Micro stutters in stream, but not on recording

[sunsetsbrew]

Hello community! I have been banging my head against this problem for a while now, I have a dual PC setup using and Elgato 4k60 Pro card and I am running a clone from my gaming pc to the elgato, at 1440p144, the elgato is setup correctly with 1440p edid set to internal. I am getting microstutters while playing games on twitch, but on the recording it seems to be a little smoother. Gameplay is smooth on my gaming monitor. It almost seems like the FPS drops from 60 to 30 for a second or so and then speeds back up, OBS is showing no dropped frames at all in the stats and a constant 60fps setup is as follows, also including the log: https://obsproject.com/logs/WgDERjyQan1fYaet

This has persisted through two different stream PCs and graphics cards on both my stream pc and the game pc. I have tried all sorts of different video settings on the source, all the different video types, all the different buffering options. I will try streaming to youtube as soon as my account is "verified" (takes 24 hours) to make sure it's not a twitch problem.

I have also experimented with lowering the bitrate, I generally try and stream at 900p60. I have a gigabit internet connection and all bandwidth tests show I have plenty of bandwidth to support that resolution and bitrate. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my issues.

Gaming PC
CPU:i9 9900k
GPU: EVGA 2080ti
RAM: 32GB corsair 3200

Stream PC:
CPU: i7 9700k
GPU: MSI 2060 Super
RAM: 32GB corsair 3200
Capture: Elgato 4k60 Pro plugged into 3rd PCIe slot. Slot is set to 4x mode in bios.

 

[sunsetsbrew]

It should also be noted that the preview window shows some stutters, but from what I have found in the past before is that sometimes even through the preview window is a little stuttery, the stream could still be solid, so I am hesitant to say that is part of this issue.

 

[Videophile]

Hi - Is the capture card the 4K60 Pro MK.2 or 4K60 Pro MK.1?

 

[sunsetsbrew]

Hi LtRoyalShrimp! this is a MK.2

 

[carlmmii]

No frames lost on OBS's end, so it's either incoming from the capture card, or the recording is actually fine.

Just to be sure... are you using VLC to play back your recording?

 

[sunsetsbrew]

Hi Carlmmii, I have confirmed the stuttering using VLC to playback the recording. Looks like they are the same stutters as are appearing on twitch.

 

[carlmmii]

Ok, just had to be sure.

For the cloning between your gaming pc and your stream pc, what method are you using? Is this via the nvidia control panel monitor cloning, or another method?

Also, is there any reason you're not using the passthrough method?

 

[sunsetsbrew]

For the clone, I make sure frame-rates are set using the windows method, then I do the cloning in nvidia control panel, making sure that scaling is forced on GPU, not display.

I am not using the pass through because I only stream two days a week, but I use my gaming PC every day, and having both pc's on every time I just want to use the gaming PC for a bit doesnt really make sense, but for troubleshooting purposes I will try using pass through, good idea. will report back.

 

[sunsetsbrew]

got an interesting update. I ended up switching back to my old HD60 Pro and sending 1080p instead of 1440p to the HD60pro and streaming and recording was MUCH SMOOTHER.

So I swapped back to the 4k60 Pro and tried sending 1080p, and it was still doing the micro-stutter. I ended up also borrowing a friend's Avermedia Live gamer 4k capture card and it had the same result as the Elgato 4k60Pro, same microstutters.

So currently, the only capture card I am able to stream smoothly in OBS is the Elgato HD60Pro feeding it 10920x1080 60fps. It is interesting that it would be stuttering on both the 4k60pro and the Live Gamer 4k.

 

[carlmmii]

Could it possibly be a PCIe bandwidth issue? What motherboard do you have, and what other cards do you have installed other than your gpu? (if any)

Depending on the motherboard, you may be using the PCIe bandwidth coming from the chipset, which isn't the most reliable for capture purposes. If it is coming from the chipset, then for troubleshooting purposes I would try slotting the capture card into the other CPU-connected PCIe slot (forcing 8x/8x). It will reduce your GPU bandwidth... but that may not matter.

 

[sunsetsbrew]

I have an asus z390-a motherboard. I can try moving it to the middle slot, I remember having that and it did force the gpu into 8x mode.

I do not have any other cards in the PCIe slots. I do have a m.2 card in pci mode in the top slot, I did try with the m.2 card out and it did not help :(

Ill try putting it into the middle slot and report back. :D

 

[carlmmii]

The slot 1 m.2 shouldn't affect anything. Those are dedicated lanes that aren't part of the PCIe slot topology.

Found something interesting.

** The PCIe x16_3 slot shares bandwidth with SATA_5 and SATA_6. The PCIe x16_3 is default set at x2 mode.

This may need to be manually switched to x4 in your bios.

 

[sunsetsbrew]

yeah I already have it set to 4x, that was the first thing I tried :( I wish it was something that easy! I'll post back with some results from moving it to the middle slot, also for fun I will pop it into my gaming rig's mobo and see if there is improvement, which is a asus maximus hero XI

 

[sunsetsbrew]

Ok so I have some updatres! I have tried all three of my capture cards in the 16x slot that is connected directly to the CPU (forcing my graphics card down to 8x) and the two 4k cards both had similar stuttering issues on stream, but I was able to stream noticeably smoother with my HD60Pro (1080p60 elgato PCIe capture card).

Not sure what that means or where the bottleneck is there but 1080p60 capture from my game pc to the stream PC is smoother on stream than 1440p144 capture from game pc to stream PC. the recordings are showing the footage to be pretty comparable though, so its only when watching on twitch that you can really see the difference, looking for any leads as to why that would be the case. Thanks!

 

[sunsetsbrew]

I believe I have located the issue with my stuttering.

The problem seems to lie in the twitch player itself, if you click on the gear, you can pull up video stats which include the current playback framerate and skipped frames, generally it is at 60. But I did notice that sometimes (but not all the time) when my video stuttered, the framerate that twitch showed in the video stats would drop a little bit, sometimes going as low as 49.

In that same menu on the twitch player you use to pull up the stat menu, you can also go into "Low Latency mode" which reduces the lag on the video from about 5 seconds (Normal Mode), to about 2 seconds (Low Latency mode). I found that toggling back to Normal Latency had a positive effect on my video stuttering. I will be testing this out over the next couple days to 100% confirm this is the case. But I am hopeful.

pic attached if anyone has trouble finding the settings

 

[Pin0y23]

Have you figured this issue out by chance? I believe I have the same issue. Dual pc setup. Stream pc has a Ryzen 3900x on medium preset 1600x900. No performance hit at all in my game but looking at past broadcasts I see a small microstutter during warzone gameplay every 10-15 seconds that lasts about 1-2 seconds. Almost like my fps goes from 60-45 or so just for a second. It’s all smooth with the exception of these microstutters