Question / Help OBS Streaming/Recording trouble

[Rooster]

I hope I'm just jumping the gun, but I want to bring it up just in case. I'm a PC tech and work in IT, and.. I swear, gotta love tech, but you can reeeeally despise it sometimes.

Anywho, recently got a first gen i7 rig for cheap, specs are:

i7 950 - stock speeds
GTX 275 (though just currently testing it, works fine, I use a 560 that came with the rig normally)
12 gigs of ddr3 currently running at 1066 (not oc'd yet to rated speeds)
850watt psu
Some crappy Caviar SE 160gb sata drive (for now)

So.. I swear this has to be software related, maybe with the latest updates I got through Win7, or maybe after I swapped in a GTX 460 the other day (which somehow caused some blue screens during a certain application, but not others).

When I try recording with OBS now, or stream, downscaled to 720p at 30FPS, 2500 on buffer size and bitrate, quality 10, CFR and every other default thing is one. Veryfast on the CPU present. Pretty much everything that I've read is ideal for when I'm streaming, or recording.

What I have no idea about is why when I record or stream now, I'm only sending out maybe.. 10-15 FPS, it never stays at 30 for streaming. Skyrim's gameplay seems steady and unaffected by streaming/recording, but looking at a second screen with OBS, it shows clearly way below 30fps. When I record Minecraft gameplay, the FPS of my game actually drops and coincides with the clearly lower than 30fps recording numbers displayed in OBS. I swear I wasnt having this issue a few weeks ago.. unless I'm crazy :D Plus, think of this.. my first gen APU system, A8 3870k, streams/records >just fine< and butter smooth at 1366x768 at 30fps.

I want to pee on someone's face. Thats how I feel.

I'm hoping a complete reinstall will solve this, since I don't see anything else to do. Maybe a system restore prior to the card swap and windows updates. But why the hell would it be that..

End of line

 

[Rooster]

To add, incase my explanations above sounded jumbled, I know this hardware is more than sufficient, considering even crappier hardware can at least >record< just fine for 720p 30fps footage. Streaming is another thing because the network has to be considered as well, but my net is fine, more than enough bandwidth. I pushed my gpu with Furmark and the i7 950 with Prime95, both work just fine. Theres no way an i7 950 has worse single threaded performance then an A8 3870K lol. Let alone the 8 threads it has to boot. And when it comes to where I'm recording to? a separate HDD, so theres no bottleneck there, nothing else running on it to hinder the performance. I just have no idea what the hell happened thats keeping my footage from hitting 30fps. The CPU load during gaming and recording? barely 40%

 

[Boildown]

My GTX 260 video card was completely incapable of supporting streaming except on UltraFast preset, which is ultra-crappy. OBS is unlike many encoding programs in that it uses the GPU in addition to the CPU, and the GTX 200 series is a known poor performer with OBS. I would suggest replacing it with something more modern (anything 550 or better, not sure about the GTX 400 series, like your 460).

But to be sure, post a log file, that should tell the tale more definitively.

 

[Rooster]

My GTX 260 video card was completely incapable of supporting streaming except on UltraFast preset, which is ultra-crappy. OBS is unlike many encoding programs in that it uses the GPU in addition to the CPU, and the GTX 200 series is a known poor performer with OBS. I would suggest replacing it with something more modern (anything 550 or better, not sure about the GTX 400 series, like your 460).

But to be sure, post a log file, that should tell the tale more definitively.

I did find that tidbit of info about OBS and the 200 series cards, but damn, I swear it was doing just fine with it prior. I'll have to drop in my 560ti in there and see what happens. That 275 has such raw horsepower still. After the 460 giving blue screens on another game (only one game for whatever reason), is when the problems seemed to arise. But can't see how that would be it. Windows updates did occur the same day. And I'll see if the logs are present

 

[Rooster]

My GTX 260 video card was completely incapable of supporting streaming except on UltraFast preset, which is ultra-crappy. OBS is unlike many encoding programs in that it uses the GPU in addition to the CPU, and the GTX 200 series is a known poor performer with OBS. I would suggest replacing it with something more modern (anything 550 or better, not sure about the GTX 400 series, like your 460).

But to be sure, post a log file, that should tell the tale more definitively.

However, where is it clear that OBS does utilize the gpu enough for me to.. well, care? I thought most of the encoding is done via the cpu, h264, and thats that. Is it simply just the capture from the 200 series that sucks? before it gets encoded

 

[dodgepong]

OBS does encoding on the CPU, but it does its rendering on the GPU. The problem with the 200-series of GPUs is the slow VRAM bus speed. OBS is constantly copying textures to and from the GPU, so that VRAM needs to be fast. The 560ti will perform much, much better.

 

[Rooster]

OBS does encoding on the CPU, but it does its rendering on the GPU. The problem with the 200-series of GPUs is the slow VRAM bus speed. OBS is constantly copying textures to and from the GPU, so that VRAM needs to be fast. The 560ti will perform much, much better.

Guess we shall see though, thanks for the help. I didn't realize it would be THAT significant on the gpu side of things. Though of course to use something like a gt210.. lol, no. Cant remember now for sure if the last time I ran it >well<, if it was with the 275 or a higher card. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Rooster]

OBS does encoding on the CPU, but it does its rendering on the GPU. The problem with the 200-series of GPUs is the slow VRAM bus speed. OBS is constantly copying textures to and from the GPU, so that VRAM needs to be fast. The 560ti will perform much, much better.

While its crossing my mind. You say the 200 series just won't cut it, even the higher end ones like a 275. But how would an a8 3870k apu be managing to do just fine at 1366x768, 30fps, butter smooth recording and smooth gameplay? we're talking a smaller IGPU running off system memory and just a quadcore cpu part versus that i7 950 which has 8 threads.

My brain wants to explode

 

[dodgepong]

Just because a GPU is good with gaming doesn't mean it's good with copying textures quickly. The 200-series is notoriously bad about this. Many newer, less "powerful" GPUs have the VRAM speed to do what OBS needs to do, but many older, more "powerful" GPUs don't.