Question / Help OBS recording makes game drop frames

The7evenatorYT

The7evenatorYT

New Member
Okay then, from what I am seeing from your log, it seems like your CPU is the issue due to encoding issues. First off, what settings do you have Fortnite on when you are recording and it is dropping frames? Also, to better understand and possibly clarify if it is the same common issue I have been having issues with, it would be extremely helpful if you could take a picture of task manager in the CPU section with all logical cores showing while playing Fortnite AND OBS recording at the same time with the settings that were causing you issues. You could use snipping tool for this.

Not sure if I actually have a solution, but if the issue is what I think it is, I might actually be able to give a good workaround. The picture of task manager is what should verify it or not.

Anyways, I hope we can get your problem fixed. :)
 
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Blahh Xp

New Member
im pretty sure when im actully playing the cpu usage goes higher
 

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The7evenatorYT

The7evenatorYT

New Member
Sorry for the late reply, completely forgot to check the forum for updates.
Okay, so first thing off the bat, I'm sure you love running Fortnite at 120 fps (or some other explanation for that high of an fps), but when you are recording video you don't really want to record that high of a framerate unless you have a VERY specific reason for it. Not saying anything against it, but recording at 120 fps and expecting smooth video requires a HUGE amount more resources than recording at 60 fps. This could be causing some of the CPU issues I saw that you were having. However, what is more of an issue than the high fps is seeing that your game fps is 120 fps while your recording framerate is 48 (from what I saw in your log.) This huge difference in fps can definitely cause issues with smoothness in video and such. You ALWAYS (if possible physically posssible) want to set your recording framerate to the framerate of the thing you are recording (ESPECIALLY in games with high motion, and any games at all).

So, for the sake of finding out if these two things are the issue, I would say set your Fortnite framerate to 60 fps in addition to your OBS recording framerate, which also needs to be 60 fps. Don't change anything else as this can cause multiple variables to change. Do some testing with these changes and see if Fortnite/and or your recording still drops frames and stutters. If the dropping frames and lagging stops, then slowly up the framerate on both Fortnite and OBS accordingly until the stuttering starts to happen again. Posting logs of separate changes in sessions will help us narrow this down before doing anything else.

Hope this helps! :)
 
BK-Morpheus

BK-Morpheus

Active Member
Log says, he is trying to record in 48fps (dunno why you want that specifc framerate, which will look like stutter on a normal 60Hz monitor).
I would stop using monitor capture and game capture in the same scene. This can impact your performance. Use only game capture instead and check, if the performance is getting better.
Meanwhile you should monitor CPU and GPU load, while gaming+recording. CPU load should stay below 80% and GPU load below ~90% at all times.
Depending on which load is higher / too high, you might want to reduce ingame fps limit or recording settings, but you are already using the crappiest quality encoder preset (ultrafast), so the CPU load on 1080p 48fps recording@ultrafast should be manageable.
Maybe switch to NVENC and let the encoder chip of the GTX1070 do the encoding. This will give even less CPU load and better quality than x264@ultrafast on the CPU.
 
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Blahh Xp

New Member
these are the settings i was using and my gpu and cpu were below 40% when i was playing while recording and my game and recording were still being laggy, is there something im missing?
 

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Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
17:32:14.485: YUV mode: 709/Full

Probably should change that to 709/Partial.

https://obsproject.com/forum/resour...t-color-range-settings-guide-test-charts.442/

17:32:16.815: Loaded scenes:
17:32:16.815: - scene 'Stream':
17:32:16.815: - source: 'Display Capture' (monitor_capture)
17:32:16.815: - source: 'Follower allert' (browser_source)
17:32:16.815: - scene 'youtube':
17:32:16.815: - source: 'Display Capture 2' (monitor_capture)
17:32:16.815: - scene 'Scene 2':
17:32:16.815: - source: 'Display Capture 3' (monitor_capture)
17:32:16.815: - source: 'Game Capture' (game_capture)

Don't mix game and display captures in the same scene; don't use multiple display captures for the same display.

17:42:58.781: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 6360/38265 (16.6%)

Encoding lag caused by GPU overload. Your GPU cannot produce 1080p60 with the selected settings.

Suggest switching to simple mode and testing the "indistinguishable quality, large file size" option.
 
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Blahh Xp

New Member
i tried what you said and it helped a little bit, the gameplay still has a little bit of lag spikes but the recordings has parts where it would have major lag spikes.

Here are my pc specs so maybe you guys can try and go off of that.
CPU: Intel core i78700k 3.7/4.7GHz 6 core
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB
Integrated Graphics: Intel HD 630
Motherboard: MSI Z370
Storage: WD240 SSD
Memory: Corsair Dominator 8GB DDR4 3000
 

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Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
23:26:50.912: video settings reset:
23:26:50.912: base resolution: 1920x1080
23:26:50.912: output resolution: 1920x1080
23:26:50.912: downscale filter: Lanczos
23:26:50.912: fps: 60/1
23:26:50.912: format: NV12
23:26:50.912: YUV mode: 709/Full

Still 709/Full. Still 1080p60. Still about the same encoder overload or more:

23:31:50.852: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 1540/16718 (9.2%)
23:34:12.177: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 643/3849 (16.7%)
23:39:54.329: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 4459/20410 (21.8%)

Suggest switching to simple output mode and choosing Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size and seeing what results that gives you.
 
The7evenatorYT

The7evenatorYT

New Member
Narcogen said:
17:42:58.781: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 6360/38265 (16.6%)

Encoding lag caused by GPU overload. Your GPU cannot produce 1080p60 with the selected settings.
Click to expand...

Actually, encoding lag means that the CPU is overloaded instead of the GPU. This would make sense since Blahh Xp is using x264 for recording.

Blahh Xp said:
CPU: Intel core i78700k 3.7/4.7GHz 6 core
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB
Integrated Graphics: Intel HD 630
Click to expand...

Also, you mentioned having the integrated graphics, is there a possibility that OBS/ Fortnite is using them instead of the GTX 1070?
Do you have them enabled in the BIOS perhaps?

Also, is the FPS cap in Fortnite still at 120?

Just asking these questions to see if it is purely the CPU or in addition to something else. :)

Blahh Xp said:
these are the settings i was using and my gpu and cpu were below 40% when i was playing while recording and my game and recording were still being laggy, is there something im missing?
Click to expand...

However, that fact that the CPU and GPU being under 40% while playing and recording is quite interesting...
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
Actually, encoding lag means that the CPU is overloaded instead of the GPU. This would make sense since Blahh Xp is using x264 for recording.
Click to expand...

23:34:14.009: [jim-nvenc: 'recording_h264'] settings:
23:34:14.009: rate_control: CQP
23:34:14.009: bitrate: 0
23:34:14.009: cqp: 23
23:34:14.009: keyint: 250
23:34:14.009: preset: hp
23:34:14.009: profile: high
23:34:14.009: width: 1920
23:34:14.009: height: 1080
23:34:14.009: 2-pass: false
23:34:14.009: b-frames: 2
23:34:14.009: lookahead: false
23:34:14.009: psycho_aq: true
23:34:14.009:
23:34:14.024: ---------------------------------
23:34:14.025: [FFmpeg aac encoder: 'Xbox/Desktop'] bitrate: 320, channels: 2, channel_layout: 3
23:34:14.025:
23:34:14.026: ---------------------------------
23:34:14.027: [FFmpeg aac encoder: 'Track2'] bitrate: 320, channels: 2, channel_layout: 3
23:34:14.027:
23:34:14.028: ---------------------------------
23:34:14.028: [FFmpeg aac encoder: 'Microphone'] bitrate: 320, channels: 2, channel_layout: 3
23:34:14.028:
23:34:14.075: ==== Recording Start ===============================================
23:34:14.075: [ffmpeg muxer: 'adv_file_output'] Writing file 'C:/Users/user/Desktop/obs video/2019-08-30 23-34-13.mp4'...
23:39:54.091: Stopping recording due to hotkey
23:39:54.272: Stopping recording due to hotkey
23:39:54.327: [ffmpeg muxer: 'adv_file_output'] Output of file 'C:/Users/user/Desktop/obs video/2019-08-30 23-34-13.mp4' stopped
23:39:54.327: Output 'adv_file_output': stopping
23:39:54.328: Output 'adv_file_output': Total frames output: 20197
23:39:54.328: Output 'adv_file_output': Total drawn frames: 20415
23:39:54.328: ==== Recording Stop ================================================
23:39:54.329: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 4459/20410 (21.8%)

No, Blahh Xp aren't using x264, they're using NVENC in advanced mode, so the encoding lag is from the GPU, at least in the session above with the highest number of skipped frames.
 
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