OBS Stutter on Capture Card/PC Streaming

T

Tastymond

New Member
Hello hoping someone can help me here I have had the problem of micro stutter for a good number of years when I PC stream games but never really on console until recently, I honestly have no idea how to solve this and I have tried a lot of searching on these forums none of which have helped the issue. I have attached a log from tonight's few hour long stream in the hopes someone can see an issue also here is a timestamp in my Youtube video of this happening. It's stutter that even happens when not live/recording though so it happens just on the preview screen as well. Any help would be appreciated ty in advance.

Youtube time stamp https://youtu.be/D7ENIWLb-sY?t=981
Another time stamp https://youtu.be/D7ENIWLb-sY?t=1150
(It actually happens quite frequently)
Have included log and stream settings

PC Specs
I7-6700K 4.4ghz
Gigabyte GA-Z170 XP-SLI
MSI GTX 1080
Samsung 500gb 850 evo SSD
Kingston Fury 16GB DDR4 RAM
 

Attachments

  • 2021-01-21 19-14-44.txt
    39.8 KB · Views: 71
  • OBS Settings.jpg
    OBS Settings.jpg
    108.8 KB · Views: 235
  • OBS Settings 2.jpg
    OBS Settings 2.jpg
    49 KB · Views: 225
  • OBS Settings 3.jpg
    OBS Settings 3.jpg
    164.7 KB · Views: 221
Last edited:
achmetha

achmetha

Member
Hey Tasty,

Wish I could help, but I actually have the same issue. Literally the same exact thing, across all capture modes/sources--Random, intermittent stutter with OBS set to 60fps (it's not really noticeable at 30fps)--while idle/recording/streaming and no dropped frames due to render lag/overloaded encoding. I've tested for this issue on three different systems.

Desktop 1:
i9-10900kf
RTX 2080 ti
64GB 3000MHz DDR4

Desktop 2:
Ryzen 7 2700X
GTX 1080
32GB 3000MHz DDR4

Laptop:
i7-7700hq
GTX 1070
16GB 2400MHz DDR4

Both desktops relate to your issue to a T, while the laptop somehow has less of it, but it is still present. Just throwing my name in the hat as someone else who has this issue. I've used OBS since classic and have loved it the entire time, kinda strange these issues are only noticeable now that I have machines capable of doing 60fps--it makes me wonder if it has been there the entire time to some extent.

We are definitely not the only ones and it seems somewhat widespread from the searches here, reddit, and the Discord. I've been using this test pattern as suggested from another thread (https://www.testufo.com/stutter#demo=smooth&foreground=ffffff&background=000000&pps=720) to try and change settings and see if is is resolved, but no dice.

The struggle has even pushed me to test out other software to see if it's showing on others as well. XSplit has the same result for me. Action! seems to be the only one that is able to do it with absolutely no stutter, buttery smooth. I'm not here to advertise other software, as OBS is far, far, far superior in my opinion, but I wanted to see if it was across software. Seems it is as far as OBS/XSplit are concerned. I thought it could be a GPU Driver issue, DDU reinstall didn't fix it. I tried disabling virtualization features, no dice.

Anyhow, just wanted to sympathize/empathize because I know how much of a bummer it is. I am definitely willing to help a dev test this stuff if they need guinea pigs. I work in IT, so computer literacy is there! Sorry for the long post, just being thorough.
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
Ty for reply I have had it for years while streaming PC games on the same PC and just gave up but never on consoles so that is defo somewhat new and it seems more severe now than ever. It's also not my capture cards as they are smooth while using capture software only, I also fresh reinstalled windows to check.

It's so horrible though having this stutter I really hope it get's fixed as I last posted about it 3 years ago or something but I very much doubt it as like you said there is numerous posts which blame OBS and I think it must be, I started on Xsplit and I didn't have it on that but I like OBS more too :(
 
achmetha

achmetha

Member
I have the same thing with capture card as well. I use a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k. It runs just fine in Potplayer, no stutter. However, capturing it with Game/Window/Display results in stutter in OBS. Opening the device natively in OBS with the Blackmagic Device Source is the same deal. I will preview it via fullscreen source and it's the same thing. The only difference is the game is smooth in Potplayer even when OBS stutters, while if I natively use it in OBS even the fullscreen source stutters.

It's taken a significant amount of my time over the past few months. I really wanted to find a fix once and for all but I'm not having luck. I've used latencymon, dpchecker, monitored Windows Event logs via powershell scripts, used Sysinternals Process Monitor to view changes in realtime, Process Hacker to monitor all processes, fiddled with power settings, literally everything I can think of. Wiped hard drive and reinstalled Windows. One of the main issues is once you finally see it, you just can't ignore it. But most people don't seem to find it a problem or even notice. Now I see the same issues while watching my favorite streamers too. Makes me think I am just crazy lol...
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
achmetha said:
I have the same thing with capture card as well. I use a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k. It runs just fine in Potplayer, no stutter. However, capturing it with Game/Window/Display results in stutter in OBS. Opening the device natively in OBS with the Blackmagic Device Source is the same deal. I will preview it via fullscreen source and it's the same thing. The only difference is the game is smooth in Potplayer even when OBS stutters, while if I natively use it in OBS even the fullscreen source stutters.

It's taken a significant amount of my time over the past few months. I really wanted to find a fix once and for all but I'm not having luck. I've used latencymon, dpchecker, monitored Windows Event logs via powershell scripts, used Sysinternals Process Monitor to view changes in realtime, Process Hacker to monitor all processes, fiddled with power settings, literally everything I can think of. Wiped hard drive and reinstalled Windows. One of the main issues is once you finally see it, you just can't ignore it. But most people don't seem to find it a problem or even notice. Now I see the same issues while watching my favorite streamers too. Makes me think I am just crazy lol...
Click to expand...
I've been working on the same problem for over a month as well, with 200 hours and an insane amount of testing, building a second pc and it having the identical issue. I feel like I'm going crazy.
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
Yes I have seen the posts so guessing you still don't have it fixed, I would like it to at least be acknowledged as a problem of OBS.
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
Tastymond said:
Yes I have seen the posts so guessing you still don't have it fixed, I would like it to at least be acknowledged as a problem of OBS.
Click to expand...
The thing is, I don't think its OBS. It presents the same in other streaming software as well, including xsplit. I've done all kinds of testing and such. I think it has to do with something in the windows API.

I've gone as far back as 2017 versions of windows 10 with obs studios of the same age and it still happens

I don't think its going to be a recognized problem until more people realize they have it. There's only a handful of us right now out of millions
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
fatmatrow said:
The thing is, I don't think its OBS. It presents the same in other streaming software as well, including xsplit. I've done all kinds of testing and such. I think it has to do with something in the windows API.

I've gone as far back as 2017 versions of windows 10 with obs studios of the same age and it still happens

I don't think its going to be a recognized problem until more people realize they have it. There's only a handful of us right now out of millions
Click to expand...
So what do they have in their set up we don't is the real question, it can't be a dual PC setup because just now it's started happening on capture cards for me too.
 
F

fatmatrow

Member
Tastymond said:
So what do they have in their set up we don't is the real question, it can't be a dual PC setup because just now it's started happening on capture cards for me too.
Click to expand...
I've tried all of this on two different PC setups. and with capture cards and NDI.
I was thinking maybe it was a Ryzen multi ccx thing but you're on intel so that kind of kills that theory
I've done so many fresh windows iso downloads and installs, which should rule out borked files or settings
Stress Tests and Benchmarks come back clean so its likely not a hardware issue
I just don't understand what I've missed in all this, or what I'm (and others) are doing differently. And I honestly think there are a lot of people that just aren't noticing they have the issue or probably chalk it up to resource issues
 

Attachments

  • Erg-udLW8AAEnKS.png
    Erg-udLW8AAEnKS.png
    23.1 KB · Views: 107
F

fatmatrow

Member
achmetha

achmetha

Member
I ended up downloading the latest nightly build (https://dev.azure.com/obsjim/1437b187-9c54-400d-a378-3dff67a18804/_apis/build/builds/5957/artifacts?artifactName=winbuild&api-version=6.0&$format=zip) and running it in portable mode (create shortcut and run with -p switch).

Recreated all my scenes to test...and I didn't seem to get any stuttering in display mode? Not sure if this is do to portable mode or the build. Game capture ran pretty well (stuttered later on, but I actually think it's the game, Divinity Original Sin--I'll try something else tomorrow). However, Display Capture ran 100% smooth, no stuttering at all. I will play more tomorrow and report back.
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
achmetha said:
I ended up downloading the latest nightly build (https://dev.azure.com/obsjim/1437b187-9c54-400d-a378-3dff67a18804/_apis/build/builds/5957/artifacts?artifactName=winbuild&api-version=6.0&$format=zip) and running it in portable mode (create shortcut and run with -p switch).

Recreated all my scenes to test...and I didn't seem to get any stuttering in display mode? Not sure if this is do to portable mode or the build. Game capture ran pretty well (stuttered later on, but I actually think it's the game, Divinity Original Sin--I'll try something else tomorrow). However, Display Capture ran 100% smooth, no stuttering at all. I will play more tomorrow and report back.
Click to expand...
Nice man, not sure what the portable mode is but I might try and see what happens.
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
This is happening like almost every 15 seconds now or something for me, what a horrible problem and I can't unsee it.
 
T

Tastymond

New Member
Made a little update more on the stutter, is this what you guys see too?

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
achmetha

achmetha

Member
Yes, to varying degrees. I tried another system completely different from the others, fresh install..it also does it. Windows Laptop. This one has no discrete card. I also tried on a Surface Pro, it also does it. It seems more likely that this affects all users but is going unoticed by most.

Edit: A difference here is that there are no multimonitor or multiadapters involved this time.
 
Last edited:
D

Deullcore

Member
Ive had same problem for over a year now tried everything under the sun news system the lot , question is do the developers even recognise this problem as it never seems to be addressed just a thought
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top