Question / Help low Stream FPS, <5% CPU Usage, High Ingame FPS

[aurel81]

Hello i really tried now a lot of things... and badly need your help :-/

While streaming World of Tanks (FarCry4, PoE are fine !), my stream fps goes down to 15 or so. No Frame Drops, high ingame FPS, los CPU Usage. Additional recording doesnt affect anything
what i tried so far:
- limit the FPS in OBS and/or the game
- fullscreen or borderless window gaming
- disable or enable the iGPU
- different encoding Settings
- 1080p and 720p

My PC
8700k@5GHz
16GB Ram (10GB free)
GTX970
1440p
Upstream = 20MBit
Streaming via non Partner Twitch

i am quite new to the subject :-/ so i am really hoping you are able to help me

Speedtest:

 

[aurel81]

no idea at all ?

 

[Narcogen]

You are significantly and consistently overloading your GPU.

23:54:05.662: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 6006 (58.2%)
23:57:32.821: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 740 (25.8%)
00:02:39.904: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 11836 (67.0%)
00:07:37.619: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 4554 (31.5%)
00:18:24.800: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 3132 (39.8%)
00:18:25.052: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 2788 (44.8%)

Drop to either 720p60 or 1080p30 (or even 720p30 if those don't work) and cap in-game framerate.

 

[aurel81]

thank you for your help!
drop ingame gpu stress ?
i thought rendering is cpu work
its lagging even on 720p30 :-/ but much less

 

[Narcogen]

Rendering is GPU work.
Encoding is either CPU work, or work of dedicated chip on your GPU if you have it (NVENC or AMF).

 

[aurel81]

a right ok, but why is the game running smoothliest with 100+ fps and the stream struggles while CPU usage is less than 50% (shown by MSI Afterburner/RivaTunerStatistics).

sorry that i dont get it :(
Trying to understand the problem

 

[BK-Morpheus]

- shut down RTSS (the on screen OSD tool from MSI Afterburner) and I don't mean turning off the OSD, I mean disabling the RTSS server
- cap your ingame fps (for example with Vsync)
- if GPU load is still over 95%, reduce ingame details
- don't use monitor capture....use game capture source
- turn off Windows 10 GameDVR

The CPU has nothing to do, because your GPU is so overloaded, that it is not rendering the frames fast enough.

 

[aurel81]

thank you a lot, i did everything, gpu load during gaming is now ~65% (tested it down to 50%) and i still have this issue. less, but it is still making trouble :-/
the 2nd attachment is recorded after enabling the iGPU

 

[carlmmii]

That seems odd that you would still have that much rendering lag even at 30fps, with relatively low GPU load.

Could you post a screenshot of the main window of GPU-Z while running your game? I'm curious if there may be a PCI lane issue.

Also, I doubt the effectiveness that these steps will do, but for troubleshooting completeness, could you try lowering your x264 preset to veryfast? In addition, is it possible to temporarily disable your Avira software? (just trying to get all variables out of the way here)

 

[aurel81]

thx for all your effort.
ok here are the Screenshots + Logs, so that you can compare them
1) with avira
2-4 without.

really interesting is in my opinion that the "CPU Usage Preset" primarly puts stress on Core#0 (Thread0+1) and#1 (Thread 0) and not evenly on all the other.
setting it to medium results in (nearly) 100% load on these 3 threads compared to the ~50% load on "very fast"

Ingame fps capped to 60

 

[carlmmii]

Ok, so things to notice...

• Avira makes no difference
• CPU preset isn't affecting things at all (also, lower # core prioritization is normal for turbo boost purposes)
• PCI lane bandwidth doesn't appear to be an issue (3.0x16)
• GPU loading/temps/clocks all look normal

So, there's that. Continuing on...
This is OBS's breakdown report of where the rendering pipeline fails timing (from log file 4... they're all similar):

23:49:25.772: obs_graphics_thread(33.3333 ms): min=0.146 ms, median=0.903 ms, max=874.785 ms, 99th percentile=138.698 ms, 81.3277% below 33.333 ms
23:49:25.772: ┣tick_sources: min=0.001 ms, median=0.015 ms, max=447.027 ms, 99th percentile=6.297 ms
23:49:25.772: ┣output_frame: min=0.066 ms, median=0.491 ms, max=874.607 ms, 99th percentile=137.988 ms
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┣gs_context(video->graphics): min=0.065 ms, median=0.257 ms, max=874.175 ms, 99th percentile=137.793 ms
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┣render_video: min=0.006 ms, median=0.054 ms, max=39.285 ms, 99th percentile=32.674 ms
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣render_main_texture: min=0.003 ms, median=0.021 ms, max=5.405 ms, 99th percentile=0.173 ms
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣render_output_texture: min=0.001 ms, median=0.009 ms, max=1.942 ms, 99th percentile=0.105 ms, 0.894455 calls per parent call
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┃ ┣render_convert_texture: min=0.001 ms, median=0.008 ms, max=2.577 ms, 99th percentile=0.126 ms, 0.894455 calls per parent call
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┃ ┗stage_output_texture: min=0 ms, median=0.009 ms, max=39.234 ms, 99th percentile=32.712 ms, 0.894455 calls per parent call
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┣gs_flush: min=0.018 ms, median=0.051 ms, max=30.707 ms, 99th percentile=1.051 ms
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┃ ┗download_frame: min=0 ms, median=0.093 ms, max=874.019 ms, 99th percentile=146.877 ms, 0.894455 calls per parent call
23:49:25.772: ┃ ┗output_video_data: min=0 ms, median=0.18 ms, max=9.528 ms, 99th percentile=1.781 ms, 0.894169 calls per parent call
23:49:25.772: ┗render_displays: min=0 ms, median=0.155 ms, max=108.174 ms, 99th percentile=3.386 ms

I'm still pretty inexperienced reading this portion of the logs, so if anyone else has further insight that would be phenomenal. But from what I can tell, the major issue is with the "stage_output_texture" and "download_frame" steps -- stage output is borderline for 30fps timing, while the download step appears to have severe spiking (median is fine, but 99th percentile is very excessive).

To me, this is an indication that there's an issue somewhere with actual texture transfer off the card... and again... best guess, not an expert here. What I do remember, having a 970 myself, is that this card is "special" with regards to its VRAM. It actually only has 3.5gb of high-priority VRAM, with an extra 512mb of low-priority VRAM. This is an anandtech article detailing the whole issue. The thing is, none of your GPU-Z screenshots show that you're using more than 3gb of VRAM, so this still seems unlikely to me.

I would still try lowering your texture resolution as much as you can in game to see if that has any effect. Past that, I would honestly try seeing if rolling back drivers helps, or possibly trying a spare GPU if you have one.

 

[DEDRICK]

23:40:11.957: Windows Version: 10.0 Build 16299 (revision: 847; 64-bit)

You are using last years(2017) Fall Creators update, this is when they removed the toggle for Game Mode and forced it to be always on. Game Mode drastically cripples OBS's render performance, older version of Windows 10 do not allow you to disable it without doing RegEdits.

Update your Windows 10 to 2018 Fall Creators (1809) then disable Game Mode, you will know you are on 1809 when you have the option to turn it off.

Alternatively you can not update Windows and instead RegEdit to turn it off. Obviously reboot after doing it

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

 

[aurel81]

ok then ... i just reinstalled the complete system.
and now ...i can stream on full details, 1080p60 and i can even play with uncapped fps^. still trying the limits...
waiting for my ISP to upgrade the upstream so i can further increase the bitrate of the stream...

sad is, that CHE Volume doesnt work properly anymore :-(
but i guess we will never know what was wrong before :-/