Question / Help NVENC 720p60 ~1% skipped frames due to encoding lag

[FallenTF]

Hi, I started using OBS again recently (Internet upgrade, can actually stream now) so I've been streaming and saving a local recording.

Settings are as follows:


R5 1600AF / 1060 6GB / 16GB DDR4-3000 / 1,000 Down / 40 Mbps Upload (hits a full 40 Mbps on a single connection speedtest.net test)
720p 60 FPS / Audio 192 Kbps - Down-scaling from 1080p using Lanczos, using 709 partial
NVENC H.264 New - 4500 Kbps CBR, 2 keyint, max quality (also tried quality, same issue), High Profile, No Look-ahead, Psy Enabled, 2 b-frames

Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 4979/454827 (1.1%)
I do find this a bit odd, especially running at 720p.

The percentage was similar with previous streams (~1.0-1.4%), this one being Halo 1 MCC which was only using about 30% CPU usage and ~60% GPU, just to rule out any hardware bottleneck. I also cap games at 60 and set graphics accordingly to always keep a smooth 60 FPS with headroom to spare.

The skipped frames due to encoding lag are causing visible stutter at random points in my recording and stream, any suggestions?

Log and stats attached.

 

[FallenTF]

I looked through the first several pages of support (apparently my previous search attempt was poor), seems like the issue is fairly widespread and OBS likely at fault for whatever reason (people having the same issue or worse running 1080TIs). Think I'll give a few other programs I own a try instead, thanks for your time.

 

[carlmmii]

Turn off Psychovisual tuning, and drop the quality from "Max Quality". Both of these options use extra CUDA operations to help with the encoding process, meaning it's no longer guaranteed to just use the NVenc silicon for straight throughput.

Also, what drive is G:? There have been some cases where the physical storage media does bottleneck the encoder.

Also, just to make sure, do you have game mode off or on? If it's off, turn it on -- this will allow OBS to be included in the GPU prioritization list in windows, just as long as you're also running OBS as admin (which it looks like you already are).

 

[ohmygodhelp]

Hi, I started using OBS again recently (Internet upgrade, can actually stream now) so I've been streaming and saving a local recording.

Settings are as follows:


R5 1600AF / 1060 6GB / 16GB DDR4-3000 / 1,000 Down / 40 Mbps Upload (hits a full 40 Mbps on a single connection speedtest.net test)
720p 60 FPS / Audio 192 Kbps - Down-scaling from 1080p using Lanczos, using 709 partial
NVENC H.264 New - 4500 Kbps CBR, 2 keyint, max quality (also tried quality, same issue), High Profile, No Look-ahead, Psy Enabled, 2 b-frames

Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 4979/454827 (1.1%)
I do find this a bit odd, especially running at 720p.

The percentage was similar with previous streams (~1.0-1.4%), this one being Halo 1 MCC which was only using about 30% CPU usage and ~60% GPU, just to rule out any hardware bottleneck. I also cap games at 60 and set graphics accordingly to always keep a smooth 60 FPS with headroom to spare.

The skipped frames due to encoding lag are causing visible stutter at random points in my recording and stream, any suggestions?

Log and stats attached.

I had your exact problem, i tried every solution presented to me over a couple of days nothing worked
Make sure your recordings do not get saved directly to your desktop, sound easy enough but that caused my issues

hope that helps

 

[FallenTF]

Turn off Psychovisual tuning, and drop the quality from "Max Quality". Both of these options use extra CUDA operations to help with the encoding process, meaning it's no longer guaranteed to just use the NVenc silicon for straight throughput.

Also, what drive is G:? There have been some cases where the physical storage media does bottleneck the encoder.

Also, just to make sure, do you have game mode off or on? If it's off, turn it on -- this will allow OBS to be included in the GPU prioritization list in windows, just as long as you're also running OBS as admin (which it looks like you already are).

Game mode is on, and the windows install is just over a month old.
G: is my 5TB dedicated recording hard drive, 150-220MB/s write speed (depends on platter location).

I'll try dropping down to quality and disabling psy and see how that goes. Thanks!

 

[carlmmii]

Ok, just had to make sure you weren't trying to do something like send the recording to a remote drive or something. Plus, it looks like you're using the "use stream encoder" option for your recording, correct? Which means the bitrate shouldn't be creating any kind of write bottleneck. This lag is all coming directly from the actual encoding process then.

 

[BluePeer]

mostly its a simple issue you need to check first
look your gpu load in windows task manager if the "3D load" + "video Encoding" = 90%+ you will run in "overload" and the Gamefps and encode performance go down

the easiest way is to reduce the game 3d load by limit FPS a little down or decrease massive 3d load settings
then you not loose image quality

Its a wrong thinking from the most guys that nvenc is a dedicated you need to talkulate 3D use + Nvenc bottom use the same ressources
with the same bandwidth limitations

 

[FallenTF]

look your gpu load in windows task manager if the "3D load" + "video Encoding" = 90%+ you will run in "overload" and the Gamefps and encode performance go down

the easiest way is to reduce the game 3d load by limit FPS a little down or decrease massive 3d load settings
then you not loose image quality

That's why I was testing with Halo 1, it's low CPU/GPU usage.

Plus, it looks like you're using the "use stream encoder" option for your recording, correct?

Correct, so it's only encoding once for both.

I turned down max quality to quality and turned off psy, still the same issue ~1.0-1.4% skipped due to encoding lag, tested over 5 hours and several streams and games.

I am very slightly behind on drivers (442.19 vs 442.50) going to update those and try again and if the issue persists I'm going to give Action! and/or d3dgear a try and see if the same issue is present (visual skipping/stutter) since I also own those.

Thanks for trying to help!

 

[FallenTF]

I was testing again today and it jumped up to 8%, changed a few settings, tested again same thing. Then I moved the recording folder to my other external, ran 2 10 minute tests and the encoding lag is gone, down to 6/20430 (0.0%). So there must be an issue with the original drive I was using (could be dying who knows). If this kind of error wasn't just lumped in with "encoding lag" I'd probably have fixed it a lot quicker.