Question / Help OBS Studio High CPU Usage when using OpenGL

[retropixelshow]

Hi,

since i got that problem with the crashing driver i tried many solutions: drivers, removing or adding windows fixes etc. obs studio still crashed after a few seconds when streaming verdun or skyrim. only thing that helped against crashing was changing the encoder from directx11 to opengl. but that boosts the cpu to 50% usage just for obs without the game. launching the game boosts it to 100% and of course the game stutters. when using directx11 encoding, obs barely reaches 15% cpu usage and nothing stutters.

my system:
- Intel Core i5 4670 @ 3.40GHz
- 16,0GB Dual Kanal DDR3 @ 798MHz
- Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. Z87X-D3H-CF
- 2047 MBNVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (CardExpert Technology)
- Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Gigabyte)

my encoding settings:
x264 encoder
scaled to 1280x720
bitrate 2000
bitbuffer 2500
encoding preset: veryfast
encoding profile: main
lanczos scaling filter

what can i do? any suggestions?

 

[Sapiens]

Use the DX11 renderer, OpenGL is meant primarily for Mac and Linux users.

 

[retropixelshow]

as i wrote, dx11 renderer leads to a crash of obs (standard and studio) when playing skyrim, verdun, cities skylines or games with similar resource requirements. super indie karts, stardew valley and banished for example dont lead to a crash.

neither do i want to be bound to a small assortment of games just because i have to use dx11 to prevent my cpu to go nuts, nor do i want to have to use opengl to prevent my obs from crashing when playing a "larger" game. for the moment, both solutions are most unpleasant.

tried ffsplit, crash. tried xsplit, even more resource hungry. tried gameshow, had the least amount of options to configure scenes. please dont think i took it very easy to write here. i took my time and searched for myself.

 

[RytoEX]

If DX11 is crashing OBS Studio, please post logs - both regular and crash logs - so that we can analyze them.

 

[retropixelshow]

Hi, here is the only log created by OBS Studio. it didnt create a crashlog. it does not really crash, but it gets mostly useless when this error occurs

<LOG>

please note that this was a fresh installation. i have seen in the log there is some internal stuff missing and vlc could not be found but at least vlc is present.

 

[retropixelshow]

Bump

 

[retropixelshow]

Current Logfile

 

[Suslik V]

Try to make new Profile and new Scene Collection then record empty scene (black screen), are the errors still present in the log?

 

[retropixelshow]

I made a new Profile with a new Scene Collection and recorded a black screen. No Errors See Log

The Crashes come, when capturing a Resource Heavy Game with DX11 renderer enabled (advanced -> video -> renderer) They go when using OpenGL renderer, but that then eats my CPU and any game begins to stutter. today i tried quicksync or nvenc for video encoding but the stuttering did not go away. it was always there

 

[Suslik V]

Try to capture fr-043 and see for crashes, if you still crash - possibly your system unstable.
Follow this steps: Game capture not working (under the spoiler).

 

[retropixelshow]

Hi, i followed your instructions, nice demo btw. as hoped, both settings work flawlessly. no crash or stutter. here is the logfile of this test and now i will check the demo in my own scene environment.

 

[retropixelshow]

my own set of scenes works flawlessly, too.

 

[retropixelshow]

I finally found a way to work around this issue.
opengl is still set as renderer but quicksync with quality setting is now used as encoder.
in addition, i reorganized my scenes so that there is only one capturing source (game, window, monitor) at a time in the active scene.
that did not really lower streaming quality but greatly reduced cpu usage and so it enabled me to stream all the games i want.