OBS app causes massive PC lags

[masuki]

Hello!
I have been using OBS completely fine without any issues for months but now I am facing sudden problems with the app itself where when I launch the app as well as try and do anything within the app (open settings, press record, recording itself, minimize the window, switch windows, anything really), it causes massive pc lag that stops me from doing anything at all.

I was trying to record Desmume playing Pokemon Soul Silver (only slightly increased graphics, recording it as window capture) and having discord screen share on while recording since I wanted my friends to see - everything went fine until 50mins into the recording when the craziest lags of my life happened. At first I thought it was the game but the lagging only stopped once I managed to close OBS and I'm 99% sure OBS/GPU is the culprit. Since then every time I've tried to open OBS it would just cause massive lag and I'm unable to do anything.

I tried to reinstall OBS before I found out about the log analyser so sadly I don't have the original log anymore but I attempted another recording session today which also ended in lagging after 20min and I have another log where lagging happened immediately after opening the app (Ver 29.1.1) below. It revealed that there definitely is some encoding overload of some sort happening randomly but I simply cannot determine the cause and how to fix it..
https://obsproject.com/logs/xaNYN0mWjyNfgjof
immediate lag log on older version:
https://obsproject.com/logs/3rshAsGLQ21jiKBG

Specs:
Windows 11
Nvidia RTX 4070
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core Processor
32GB RAM
Videos are saved on 4TB SSD

Here's what I've tried so far and hasn't worked:
Clean install 3x (updating to latest version from the version I was on, reinstalling the latest version 30.2.2, reinstalling and downgrading to an older version 29.1.1)
Removed Scenes and simplified immediately (1 Scene and 1 Source only)
Open OBS as admin
Run OBS as the only active application to check for lag
Turn Windows Game Mode off/on
Turn G-Sync off/on
Turn Shadowplay off/on
Change Encoders
Change Resolution/FPS
Turn Hardware Acceleration off/on
Add more RAM to OBS
Updated Drivers/Software
Deleted a Third Party Plugin
Make sure Microphone/Headphone/Sample Rate hz are the same
OpenGL Rendering GPU changed to the 4070 from default
Enable/Disable Replay Buffer

Funnily enough, restarting my pc stops the OBS lag and lets me record for 20-30mins before the same breakdown happens again

I'd be very grateful about any help as I'm not very knowledgeable on OBS and GPU overload/encoding and want to keep on using OBS studio.
Please let me know if you need any more/better info!

Thank you very much in Advance!

 

[masuki]

UPDATE + SOLUTION
Me and my friend didn't give up and managed to seemingly solve it!! 3hr recording session had no interruptions, YIPPIE!
I sadly cannot tell you what the exact reason or cause was because of my limited technical knowledge.

The problem in my case seemed to be my cpu's integrated graphics. We figured out that once we completely uninstalled my gpu's driver my entire pc started lagging the same way obs did while using onboard graphics!

Turns out:
1) My second monitor was plugged into the motherboard while my main display was plugged into the graphics card -> obs window ran on this second monitor which was using onboard graphics.
2) After reinstalling the gpu's drivers, I checked whether the intergrated graphics needed updating using the AMD Software Compatibility tool which told me that no drivers were found on my pc - which was very strange since windows definitely showed AMD software was installed and upon opening said app a pop up told me that a windows update had automatically replaced the driver (wow thanks!!1!!1!1!).
3) Desmume was also using integrated graphics by default to upscale the game I was playing which meant those faulty onboard graphics were being used there as well!

So my best guess is whenever my gpu spiked, it also spiking the faulty onboard graphics, which clearly couldn't handle the load and lagged out, likely conflicting with the gpu drivers as it was trying to use both at the same time.

TLDR/FIX:
Deleting and reinstalling GPU driver
Making sure all monitors and games are connected to the same GPU
Updating and then disabling Integrated CPU Graphics Driver using device manager/bios

Make sure to look up how to safely uninstall graphic drivers, etc.!

Hope this can help whoever finds this thread and is as lost as I was and if anything changes or starts lagging again, I shall update this thread. :D