Question / Help OBS Lag/Frame Pausing (Only VIA Stream)

TwistedAngel254

New Member
Hey Guys,

Just signed up because I've been racking my brains for days/weeks now trying to figure out whats going on, first I'll explain the issue then list all the technical specs, logs, settings etc. below

I stream a few games (to Twitch), some less intensive than others, for example;

League of Legends (not that intensive)
Counter Strike Global Offensive (not that intensive - maybe minor insensitivity)
Rainbox Six Siege (quite intensive)
The Division (quite intensive)

So, I can play all of the above games without any problems on Ultra graphics, not an issue, no lag, no issues and I play at 144FPS on all of them.
My issue comes down to when I try to stream.
Streaming League of Legends I don't get a single issue, no frame drops, no pauses, no lag. However should I play CSGO I get the frame pausing and lag. One thing I must stress is that it's irrelevant on settings, I tried at 720, 480 and 360p, lowering from 60 to 30 fps also, it made no difference to CSGO, simply put less stress on my CPU and GPU (which were only at 30-40% anyway) and still kept giving me random frame pausing and lag spikes.
The thing that strikes me as odd - is that the client side software of OBS doesn't lag or pause (if I have preview on), it's as smooth as my main monitor that's playing the game.
For Rainbox Six Siege / The Division, essentially the same thing happens, although Rainbox Six Siege / The Divison are bareable (to a degree) if they're on 360p - my CPU/GPU aren't being maxed out so it makes no sense why I see the pauses, especially as CSGO is not intensive in the slightest - won't even push me to 50% CPU yet I get the frame pauses / OBS lag.
I've tried messing with the x264 CPU preset to see if this helps/alleviates - no joy.

Please feel free to suggest anything you can think of, I've played with the OBS settings alot and haven't managed to fix this problem, I've probably missed out things I've already done - so apologies for that.

Hardware setup:
  • CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4790K (8 CPUs), 4.00GHz (Goes turbo to 4.4GHz)
  • CPU Cooling Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
  • Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 3
  • RAM: HyperX Savage 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) 2400 MHz DDR3
  • Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (MSI)
  • Power Supply: Novatech 600W 80PLUS Gold Standard Modular
  • OS: Windows 10 Enterprise
Download Speed: Varies between 160-215Mbps
Upload Speed: Varies between 9-12Mbps
Encoding: x264
Use CBR: Yes
Use CFR: Yes
Max Bitrate: 3500, however I have varied between 2,000 to 7,000 for testing.
Enable CBR padding: Yes
FMS URL: Tried multiple, however is typically set to London.
Resolution Downscale: Yes, tried 720, 480 and 360.
FPS: 60 or 30

No I'm not streaming over Wi-Fi, we got a new hub (Superhub 3.0) a month or two ago and it enhanced our connection fourfold.
No firewall issues, OBS and Games are set as exceptions.
No AV issues - exceptions again.
Graphics drivers have been updated.
Hardware is solid - however I can't see that being an issue anyway if it happens with some games but not league.
Log uploaded - apologies if it's a bit messy, hopefully it provides some insight although I couldn't find much from it, the only thing I did notice was;

WARNING: Another hook is already present while trying to hook d3d9.dll, hook target is unknown. If you experience crashes, try disabling the other hooking application


But I'm pretty certain that's not an issue - as it connects seconds later and I think that's just me starting the stream rather than a continuous thing. Plus when I saw this mentioned on another topic - they simply advised something else is hooking into it - but I've tested with practically nothing else runnings and still the same issue.

Using OBS Studio v0.659b (not multiplatform).

P.S. I have reviewed all of the below in the pinned topics;

https://obsproject.com/forum/thread...oads-constantly-for-my-viewers-but-why.18465/
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/dropped-frames-disconnecting-lag-read-this-first.8870/


Thanks for any suggestions/help guys!

- TA
 

Attachments

  • 2016-12-01-2016-18.log
    28.6 KB · Views: 21
Last edited:

lPredi

New Member
Are you using one monitor or 2? and what hz is/are they?
I'm asking because i'm having the same problem and i found out a "solution" not satisfied enough tho.
 

lPredi

New Member
I thought so. Ok we have 2 solutions on your problem. Don't ask me why, i don't really know and no one is giving me an answer but obs for a wierd reason can't "keep up" with the hz difference.
Solution 1. Turn your 144hz monitor to 60hz and this will solve your problem. and yes i know that your answer would be "i didn't buy a 144hz monitor to have it on 60hz" and i know that because that's my point too. sooooo
Solution 2. start streaming open up your game and when you are about to start playing just minimize your obs. This will solve your problem and you can keep playing on 144hz!
If you find another solution tho plz let me know because i'm on the same boat as you are! :)

Edit: BTW i tried 120hz too but with the same results!
Edit2: i tried OBS studio same results there as well. And for xsplit.
 
Last edited:

TwistedAngel254

New Member
Ah I was really worried it'd be something like that, as it'd make sense if it doesn't happen in League as it's not a fast FPS - but refresh rate really plays into 3rd/1st person shooters.

Yeah, exactly that! Haha, 144hz from 60hz was such a massive change for me - especially for such crucial timing games like CSGO so reverting isn't an option.

I was literally going to ask if you'd tried other streaming software like Xsplit - but if that's the same issue, that blows too..

I have tried minimising OBS whilst in Siege before and it didn't seem to help (had the stream up instead) - will give it another shot today.

You said you tried OBS studio - do you mean multi platform? I've heard some issues just don't happen with multi platform - may give that a shot.

Cheers for your help dude
 

lPredi

New Member
no i didn't try multi platform tbh. that was the only thing that i didn't try. Too bad that this solution doesn't work for you!
If you find any solution to this problem plz let me know!!!
 

TwistedAngel254

New Member
I've just tried multi-platform, still no joy, although it is a smoother and easier to use piece of software.

I've also tried your solution for reducing the refresh rate and although it helped a little - and I really mean only a little, it didn't fix it and wouldn't be worth the sacrifice.

Out of curiosity, what CPU do you have? and what Graphics Card are you using?

You minimising OBS and it alleviating the issue may suggest that it's CPU-related and that minimising OBS free'd up the minor amount of CPU usage that was needed for you to stream without issue.

Who knows, just spitballing ideas and thoughts now - I'm probably going to try and overclock my i7 4790K soon and see if that has any bearing on the problem.

Cheers
 

lPredi

New Member
I'm using NVENC to stream. I have a i7-3820 @3.6Ghz (OC @ 4.5Ghz) and a GTX 1070 (OC @ 2080Ghz). But i don' really think that this is the case. there must be some settings that we haven't figure out yet.
 

lPredi

New Member
btw your problem might be this one on your log: WARNING: Another hook is already present while trying to hook d3d9.dll, hook target is unknown. If you experience crashes, try disabling the other hooking application. i'm not really sure tho. Do you have anything else on while streaming that requires to use the d3d9?
 

TwistedAngel254

New Member
Yeah I did see that before, that isn't present in my new logs that I have and I've tried having pretty much every service possible closed/stopped/terminated and then streaming - but no joy.

It has to be settings based or something I/we have on our computers - there are plenty of people that can stream it without any problems whatsoever - I just searched Twitch for the #1 guy streaming at the moment for Rainbow Six Siege and guess what CPU he has - i7 4790K - my exact CPU and his is flawless, he even has the same motherboard and CPU cooler. I see so many people with the i7 4790K not struggling to stream anything in 720p and it being flawless - with the 970 or lower/higher. It has to be settings or local PC.
 
Top