don't get any warning messages from OBS. There is no reason I can fathom for this issue, and it seems to be happening even on the lowest settings. Disabling the preview helps a bit, but i kinda need that for my setup. I'm using the setup found in this guide: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/

Once again, my performance is fine, and i'm even saving the videos to a seperate internal hard drive from my main one that i play the game on. Is it possibly because i'm running the program on an SSD and saving to a hard drive? Any help would be appreciated. I'm running through game capture on borderless windowed mode in the game. running fullscreen helps a bit, but i need to be able to switch windows. oh and also, the game records at 30 fps unless i have vsync on, which is really weird.



Here's my log. http://pastebin.com/RXMWq0aQ

 

[Osiris]

Don't do 1080p 60 fps with that cpu.

 

[siren_shadows]

why? I was under the assumption it was a very good processor, its overclocked, and my cpu usage is usually around 60% in intense moments in the game

 

[Lapppy]

Welcome to the club...

Here are some solutions that have worked me and for other people...

1. About the preview: Disabling the preview and also minimizing the window can help with microstutters.

2. About Vsync: I'm not sure what's up with the 30fps unless vsync is on thing, but I can tell you this: Vsync is pretty much essential for a stutter free capture. I haven't been able to record a stutter free capture where I didn't use vsync, on any computer, in a long time.
This is mostly dependent on what game you are playing... some games you can get away with having it off. But, in a majority of cases it must be on. This is probably related to point 5 below.

3. Sometimes the video player can introduce frame skips that are not actually encoded into the file. The biggest offenders of this is the built in "Films & TV" app in Windows 10, and MPC-HC. In my experience, the only video player that will play the videos properly with no frame skips is PotPlayer. This all really depends on your hardware setup, some players will work better for different computers.

4. Try setting the Compatibility mode for the game you are running to Windows 8. (https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/poor-stuttery-performance-in-windows-10-fix-inside.41352)
This didn't work for me, but it might work for you.

5. Check to make sure that your monitors refresh rate is exactly 60.000Hz. Any deviation from this will likely cause microstutters. (https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/stuttering-at-60fps-workaround-found.21525/). If you are like me, and you can't just easily change your monitors refresh rate with the CRU tool (i hate u nvidia optimus), then set your framerate in OBS to match your monitors refresh rate to the nearest thousandth (ex. 60.000). (https://obsproject.com/forum/thread...-stutters-every-10-minutes.39269/#post-179644). I had the exact same problem you describe in your post with my laptop. The only workaround that worked was to set OBS to run at 60.017fps.

6. Try out all of the capture methods. I find that Monitor capture works great in Windows 10, though I've had my fair share of issues with monitor capture as well. Since you are running in borderless window, you could also try window capture.

Your log doesn't seem to show an attempt at recording, but from what you describe the issue is not the encoder dropping frames and changing any encoding settings probably won't help fix it. Micro stutters like this are almost always due to how the frames are captured. In my experience, game capture is micro stutter city but monitor capture works almost flawlessly... but on my laptop game capture works perfectly fine after a few workarounds. I have a computer that used to have micro stuttering when using game capture, but after a clean install of windows + drivers the micro stuttering was gone. I don't know what the root cause was, if it was drivers or a running program. If all else fails, you could try re-installing graphics drivers or updating them.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[siren_shadows]

Welcome to the club...

Here are some solutions that have worked me and for other people...

thanks so much! monitor capture/window capture is generally much worse for me. Monday I'll check out potplayer (will vlc suffice?) because I use mpc-hc although it seems to be fine for me in general

 

[Lapppy]

thanks so much! monitor capture/window capture is generally much worse for me. Monday I'll check out potplayer (will vlc suffice?) because I use mpc-hc although it seems to be fine for me in general

No problem!
VLC should work as well... it's what I use on my laptop. On my desktop, potplayer is the only one that plays the recording back as it was encoded with no extra frame skips.
If there is still microstuttering with PotPlayer, then it looks like the issue is with how OBS is capturing the frames.

 

[siren_shadows]

No problem!
VLC should work as well... it's what I use on my laptop. On my desktop, potplayer is the only one that plays the recording back as it was encoded with no extra frame skips.
If there is still microstuttering with PotPlayer, then it looks like the issue is with how OBS is capturing the frames.

god damn it! it was MPC HC! i can't believe i wasted so many hours on that.