M1 Mac choppy recordings

[ciraben]

Hi! I'm new to OBS and learning how to stream Stardew Valley on Twitch, on my 2020 M1 Macbook Air. I've noticed that, while gameplay itself appears smooth to me, this doesn't translate over to my streams or recordings. Instead, I consistently see choppy video. I'd like to understand the root cause of this.

I've dug around on the forum a bit, but the variety of suggestions is a bit overwhelming, so thought I'd reach out. I'm currently experimenting with local recordings to help me isolate cause, but my end goal is to stream.

While recording, normalized CPU usage never surpasses 25%, no noticeable dropped/missed frames (0.0%), x264 encoder.

My best guess is that this is about encoder/GPU settings - these are new topics for me. I really appreciate any advice - thank you!

 

[Talonis]

I also stream with a MacBook Air M1. I use the Hardware VT encoder (rather than x264), recording "same as stream", and if necessary, in 720p. Downscale filter "bilinear" (fine for me). Ultimately audio matters most anyway.

For non-games stuff I can usually get 1080p50 with three cameras at 4.5 Mbps (including audio) running smoothly.

Hopefully things will improve yet further when OBS Studio goes Mac M1 native.

 

[ciraben]

Thanks for the reply! I was actually able to resolve this "choppy" behavior by switching to a scene that uses Display Capture instead of Window Capture.

After a lot of fiddling with OBS settings to try optimizing stream quality, I feel a bit silly finding out that this particular artifact is coming from the OBS software itself. I'm glad to hear what has worked for you though - now that I've conquered this choppiness, optimizing the settings you mentioned is my next step! :)

I found this solution on the OBS discord's #macos-support channel. Apparently window capture is still a bit wonky on MacOS, but someone says they're working on a better integration for a future OBS release. Thanks to discord user @Feets for this info.

 

[Talonis]

Yea, Window capture is best avoided at all costs on Mac currently - it’s a massive resource hog.

I also disable Preview and keep browser sources to an absolute minimum set at a custom frame rate.

 

[cipriant]

I had the same issue and the solution above didn't work. In my case it was because I had the virtual camera activated together with the recording. It's not even a CPU issue because I get the same load with or without the virtual camera turned on, but some weird bug.
Just make sure that the virtual camera is off and you should be fine.

 

[troy252]

It's not even a CPU issue because I get the same load with or without the virtual camera turned on, but some weird bug.

I've come to the same conclusion... running M1 Pro Max chip, just trying to do a window capture of my DAW for tutorial and OBS audio fuzzes out with digital dropouts constantly. I use Loopback to get the right channels into OBS (mic + DAW output). CPU isn't even close to breaking a sweat, but OBS seems to be causing massive audio dropouts for some reason.

VERY frustrating. I'm looking into other screen/audio recording options. Hope OBS fixes this soon!