Question / Help OBS + studio CPU Spikes, TRIED EVERYTHING

Calix

Calix

New Member
Hi,

I'm having an issue with stuttering in the stream due to CPU spikes while using OBS and streaming. It doesn't matter the game, be it Dayz, Skyrim, Hearthstone, CSGO, whatever, it still happens. I have tried going from veryfast, to superfast, and even ultrafast. The stutters still occur and I dont believe its because my PC isnt up to snuff. Here are some specs:



AMD 8320 3.5ghz
16gb Corsair Vengeance ram
GTX 760 4gb
Windows 7

I thought it might be related to my overclock (4.2) being unstable. So I pulled it back down to 3.5 and turned off Turbo Clock, still happened. I Even tried underclocking, 3.2. But it still happened. Lots of other posts pointed to heat being an issue, so I decided to monitor my temps, but they never go above 40C as I have a Corsair h60i water cooler.

Im at my wits end, Its getting really frustrating because the stutters (which last anywhere from 10 seconds to 45 and cause the games brightness to increase and decrease) make it near impossible to play games while streaming. Below is my log from about an hour and a half stream in which I encountered 9+ spikes.Video of stream: (Link no longer valid)

Times of spikes occurrence
21:20
36:00
41:30
44:20
46:20
48:30
1:14:00
1:16:15
(others noted while afk)

http://pastebin.com/jgTTbp5s

EDIT: tried OBS Studio to see if it would stop. Nope, same thing.
Tried dropping from 720p to 540p same deal. If it was a computer spec issue wouldn't the strain / high cpu usage/ low frames would be continuous or linked to intensive scenes/gameplay?? but they are completely random.
 
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M0nk3yUK

M0nk3yUK

New Member
Hi,
I was just looking into whether other people have had the same thing I'd noticed recently with my Logitech C920, and sounds like this might be linked.
I recently found out that running my C920 in 1080p was causing audio stutter/drops in my other devices due to it hogging a lot of the system resources.

I eventually looked into DPC latency (using the DPC Latency Checker from http://www.sysnative.com/forums/win...c-latency-issues-wpa-windows-vista-7-8-a.html) and found that I was in the red most the time while streaming.
I've read up that you can reduce the DPC response times by using either a lower resolution on the webcam (720p/480p) or by swapping the Output Format to the much more compressed "MJPG" format (in OBS webcam properties in the sources).

I notice you are running yours in I420 format at 1920x1080, as I was before hand. I have now swapped to the MJPG option, while keeping the resolution at 1920x1080 (why have a 1080p cam if you can't use it 1080p, right?). This seems to have cleared up my stuttering so far, but I've only managed to do a short test stream since I changed this, so haven't done any long term testing yet.

Not sure if this is what's happening in your cause, but it's another thing you can try out.

I also noticed you have a lot of "PERFORMANCE WARNING: Scene change took XXX ms, maybe some sources should be global sources?"
Do you have your C920 set up as a global source? If not, I would highly recommend doing this too.

Let me know if these help. :)
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
Thanks for the reply!

I noticed the global sources warning earlier while posting the log but I had already tried adding the c920 as global source but the camera does not turn on when added to the scene. It only turns on when added to the scene separately for some reason.

I've noticed a hardware interrupt/ DPC process going to 8-15% during some spikes. But it seemed like a normal system process and what I found online wasn't much help. Could this be linked?
 
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M0nk3yUK

M0nk3yUK

New Member
The webcam using a lot of resources is the only problem I had, so thought I'd suggest it, but the fact it's not initialising sounds like something that needs further attention regardless. Possibly a driver issue?
If you haven't already, then you could try running the webcam at a lower resolution, or in MJPG format, then see if you still get the DPC latency spikes. When checking in the Windows Development Kit, my webcam process/driver was no where near the top, but it was actually causing other processes/drivers to delay due to how much it was hogging, so it might just be a case of tweaking something then check if it still spikes.
For reference, after setting my webcam to MJPG format, my absolute maximum responce is ~150us, and the average is ~50-80us using the "DPC Latency Checker" (the one at http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml).

I believe the spikes happen when the PC finally gets enough behind that it then speeds to catch up, causing the spike, so it may just be a gradual thing until it finally spikes. This is just a guess though I'm afraid.
DPC latency is apparently quite often due to slow/old/bad drivers, so possibly a good hunt around for all the latest drivers for your various system devices might help in general.
 
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Calix

Calix

New Member
Set the output to MJPG and I was able to get the C920 loaded as a global source after I restarted my pc and OBS twice. Don't know what the deal with that was. But I streamed battleblock theater for about 50mins without any noticeable lag or stutter.Although, battleblock theater isnt demanding at all. But I will stream Dayz for about 2 hours tomorrow with process ex running to watch everything.

The spikes usually would take about 20-30 mins to start up then would occur with increasing frequency until they were about 2 mins or less apapart from each other, rendering the game unplayable.
 
M0nk3yUK

M0nk3yUK

New Member
Looks like you're running the 32 bit verion of OBS (from the logs), can you run OBS 64 bit version (assuming you're using 64 bit OS), and run it as Administrator?
These might also effect things. Good luck! :)
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
I would be running 64-bit but NightDevs CLR browser does not run on 64-bit. Or at least it didn't. I will check and see if that has changed.


Edit : It hasn't and wont be changed. There are no intentions on releasing a 64-bit repack of NightDevs CLR browser. So in a bit I will stream using my usual setup on 32-bit and see if the switch to MJPG has fixed it, if not I will load the same scene in 64-bit (minus the CLR browser) and see if that solves the problem and then just look for an alternative to Twitch alerts with the CLR browser.
 
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Harold

Harold

Active Member
32-bit plugins won't run on 64-bit obs
64-bit plugins won't run on 32-bit obs

So non-issue on that front.
 
O

Osiris

Active Member
Calix said:
I would be running 64-bit but CLR browser (the plugin that operates my follower/donator alerts along with Newest follower/donator info) Does not run on 64-bit. Or at least it didn't. I will check and see if that has changed.


Edit : It hasn't and wont be changed. There are no intentions on releasing a 64-bit repack of CLR. So in a bit I will stream using my usual setup on 32-bit and see if the switch to MJPG has fixed it, if not I will load the same scene in 64-bit (minus the CLR browser) and see if that solves the problem and then just look for an alternative to Twitch alerts with the CLR browser.
Click to expand...

This is completely false, the CLR browser has a 32-bit and a 64-bit version.
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
I apologize on my misinformation. Im using a NightDev version of the CLR browser. Here is this statement from night (nightdev)
CLR browser will not be released for 64-bit OBS, as it adds little value, if any, to what the 32-bit version provides.
Click to expand...
Hoping I can find out what's causing the spikes, because they are making it impossible to stream.
 
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O

Osiris

Active Member
Not sure what he's talking about, the package he made contains both 64-bit and 32-bit clr browser versions.
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
Stopped streaming because of the issue, had free time this week to play around with it. Tried some fixes, changed resolutions, codecs, cpu presets. Still the same issues. My cpu rarely goes over 45C even on 100% load and never over 50C so I don't believe its thermal throttling.

Completely lost, which is a shame because I love to stream.
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
just tried switching to obs studio to see if it made a difference. Nope, still randomly shoots up to 60% + cpu usage

Thought, well. Maybe my camera is causing issues, so I streamed without. Same deal. Thought, maybe pc isnt powerful enough to stream at 720p (which it is) so I stepped down to 540p.... Same thing. There is no way that streaming cs:go at 540p, is putting that much stress on an fx-8320 period. you could do that on a laptop.

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/b83a40681f0546846ac694bb72640059
 
Sapiens

Sapiens

Forum Moderator
If you're looking at OBS settings to solve your CPU usage spikes I would suspect you're looking in the wrong place. Make sure your CPU frequency isn't fluctuating/dropping when the usage spikes. Try disabling "Cool 'n' Quiet" in your BIOS. That's a common cause of this type of problem for AMD CPU owners.
 
Calix

Calix

New Member
Sapiens said:
If you're looking at OBS settings to solve your CPU usage spikes I would suspect you're looking in the wrong place. Make sure your CPU frequency isn't fluctuating/dropping when the usage spikes. Try disabling "Cool 'n' Quiet" in your BIOS. That's a common cause of this type of problem for AMD CPU owners.
Click to expand...

Yea, im at the point where Ive noticed its not a OBS/Xsplit issue. So im trying to see what could be throttling the cpu.
 
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