OBS recordings contain duplicate frames while gameplay is smooth — ShadowPlay captures the same scene perfectly (RTX 5070 Ti)

J

Jazer79

New Member
After upgrading GPUs, my OBS recordings stutter (duplicate/near-duplicate frames) even though live gameplay is flawless. I systematically tested and eliminated everything I could think of over ~2 weeks. NVIDIA's built-in recorder captures the identical scene with zero duplicate frames, while all three OBS capture methods (Game / Window / Display Capture) show the same defect. Evidence and methodology below — hoping someone recognizes this or can point at something I missed.

System​


  • GPU: RTX 5070 Ti (upgraded from RTX 3080, which captured flawlessly with the same settings)
  • CPU: Ryzen 9 9950X3D
  • RAM: 64GB | Monitor: ASUS ROG PG278QR, 1440p 165Hz
  • OS: Windows 11 25H2 (build 26200)
  • Driver: 610.74 (32.0.16.1074), clean install via DDU
  • OBS: started on 30.1, upgraded to 32.1.2 — no change
  • Recording settings: NVENC (H.264 and HEVC both tested), CQP 18, P7, two-pass full res, 1440p60, MKV
  • Main affected game: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced (also visible in Crimson Desert with Lossless Scaling)

Symptom​


Recordings look juddery — like the footage is lower FPS than what was played. Live gameplay on screen is smooth. Frame-stepping recordings in VLC (the e key) shows frames where the image doesn't advance (duplicates / near-duplicates), which matches the visual stutter exactly.


OBS Stats panel during recording: 0 frames missed due to rendering lag (0/14160), 0 skipped due to encoding lag (0/7269). OBS believes everything is fine.


What I tested — no change​


  • OBS 30.1 → 32.1.2 (fresh install)
  • H.264 ↔ HEVC, Psycho Visual Tuning / Adaptive Quantisation on/off
  • Game Capture with and without anti-cheat compatibility hook
  • Window Capture, Game Capture and Display Capture — same defect on all three capture methods
  • WGC vs DXGI capture APIs
  • G-Sync windowed on/off, VSync recipes in NVCP
  • Monitor was manually set back to 165 after driver reinstall
  • HAGS on/off, Game Mode, power plan (High Performance → Ryzen Balanced & Performance)
  • Memory Integrity already off, DPC latency monitored — clean/green
  • AMD chipset drivers present (3D V-Cache Optimizer + PPM Provisioning confirmed in Device Manager)
  • CPU is healthy: ~18-23% utilization in game, no background load, no thermal issues (72°C max)
  • No overlays (no Armoury Crate, NVIDIA overlay tested off)
 
oh sorry! here are my logs

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com obsproject.com

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com obsproject.com

the plugin was compatible with the old version i had and i still had the issue. the latest is just complaining.

and multiple games are all disabled. i'm only turning on the one i need to capture.
 
i used ai to get me a graph comparing a new capture on obs with the new 5070 ti with an old video captured on the 3080 using this command
.\ffmpeg -i "old.mkv" -vf "select='gte(scene,0)',metadata=print:file=scores.txt" -f null -

comparison.png


i've also compared it to a new capture on the 5070 ti with shadowplay

shadowplay.png
 
Jazer79 said:
After upgrading GPUs, my OBS recordings stutter (duplicate/near-duplicate frames) even though live gameplay is flawless. I systematically tested and eliminated everything I could think of over ~2 weeks. NVIDIA's built-in recorder captures the identical scene with zero duplicate frames, while all three OBS capture methods (Game / Window / Display Capture) show the same defect. Evidence and methodology below — hoping someone recognizes this or can point at something I missed.

System​


  • GPU: RTX 5070 Ti (upgraded from RTX 3080, which captured flawlessly with the same settings)
  • CPU: Ryzen 9 9950X3D
  • RAM: 64GB | Monitor: ASUS ROG PG278QR, 1440p 165Hz
  • OS: Windows 11 25H2 (build 26200)
  • Driver: 610.74 (32.0.16.1074), clean install via DDU
  • OBS: started on 30.1, upgraded to 32.1.2 — no change
  • Recording settings: NVENC (H.264 and HEVC both tested), CQP 18, P7, two-pass full res, 1440p60, MKV
  • Main affected game: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced (also visible in Crimson Desert with Lossless Scaling)

Symptom​


Recordings look juddery — like the footage is lower FPS than what was played. Live gameplay on screen is smooth. Frame-stepping recordings in VLC (the e key) shows frames where the image doesn't advance (duplicates / near-duplicates), which matches the visual stutter exactly.


OBS Stats panel during recording: 0 frames missed due to rendering lag (0/14160), 0 skipped due to encoding lag (0/7269). OBS believes everything is fine.


What I tested — no change​


  • OBS 30.1 → 32.1.2 (fresh install)
  • H.264 ↔ HEVC, Psycho Visual Tuning / Adaptive Quantisation on/off
  • Game Capture with and without anti-cheat compatibility hook
  • Window Capture, Game Capture and Display Capture — same defect on all three capture methods
  • WGC vs DXGI capture APIs
  • G-Sync windowed on/off, VSync recipes in NVCP
  • Monitor was manually set back to 165 after driver reinstall
  • HAGS on/off, Game Mode, power plan (High Performance → Ryzen Balanced & Performance)
  • Memory Integrity already off, DPC latency monitored — clean/green
  • AMD chipset drivers present (3D V-Cache Optimizer + PPM Provisioning confirmed in Device Manager)
  • CPU is healthy: ~18-23% utilization in game, no background load, no thermal issues (72°C max)
  • No overlays (no Armoury Crate, NVIDIA overlay tested off)
Click to expand...
That really sounds like an OBS issue if NVIDIA recorder is perfectly smooth with the same game. Since you already tested almost everything I would try an older NVIDIA driver or wait for an OBS/NVIDIA fix. Feels like you've ruled out the hardware already.
 
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