Question / Help OBS Lagging, yet no frame drop?

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weimaj

New Member
I have been using OBS for a year now, and I'm trying to get it to work with Lego Star Wars 2, for a Youtube series I'm doing.
I have my laptop hooked up to my HDTV for ease of access, and the game on its own works fine. Heck, even with OBS recording, the game's smoothish.
But, on the recording, I get lag without any frames dropped.

(Don't watch past 2:35 - it's just blank space)

My settings are attached (I'm new at doing this, sorry.)
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I'll put my specs in another post if needed.

The worst thing is, this is my last hope. My PS2 died yesterday as I completed the first game, so I'm panicking to get this sorted before releasing the first game's videos.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
AlexFolland

AlexFolland

New Member
I'm sorry that this reply isn't related to the problem you're reporting, but I noticed immediately that your video recording's aspect ratio is wrong for the game image aspect ratio. It looks like 4:3 stretched to 16:9. Your viewers will not appreciate this.

Regarding the lag, what does the original video file look like when played back with MPC-HC + madVR (if you're using Windows [Vista or later]) rather than uploaded to YouTube and transcoded by their transcoder?

Is there any possibility you can test--with the same setup you had before--running OBS and just trying "Preview Stream" while playing to see if the stream preview is lagging? I'm thinking if your HDTV is somehow acting as a capture device, its recording speed might be slow or something. I'm no expert on what HDTVs can do nowadays, but this seems like a useful test to me.

Oh, also, x264 is a software encoder, meaning it runs on the CPU, sharing computation time with everything else on the system and being subject to the CPU's clock rate. If you are encoding on the fly, x264 is not likely to be able to keep up with this sort of quality and frame rate (although I see you're using "veryfast" and a pretty low bitrate, so it should be able to keep up on a good CPU). I see you have QuickSync available. QuickSync is a hardware encoder (dedicated video encoding chip) and runs much faster, though has a limited set of encoding options in comparison, due to its pre-built hardware encoding pathways.
 
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weimaj

New Member
The video is a case of WYSIWYG - in Windows Media Player, in mp4 form, it's exactly what you see.

Previewing it doesn't show any lag whatsoever.

And I'd rather have the stretch than to have black bars on the sides of the screen.
 
AlexFolland

AlexFolland

New Member
I edited my previous post probably just after you posted. Maybe it's of some help.

So there's no lag in the stream preview, so it must be on encoding via x264. What happens with QuickSync instead?

Also, what kind of hard drive is your C drive? I had an issue with a second-generation SSD causing lag spikes on FRAPS recording a few years ago. Recording the same content onto a traditional hard drive prevented the lag spikes.

Regarding the stretch decision, by stretching the image, you're not actually displaying any extra content. You're just applying an extra filter and distorting all the artwork. You may notice that the most famous YouTube gamers get their image aspect ratios right (meaning view count and correct aspect ratio go hand-in-hand). For your own sake, I sincerely hope you reconsider your decision. Edit: Also remember that by displaying the game video in its correct aspect ratio, you get extra space to display other content (button input, webcam stream maybe, speed run route info, random images pertaining to what you're talking about), and this content can be interesting for the viewer.
 
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weimaj

New Member
This is running on a Samsung laptop. It's all I have for recording and editing.

As for your comment about famous Youtube gamers, I am experimenting as they probably had to do back in their earlier videos.
I am aware that some games won't look better this way, but I made it 16:9 in the game options itself as a test - hence the name of the video above.

As for QuickSync, I haven't tried that, so give me a few moments and I'll get back to you.
 
FerretBomb

FerretBomb

Active Member
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weimaj

New Member
http://pastebin.com/zztbqz34
Sorry I took so long. Internet troubles in the countryside.

The above is my log as you suggested FerretBomb. As for your questions, it's all completely done on one laptop, I guess it's native(?) and I would be using my PS2 had it not finally died on me after 11 years.
 
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Lain

Forum Admin
Lain
Forum Moderator
Developer
Well, unfortunately, your computer is utterly terrible for live streaming/recording/encoding. You're running a celeron, and on top of having only two cores, it's only 1400Mhz. It has no real graphics device of its own, just the integrated. Your computer is one of the most terrible computers I've seen on here unfortunately.

I don't think you should be trying to stream/record/encode with that computer, and I realize that this might not be what you want to hear. I don't want to have to tell you this, but your performance analysis results in the log file say it all.
 
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weimaj

New Member
Well, it was worth a try.

Before I go though, I would like to say not all the games are unrecordable on this machine.
I know I can record emulated stuff. And I know I can capture through a console on here.

The fact that you said that this "is one of the most terrible computers" you've seen amuses me. And I agree. (My last one was better because I actually was able to record Fallout 3 of all things using OBS.)

So I guess I'm doing console stuff instead for both ease of access, and time/money constraints.

Although, just out of curiosity, what's the "middle ground" of computers you've seen (i.e. the specs)? I do plan on building one at some point.
 
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Cryonic

Member
If you want a decent streaming computer, you should think about Intel core i5(up to 4670K and Intel is just better than AMD right now, for Quicksync you will need an Intel GPU), 8gb DDR3 RAM, a decent GPU (mid-end would do it, if your resolution is not higher than 1080p). Motherboard, HDD/SSD and other stuff depends on your money. 800$ is enough for a decent gaming/streaming rig, it will be able to run any game with 30+FPS while streaming 720p. Core i7 is better, but its pretty expensive. I paid 284€ for my CPU (4770K) but this is one of the fastest quadcores out there, only enthusiast CPUs are faster and even more expensive.
 
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