OBS Stutter on Capture Card/PC Streaming

[ParasiteEve]

Hi guys! Sorry for the bad English, I am using a translator. So, take me to your club. Recently, I also observe strange stuttering in the preview and in the video. I don't know what triggered it, but it came up a few weeks ago. I'm sure that before I always updated the video drivers, and this did not cause any problems with the OBS. Now I don't remember if I updated the OBS these weeks ago, but even if I did, it doesn't matter. I was reinstalling Windows 10, I installed old and new NVidia drivers, I tried different versions of OBS with different video drivers, running as administrator, and so on. Nothing helps.
But I noticed an interesting pattern: if old versions of the video driver and OBS are installed, then stuttering occurs more often, they are more serious. In this case, the sound scale also stutters. When installing a new version of OBS (26 and higher), the stuttering of the audio scale disappears, but the stuttering remains in the preview and video.
I had to temporarily record games via a capture card, however tiny stutters are still there. Sometimes small stutters become noticeably stronger, almost like when capturing a game with Game Capture.
The fps limits in the video card settings do not help. Reducing the recording quality and the number of fps in the OBS also do not give a result, there is stuttering even when recording in 30 frames, with a minimum bitrate.
I definitely didn't install any Windows updates before these stutters appeared. But an important note: I've been using OBS 23.1.2 for quite some time, and everything was fine with me. And I never had the NVEC H.264 (new) item, although as far as I know, this item should have already been part of this version of the OBS. Perhaps my stuttering appeared just after updating the OBS to 26.1.1. version. However, reinstalling the system, drivers and installing the old version of OBS, did not solve this problem.
In conclusion, I have never had this problem, regardless of Windows version and updates.
Oh yes, after reinstalling Win10 did not solve the problem, I tried to download all the updates, thinking that OBS was missing something for normal operation, but that did not help either. Installing the K-Lite Codec Pack too.
This is torture. I don’t know how to fix it, it doesn’t allow me to sleep, eat, live normally. I cannot work, create the content that I want.
I just want you to know that you are not alone. But please, somebody, find a solution to this problem!

 

[Befbo]

I am having this issue too. I use a Live Gamer 4k and the OBS preview and all recorded files all have these same little stutters when running at 60 fps. When I use Avermedia's RECentral software, I don't think I can even see the stutters happening, or if they do they are very subtle and barely noticeable. Did someone say there was an issue report on the tracker already or something? Does anyone have a link to it? I wish I knew why this was happening.

 

[ENunn]

This is a glaring issue that's been plaguing me for years on multiple machines. Will this ever get fixed? I really want to use OBS with my capture cards but I cannot because of the stutter. RECentral/Elgato GC is perfectly smooth.

 

[Tomasz Góral]

Always record with the same value of Hz, please remember 60Hz and some device who report 60Hz truely is 59,94Hz (in NTSC is 59,94Hz).
In OBS if set 60FPS != 59,94Hz, if set 50FPS != 60Hz or 59,94Hz is diffrent system.

 

[vapeahoy]

Looked at this thread and the one posted above, it's all cable issues and timing codes for the peripherals connected. It's a different world with active cables and orderly refresh rates source/destination. In part where amd is concerned it's an issue with driver itself and hardware because amd never supported fully the clone modes over different refresh rates, least 3 years back that was the case and probably still is. I'd find the post on their site but cba.Cable quality matters quite a bit too, but active is king. Cable length matters as well, as long as we are talking about mixed refresh rates and cloning displays, tho not till pushing beyond 3 metres and 120+hz. Even with an active setup having cables beyond 4 metres here and 240hz, it can still flicker, reducing refresh rate fixes it. Go over the entire setup and optimize each link to be active, as short as possible and it ought to be good. Once there it's time to look at custom resolutions if source/destination isn't the same, and even still make sure they are.
A good tip there is to not have any native resolution for capture card at all, just let it copy off your cloned display if it can. As for other stuff it's power managment and dedicated filtered power outlets to remove any noise coming in to the hardware connected.

 

[vapeahoy]

As I've said earlier in the thread, my problem is present whether I use a capture card or not. It happens even when I play a game and capture the video on the same PC with either "Game Capture", "Window Capture", or "Display Capture" in OBS.

Cables and how you set up power managment, software or hardware, has nothing to do with if you run capture card or not. There's a lot to learn on either subject, but it is the answear. You don't seem to be that bothered with it anyway giving you post that amount of videos. I have been bothered by it, and i have solved it.

 

[MasoElCaveman]

I've noticed my Elgato 4k60 pro mk2 stutters quite badly through obs preview at random times. Has anyone found a fix for this random stuttering of capture card sources on obs?