OBS Studio I Need Streaming Help

[SnapApple]

I have two PC's. One where I game and one I want to use to stream. I have been attempting to get decent streaming quality using a multitude of settings; however, my CPU is always topping off. On both 1080p and 720p 60fps resolutions, the CPU hits approximately 60-90% usage on OBS Studio alone. With other tasks in the background it easily reaches 100%. I changed the presets from medium up to very fast. If I choose anything other than the very fast preset, regardless of the resolution, OBS Studio immediately spikes up to 80% CPU usage and gives me encoding overload. I read multiple posts by other people stating that even a ryzen 1400 was doing wonders for their stream. Some are even able to use the Fast encoding preset at 1080p 60fps while gaming on the same system. With a dedicated streaming PC, I figured streaming at 1080p 60fps would be no problem if I got a ryzen CPU in my system.
Is there a reason why system is not performing like it does for other people? Is a ryzen 1600 not enough for 1080p 60fps streaming? Is there something wrong my OBS? Also, the audio bar line is very laggy. It sometimes stutters when going up and down.

The dedicated streaming PC has the following specs:

PC Specs
CPU: Ryzen 5 1600
Ram: 8GB 2400Mhz
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB

Stream Settings Tested
Encoding: x264
Preset: Fast
KB/s: 6000
Resolution: 1080p
FPS: 60fps

Game: The Forest

I have attached my latest OBS Studio log file. I am using NDI to capture my gaming PC's gameplay.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

real-time video encoding is REALLY demanding on a computer
And you don't have an NVidia GPU and using NVENC for encoding offload
and you have a 4 generation old CPU, with limited RAM, and you are adding extra decode work by dealing with NDI source video
trying to do 60fps streaming...??
so, no surprised that your log shows
17:54:20.661: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 1325/11053 (12.0%)
so, some realistic expectations are needed. With that said, I'm not a gamer... but
- are you watching hardware resource utilization on your PC? I'm guessing CPU utilization is spiked and stays there.
- have you set NDI settings to lower CPU load ? [not my area, but I suspect NOT compressing would be advisable (assuming adequate network) to lower associated CPU workload]
- have you optimized your OS settings to minimize background processes/apps/tasks, etc?
- researched OBS optimizations for under-powered systems?
- a dedicated streaming PC is best served by a GPU that can offload encoding, and that means NVENC [see EposVox detailed videos on the subject]... be attentive to chipset. best low-end, but current, NVENC is the GTX 1660 Super (Turing). other have said that for strictly in regards to OBS H.264 encoding for streaming, newer nVidia GPUs / NVENC don't perform much, if any better [I have no experience on this one way or the other, do your own research]

 

[SnapApple]

Thank you for the reply and help.
I realize that real time encoding is hard on the processors. I just don't know the limits of this particular CPU.

- Yes CPU utilization stays when it spikes (something I should have mentioned), so I know it's not that something is wrong with the CPU itself. I just don't know the limitations this processor has.

- I don't know if NDI has an option for compression. In fact, I'm not sure if it even compresses the video signal it sends. Will have to look into that.

- I did a full reset on my system, installed only what I need, and disabled any other background apps/services that aren't needed.

- I have asked, looked into, and more importantly done my own testing on this processor. Everywhere I look I always see the same answer. Get NVENC, more specifically a GTX 1650 Super (not base, not TI) or better for the Turing encoder thing or something.

- For the record, 1080p 60fps is possible on this chip. I have tried and succeeded. I simply wanted to know if the 1600 could handle a slower encoding preset. There is very little difference between the 1080p and 720p CPU utilization.
Not my my stream but the quality is the same ➤ https://youtu.be/nPQUwIk2YUY?t=1321

As for the GPU, with the current market they are up $600. Cheapest one is around $450. If you're lucky. A card that should be under $200 is 3x the normal price. Yikes. Getting one of those is not happening any time soon.

 

[SnapApple]

look i used NDI with an I7 6series 20 GB RAM and a GTX780 (NVENC) on my Streaming PC and it looks good at 900p60 my only problem is my Internet Connection Shitty LTE hybrid and lags on them most days with an bitrate of 6000 i can stream 1080p60

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That too me looks great. I'm looking for similar quality out of the 1600 but my best guess is that it's not possible because it's not strong or fast enough. Are you using the the New NVENC encoder to handle stream encoding? I know it's not turing (1650 Super and newer) but it still looks good to me.