Question / Help OBS Studio is extremely taxing on my i5 4670k

wessla

wessla

Member
I think i always had this problem with OBS Studio. A few years back i used the original OBS, and that one did work better, it did work alot better then say Xsplit etc.

For the last 2 years i basically dont stream anymore, OBS Studio is not letting me stream or record with near descent quality. Using NVENC its possible to both stream and record, tho its much more taxing and dont give as good quality as Shadowplay.

Tho main problem is that OBS Studio with x264 give me a smooth record when using under 2000kbps.. Using more creates encoder lag, or if i elevate OBS in priority the game lags.. Old and non demanding games do work pretty well. I have been changing everything, all from presets, to advanced commands and resolutions etc.

BUT if i use Plays.tv i can record with immense quality... as high as 15 000kbps and its perfectly smooth with 60fps in demanding games as Overwatch and PUBG.

Sure i can post logs, but i dont think you will find anything else then encoder overload and tell me to lower quality.

Why do OBS studio suck so bad and the old OBS was so smooth? And most important... What is it that are so taxing? Since Plays can give me perfecly crisp quality with high framreate and no ingame lag at all... ?!
 
Simes

Simes

Member
Plays.tv is almost certainly not using x264 if NVENC is available. It also doesn't do any live compositing or record with Constant Frame Rate.
 
wessla

wessla

Member
Plays.tv is using some sort of software encoder like x264.. thats why i wonder why OBS wont be smooth. I tried everything i can think of.
 
C

Cryonic

Member
If you select x264, that will force OBS to use your CPU. And to be honest, the i5 is barely enough for modern games alone, if you slap the streaming load on top of it, you will get some issues.

Use a hardware encoder like NVenc or AMD VCE or get a faster CPU if you want higher quality and a smooth stream.
 
wessla

wessla

Member
Dude did you even bother to read the post? My computer is not the problem. Im recording videos with plays.tv at 15000kbps with 1080p 60fps. and its only a slight performance hug.

Mods here even told me that bitrate shouldnt impact on performance if i raise it from 2000 to 6000. But on my system its devastating.
 
C

Cryonic

Member
wessla said:
Dude did you even bother to read the post? My computer is not the problem. Im recording videos with plays.tv at 15000kbps with 1080p 60fps. and its only a slight performance hug.

Mods here even told me that bitrate shouldnt impact on performance if i raise it from 2000 to 6000. But on my system its devastating.
Click to expand...

Do you even read? You CPU is an older midrange model that cant keep up with the task of streaming PUBG at that resolution and FPS with the current preset. Upgrade the CPU or switch to a hardware encoder or lower your settings, goddangit... Cant be that hard to understand that different tools use different encoders. With GPU encoding you lose about 2-5% performance in the worst case, try that....
 
wessla

wessla

Member
Ok, so tell me how i can do a flawless recording with even higher settings with plays.tv that also is software encoding? And not just that, the old OBS did not give me these performance hugs even tho it did some.
And i know that ppl with i5 2500k that can record with descent quality. This problem is not isolated to overwatch and pubg. Pretty much every game gets a big hit. Tho many games have a big performance space so its doable. But i basically never get a smooth experience. Heck i recorded with x264 for like 5 years ago with a i7 920. i could play games with 60fps and get a descent stream, pretty much better then now.

An example is the new DOOM. I can do that game on ultra(nightmare) with over 100fps steadily.. As soon as i use OBS it gets destroyed, and i mean that it gets choppy, not just that framerate lowers, its a total system hug.

But since you say my processor is to weak, is that a fact or are you guessing?
 
C

Cryonic

Member
Thats a fact. I use a 5820k @ 4,5Ghz to compensate for the high load that OBS is pushing while streaming/recording on x264 with 1080p 60FPS.
And this is the LOWEST CPU that i would recommend for a single PC setup for that quality. Get that: this is a 6 core 12 thread CPU from the same generation that yours is (you have a Haswell, i have a Haswell-E). You have just 4 cores, 4 threads - and they can not handle 2 heavy tasks like game + stream/recording on the CPU at the same time.

Adjust your settings, use a hardware encoder (dang, you record it, you have only one limit - the bandwith of your storage device where you save the file, why do you even bother with software encoders for that?). And if you want to stream with maximum quality, think about getting rid of your old i5, this is just not enough for a heavy multithreaded task that video encoding is (when used with x264).
 
wessla

wessla

Member
Yeah you can do 1080p 60fps, i can barely do 720p 30fps with 2500kbps. I get that x264 is pretty heavy, but when obs itself say its using barely 20% CPU, and still taxes me like its using 80%, i know something i off. When streaming with 720p 6000kbps, i get like 80% frames dropped.

It should not be that heavy... And btw, when changing from HIGH to Baseline, i get basically no lag at all, but quality gets a kick in the butt for real. Changing presets basically do nothing at all, so doing ultrafast with High lags as much as Faster with high, while i do baseline i can do fast without breaking a sweat.

I can swear to the old geeks that there is something messed up in the encoder or in some driver.
 
wessla

wessla

Member
Would it be recommended to have a dedicated computer for decoding instead of upgrading? Any descent processor should be able to get a 6mbps stream of as dedicated?
 
C

Cryonic

Member
wessla said:
Would it be recommended to have a dedicated computer for decoding instead of upgrading? Any descent processor should be able to get a 6mbps stream of as dedicated?
Click to expand...

We already told you to try NVENC first, this will offload the stream to the GPU and the performance hit will be way lower than right now with x264. Before you throw money at it, you should understand why and how it works.
Bitrate has nothing to do with the CPU usage, it affects only the quality of the final videofeed and the network that is used to get that videofeed to whatever server/device you want.
 
wessla

wessla

Member
I know all this, i do use NVENC to get my 6000kbps stream of. It works but dont look that good. A 6000kbps x264 stream is really crisp. And as you say, there should be no difference between 2000 and 6000kbps when it comes to taxing the CPU, but for me everything beyond 2000 is not possible. atleast i dont get any encoder lags and stream is smoother but pixelated or blurry depending on preset.

When recording im using Shadowplay and extremely high bitrate, its possible on OBS aswell, but not as good and i get some minor stuttering.
 
wessla

wessla

Member
i was simulating a stream attempt. If i give OBS more priority game lags etc, and i am limiting to 60 fps.
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
wessla said:
i was simulating a stream attempt.
Click to expand...

Makes sense to me.

17:08:58.152: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 7035/10668 (65.9%)
Click to expand...

But this is super-bad.

Looks like your CPU isn't keeping up at all. Try not using Lanczos downscale filter, as a test don't use a webcam, and try using SuperFast preset. As a test, clear out everything from your scene except the game itself, and try other capture methods, Windows, Monitor, etc. If you can't get decent encoding statistics when everything is as simple as possible, it won't work any better when things are more complex.

See if you can record via NVEnc. Make sure your Nvidia drivers are updated. See if you can record other games, even lightweight ones.

The key will be to find out what works, and then add complexity back one thing at a time and see what breaks it.
 
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