OBS Maxing Out GPU with 90%+ Usage From Capture Source

[TimeRocker]

Anyone ever run into an issue with OBS suddenly maxing out the GPU for seemingly no reason? The past month or so, after a few days of leaving my PC on, OBS will suddenly have massive encoding overloading. CPU usage will be around 20% or so, but then I check task manager and OBS it using 90%+ of my GPU.

The cause seems to be stemming from my capture card source, because when I disable it/unview it, the GPU usage drops down to normal. If I run the capture card through it's own software, GPU usage is fine as well, which means OBS is the cause. The only way I know to currently fix it is by restarting the PC or reinstalling/updating my NVIDIA Driver. This issue doesn't happen when I'm capturing a game on the PC itself, only from the capture card source, which makes me believe there is some kind of bug/leak causing this problem and why it doesn't happen until my PC has been on for a few days/after a few streams.

Here is my log file: https://obsproject.com/logs/jQH4JuMzAeCQvtF4

 

[prgmitchell]

You have a ton of filters added to your capture card source including multiple VST filters which could be the issue.

00:04:55.624:     - source: 'Console' (dshow_input)
00:04:55.624:         - monitoring: monitor only
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VST 2.x Plug-in' (vst_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Video Delay (Async)' (async_delay_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction PS5' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction Switch' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VR' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Gain' (gain_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VST 2.x Plug-in 2' (vst_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction' (color_filter_v2)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'HDR Tone Mapping (Override)' (hdr_tonemap_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction PS5 HDR' (color_filter_v2)

 

[TimeRocker]

You have a ton of filters added to your capture card source including multiple VST filters which could be the issue.

00:04:55.624:     - source: 'Console' (dshow_input)
00:04:55.624:         - monitoring: monitor only
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VST 2.x Plug-in' (vst_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Video Delay (Async)' (async_delay_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction PS5' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction Switch' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VR' (color_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Gain' (gain_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'VST 2.x Plug-in 2' (vst_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction' (color_filter_v2)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'HDR Tone Mapping (Override)' (hdr_tonemap_filter)
00:04:55.624:         - filter: 'Color Correction PS5 HDR' (color_filter_v2)

I can turn them off and it doesn't affect the GPU usage. So far the only way I've found to fix the problem what it starts is to reinstall the graphics driver or restart my PC. I can stream without issue for multiple days, then randomly as soon as I hit "Start Streaming" I start getting encoding overloading and big frame drops and every time, it's OBS using up 90% of my GPU when normally it maxes out around 40%. This issue just started happening about a month or 2 ago. I've had those filters setup for years without problem.

 

[prgmitchell]

does not matter, if you've narrowed it down to that source and you are 100% confident you don't have issues with it disabled then you need to remove (not just disable) all the filters from the source and test again until you are satisfied that it is resolved.

 

[TimeRocker]

does not matter, if you've narrowed it down to that source and you are 100% confident you don't have issues with it disabled then you need to remove (not just disable) all the filters from the source and test again until you are satisfied that it is resolved.

Removed all of them by creating a completely different scene collection with nothing in it but the capture source and no filters exist and it didn't make any difference in the GPU usage.

Upon trying to do a reinstall of OBS to an older version from 2024, prior to when I started having this problem, it forced me to shut down Chrome and Steam. After doing so, and before reinstalling OBS, I noticed my GPU usage through OBS was back to normal. This meant somehow either Steam or Chrome was doing something to OBS and causing it to go haywire in how it's handling the GPU. To pinpoint which one, I had to again wait a few days for the issue to reappear. It did just now so I first shut down Steam and nothing changed. I then closed Chrome, and after about 10 seconds, OBS's GPU usage dropped down to normal. I opened Chrome back up and everything was fine.

So I'm not sure what exactly is happening through OBS that includes Chrome, but somehow it's causing OBS to spike it's GPU usage for no reason after a set amount of time. I always leave Chrome up for days on end because I have multiple windows, all at different sizes, and it's a pain to have to redo that every time I close Chrome or restart my PC, so I just leave it on. Been doing this for years however and it's only recently been causing this issue, but again, it's ONLY when using a Capture Source. As soon as I "unsee" or deactivate the source, the GPU drops down to normal levels. My next test is seeing if there is a specific tab/window that I always leave up that is somehow connected, or if it's requiring me to close Chrome in it's entirety.

 

[qhobbes]

Change the resolution on your capture device from 4K to 1080 or lower.

 

[TimeRocker]

Change the resolution on your capture device from 4K to 1080 or lower.

Gave that a shot just now and all I get is a black screen in OBS when I set the resolution to anything but 4K.

Tried closing Chrome tabs in different orders to see if anything would change but nope. I HAVE to close Chrome completely for OBS to drop it's GPU usage. So whatever is going on between OBS and Chrome, it's causing it to do this after some amount of time and the only ways to fix it temporarily is to close Chrome completely or reinstall the GPU driver.