OBS Videos Look Laggy Despite No Dropped Frames

V

VineCraft

New Member
OBS/ShadowPlay capture randomly duplicates/freezes frames despite 0 dropped frames. The video itself (as well as the preview) shows it to be laggy. The video it records has 60fps, but some frames are identical to the previous one, showing freezing. I specifically record Minecraft, but it's not just Minecraft that does it; it's every recording of every game/display capture.

Everything Tested So Far That Did Not Fix the Capture Stutter:​

Minecraft / Frame Rate​

  • Minecraft capped at 60 FPS
  • Minecraft capped at 120 FPS
  • Minecraft capped at 240 FPS
  • Tested older and newer Minecraft versions
  • Higher game FPS sometimes made the problem look less severe temporarily, but it would go back to looking buggy again. I believe it's a coincidence. One 240-FPS recording looked substantially smoother, but later 240-FPS recordings became stuttery again

Minecraft Display Modes Tested:​

  • Fullscreen
  • Borderless fullscreen
  • Windowed mode
  • None consistently fixed the issue

G-SYNC / V-SYNC​

  • G-SYNC enabled/disabled
  • V-SYNC enabled/disabled
  • The problem persisted

Monitor / Refresh-Rate Testing​

  • Tested recording while playing on a 74.60 Hz monitor
  • Tested recording while playing on a ~60 Hz TV
  • The 60-Hz TV produced one substantially smoother recording. However, later testing on the same TV became stuttery again. Therefore, 74.6 Hz vs. 60 Hz does not consistently explain the problem. I then unplugged the TV to see if the issue was monitors with different refresh rates. I checked to see if they were plugged into my RTX 5080 and not something else - they are.

OBS Capture Methods​

  • Game Capture
  • Display Capture
  • Both exhibited the problem

OBS With No Recording​

  • Watched the OBS preview while not recording at all
  • The lag/freeze/stutter still occurred in the preview
  • I believe that means the problem exists before the encoder/file-writing stage

OBS Performance​

OBS Stats were checked while the problem occurred:
  • OBS remained at 60.00 FPS
  • 0.0% frames missed due to rendering lag
  • 0.0% skipped frames due to encoding lag
  • No network-frame issue involved
  • Very low OBS render time
  • OBS itself therefore does not report being unable to keep up

OBS Plugins / Safe Mode​

  • Aitum Multistream was installed, but the recording profile was not actively using the multistream outputs. OBS was launched in Safe Mode; stutter still occurred.

Different Recording Software​

The problem was reproduced outside ordinary OBS:
  • OBS Studio
  • Streamlabs OBS
  • NVIDIA ShadowPlay
All showed the same basic behavior:
  • File remains nominally 60 FPS
  • No traditional dropped-frame warning
  • Individual captured frames occasionally freeze/repeat, creating the appearance of dropped frames

Encoder / Recording Settings​

Tested with NVIDIA NVENC H.264 and MP4.

Tested bitrate control modes:
  • CBR
  • CQP
  • VBR
Encoder presets:
  • P1 — Fastest / lowest quality
  • P5 — Slow / good quality
Neither fixed it.

Keyframe intervals:
  • 0 seconds / automatic
  • 2 seconds
No fix.

Recording bitrates:
  • 20,000 kbps
  • 30,000 kbps
No fix.

NVIDIA Driver​

  • Updated to NVIDIA driver 610.88
  • Restarted the computer afterward
  • Recorded again
  • Problem remained

Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling​

  • HAGS was originally on; I turned it off and restarted my computer, and the problem persisted

Hardware Utilization​

Checked while the system was running:

Ryzen 9 7900X
  • 12 cores / 24 threads
  • CPU utilization nowhere near saturation
RTX 5080
  • Roughly ~19% GPU utilization in one captured example
  • NVENC/video-encode utilization around 1%
  • Plenty of VRAM available
  • Normal temperature
32 GB DDR5-5200
  • Memory not exhausted
  • Several GB still available
Crucial P3 Plus 2TB NVMe
  • Very low active time
  • Very low write throughput compared with the drive's capabilities
  • Low response time during the examined sample
Nothing appears remotely overloaded.

SSD / Storage Hypothesis​

The current recording drive is:

Crucial P3 Plus 2TB — CT2000P3PSSD8

Its raw performance should vastly exceed what a 20–30 Mbps recording requires. More importantly, the OBS preview visibly stutters in the preview even when recording is completely off Therefore, the SSD cannot reasonably be the direct cause of those preview freezes. The stuttering frame already exists before anything is written to disk. An alternate physical SSD has not yet been tested, but ordinary SSD write-speed limitation is now very unlikely.

Video File Analysis​

Actual OBS recordings were examined frame-by-frame.

The files:

  • Remained proper 60.000-FPS files
  • Had evenly spaced video timestamps
  • Contained the expected number of encoded frames
However, occasional frames were essentially duplicates of the previous captured frame while the game was moving. In some sections, the frame pattern resembled:

A → B → C → C → E → F

rather than:

A → B → C → D → E → F

That explains why: OBS says 60 FPS and 0 dropped frames while the video visibly looks like a frame was dropped/frozen.

Ideas Not Yet Actually Tested:​

To keep the troubleshooting record accurate, these have not been ruled out yet (they seem super unlikely though?):

  • Updating the ASUS B650EM MAX GAMING WIFI BIOS
  • Disabling the Ryzen 9 7900X integrated Radeon GPU in BIOS
  • Forcing the RTX 5080 PCIe connection to Gen 4
  • Disabling PCIe ASPM
  • Disabling Windows/NVIDIA Multiplane Overlay (MPO)
  • Testing with only one physical monitor connected
  • Recording to a completely different physical SSD
  • Testing RAM at completely stock/JEDEC settings if any memory profile is active

TL;DR:

THESE WERE TESTED: OBS overload (zero dropped frames), NVENC overload, CPU overload, RAM exhaustion, insufficient bitrate, recording preset, OBS plugins, Aitum, OBS itself, Streamlabs itself, SSD write bandwidth, Minecraft version alone, G-SYNC alone, V-SYNC alone, game FPS cap alone, fullscreen/borderless mode, display capture/game capture, the 74.6-Hz monitor alone, giving more priority to OBS application, and running OBS in administrator.


My PC Specs:
Ryzen 9 7900x 12-Core Processor
32 GB DDR5 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Graphics Card


Does anyone have ANY clue? I don't see any reason that my recordings should look so poor.
 
Need a log with an complete encoding session.

Your system looks OK but I don't have that warm & fuzzing feeling about your SSD. It's not very robust & I hope it's not your OS drive as well. Do things start out OK & then progressively get worse as time goes by? If so that may be the drive struggling.

1786622290048.png
 
Dude I have the exact same issue for 2+ years on different computers and monitors. It's possible that I've had this problem for longer than that but never noticed it. Random but frequent duplicate frames, and sometimes actual visible tearing depending on the game. It happens in Steam games (I don't play with the overlay to be clear), non-Steam games and emulators as well.
I tried everything under the sun, from the small insignificant fixes from clickbait "tutorials" that tell you to enable triple buffering or some other random setting that nobody understands, to buying a new PC (previously had a laptop with a 144Hz screen, upgraded to desktop with 165Hz and now 180Hz displays).

I tried VSync on/off, Gsync on/off, Freesync on/off, tried changing bitrates and encoders, tried checking if the duplicate frames showed up in other programs than VLC, like the Windows player or Adobe Premiere Pro (spoilers: they do), tried disabling Game DVR/Bar, tried recording with an older version of OBS, tried switching monitor's FPS to 60, tried disabling HAGS, tried every possible capture method (game, screen and display), tried Streamlabs even though I only need to record, tried playing the game in borderless and fullscreen, tried to not record with a Scene with Game Capture and Window Capture simultaneosly (despite one of them being always disabled), tried changing basically every Output setting inside OBS.

Absolutely nothing has solved it, but some things made it worse. Namely, disabling Vsync in the game's settings seems to consistently cause problems either in-game or in the recordings.
I only use a single monitor, so it can't be another monitor with a different refresh rate causing the issue. And there is no way in hell this is some kind of hardware power problem.

The OBS Log Analyzer seems to be unreliable as well. Uploading the same log multiple times can add problems that weren't there previously (such as Max Audio Buffering).

I have been battling this issue for so long and I almost wanna give up and just record choppy footage, but then I watch Youtube videos that are perfect, buttery smooth, no stutter whatsoever, and I cannot help but wonder how in the world do they achieve that while I'm struggling to record for more than a minute without any noticeable lag or duplicates.

Here are my specs for reference:
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core
Monitor: AW2725DM, 1440p, 180Hz (179,845Hz to be precise)
SSD: Crucial P3 Plus 2TB PCIe M.2 2280
32Gb RAM

I also went a step above and uploaded multiple raw recordings showcasing the issue, as well as screenshots with the visible tearing, and the corresponding logs. I apologize in advance for the filesize, these are high-speed games that require a decent bitrate to look good. Plus they are perfect for showcasing the issue. Everything is chronological, the first chronological log corresponds to the first chronological recording, even if their names aren't exactly the same because (I assume) they aren't created at the same time.

tearing and stuttering – Google Drive

drive.google.com drive.google.com
If you only want the log files, I've attached them here separately.

I would sincerely appreciate if someone took the time to look into this. I am truly running out of options. And @VineCraft I truly hope you can figure this thing out somehow 'cause that would save me as well.
 

Attachments

Neither log has any rendering or encoding lag. 1st log was bugged, 2nd log Scene set-up is better as there is only (1) capture source.

You do have audio lag in both logs, same source. Audio lag could be a sign of overload, a driver issue or something else. Have you tried dropping your refresh rate to 60 or 120HZ?

As far as Steam, I doubt you'll be able to get consistent frame pacing for 60FPS without some skips or dupes.

22:18:40.752: Max audio buffering reached!
22:18:40.752: adding 960 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 960 milliseconds (source: Audio du Bureau)
22:18:40.752:
22:18:40.774: Source Audio du Bureau audio is lagging (over by 78711.55 ms) at max audio buffering. Restarting source audio.
 
OBS is using the timing of the lagging device.

21:53:21.773: [win-wasapi: 'Audio du Bureau'] update settings:
21:53:21.773: device id: {0.0.0.00000000}.{d242bd33-f643-4de3-b99b-4965117983fe}
21:53:21.773: use device timing: 1
 
And despite the setup being better the second time I still got duplicate frames in a different game than the first log. (I believe the visible tearing occurs in some specific games)

I really doubt that audio of all things would create such a problem, but I have tried fixing "Max Audio Buffering" by telling my Desktop Audio to source it from the speakers. I don't know how to fix it, it seems to reappear by itself. Should I create a new audio source that sources the sound from the game directly?

And yes, as I said I have tried every possible combination on multiple monitors and computers: 60Hz, 120Hz, 144Hz, 165Hz, 180Hz. I never used dual monitors though, I know it can cause issues. Someone on this forum told that it's better if your Hz is a multiple of 60, which is the case on my current display that I used for the captures I posted.
Either way, OBS is recording at 60 and the games are capped at 60, meaning I should have a completely new image every frame unless it happens in-game too which it isn't.

Finally, I have duplicates on everything, not just Steam games. The game with visible tearing that I screenshoted is not from Steam, it's its own application, and I had even worse frame duplication on Dolphin emulator.
 
Small update regarding max audio buffering:
I made 2 recordings while disabling "use device timestamps" from my desktop audio. No error in the first log, then it comes back in the next. I'm including both in this post.
Despite not having max audio buffering in the first recording, it still had 2 to 4 duplicate frames every few seconds, which is very distracting with high motion games. I tried a different game in the second recoring (the one that had visible tearing), and no dice: still visible tearing AND duplicate frames, though not as frequently as the previous one.
I truly have no clue how to solve the max audio buffering and I find it hard to believe that it has anything to do with tearing.
 

Attachments

You need to figure out & fix your audio. This is NOT an OBS issue. Check for a new audio driver on your mobo's support page.

Still using timing of a device that is lagging.

11:04:47.675: [win-wasapi: 'Capture audio (sortie)'] update settings:
11:04:47.675: device id: default
11:04:47.675: use device timing: 1

11:08:24.860: Max audio buffering reached!
11:08:24.861: adding 938 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 960 milliseconds (source: Capture audio (sortie))
 
I checked some other logs where people are running v32.2.1like you. This is from your log but I don't see it in the other logs.

11:04:46.841: update_hook_file: failed to update C:\ProgramData\obs-studio-hook\graphics-hook32.dll (32)
 
I already mentioned Steam. YT has the same issue, almost impossible to capture true 60FPS without some skips or dupes. It's all about the frame pacing. Steam is a bad source.

Here's a tester, try capturing it from YT & see how it goes.

- 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

Here's the same exact file, download it & play it from your local drive with VLC or Media Source. There should be no skips or dupes.
www.filemail.com

Secure File Sharing - Filemail

Share files of any size, any format, any type, securely
www.filemail.com www.filemail.com
 
Windows is kinda stale, wonder if that has something to do with that graphics hook update failing? Everybody else is running newer Windows versions.

Windows Version: 10.0 Build 19045 (release: 22H2; revision: 6466; 64-bit)
 
From the download page. It appears you're not getting that fix.

32.2.1 Hotfix Changes​


  • Fixed game capture failing after updating OBS if the previous hook was still in use [notr1ch]
 
I believe I solved the audio buffering thing, I had another audio source that used its own timestamps. Disabled that and no more buffering.
I recorded some footage with the same 2 games afterwards: the Steam one had no duplicates, I even recorded the same level twice just to be sure but it might be dumb luck, the non-Steam game still had duplicates and visible tearing. I was considering the fact that the non-Steam game was just behaving differently and somehow had tearing that I wasn't noticing, but I am 100% sure that there are no duplicated frames during gameplay, only in the recording. And the next test supports this theory.

I tried downloading and capturing your Youtube tester, and it seems the problem is not coming from YT at all. I recorded the video in fullscreen, once with my monitor at 180Hz and once at 60Hz. Both recordings had duplicate frames that were NOT present on Youtube nor the downloaded file. I'd argue that the 60Hz recording was even worse than 180Hz but it's probably random.
I'll attach the log files from both recordings just in case.

As for the hook thing, I have no idea. I downloaded the latest OBS version yesterday and did all my testing with that, though as I said I've tried downgranding to previous versions with no luck. I still need to dig deeper and see if the audio buffering fix made any real difference.
 

Attachments

Also I'm not sure how my CPU could be bottlenecked. Even if my monitor's hertz is high, I still play and record at 60FPS, which should save resources (and I still have a hard time buying the computer power theory, not because I have the best PC in the world but because I had this duplicated frames issue on multiple computers with multiple resolutions and bitrates, with multiple diffrerent monitors running at multiple different refresh rates, with multiple games on multiple different platforms, and the same problem kept coming back despite changing all possible variables)
 
Good you're seeing improvement, although there should be no skips when using that file locally. You should be able to capture it for hours & the only time it should skip is when the file re-loads on the loop.

Refresh rate is only on a Single Thread so it's very easy to overload that thread. On my system, I limit my refresh rate to 60 or 120HZ when using OBS. You should do the same, 180HZ isn't helping your cause & is just wasting resources.
 
I would update the Nvidia driver too, there was at least (1) bad driver released over the last few months & the current is about 6 months old. You should get better performance with the latest.

Driver Version: 32.0.15.9174
 
Good you're seeing improvement, although there should be no skips when using that file locally. You should be able to capture it for hours & the only time it should skip is when the file re-loads on the loop.
Click to expand...
I only captured one loop of the video at 180Hz and 60Hz (OBS was recording at 60 both times). Both times there were duped frames exactly as VineCraft described (A > B > C > C > E > F instead of A > B > C > D > E > F). These duped frames did not exist on Youtube or the local file. This makes me think that the problem is coming from OBS and that audio buffering and refresh rate don't truly matter in this context.
I will update everything I can on my end and continue testing, but I do not believe it's some driver related issue because I've been battling this thing for over 2 years now. I had duped frames in my recordings on my previous PC and the current one straight out of the box. As I said, every possible hardware variable has been tested and did not change anything.
 
No, it's not OBS causing any of the lag, skips or dupes, it's your rig & or the source(s). Update the Nvidia driver & audio driver as well if available. Run another test.

This is more of an FYI as it looks like this is still an issue.

16:12:09.584: Device for 'Audio Output Capture' source Audio du Bureau is also used for audio monitoring.
16:12:09.584: Deduplication logic is being applied to all monitored sources.

16:12:10.310: - scene 'Scène':
16:12:10.310: - source: 'Capture Audio (Entrée)' (wasapi_input_capture)
16:12:10.310: - source: 'Capture de Jeu' (game_capture)

github.com

Audio lag occurs when using audio monitor for long time on sources without video. · Issue #12973 · obsproject/obs-studio

Operating System Info Windows 11 Other OS No response OBS Studio Version 32.0.2 OBS Studio Version (Other) No response OBS Studio Log URL https://obsproject.com/logs/CAccX95FPLiO3Y3m OBS Studio Cra...
github.com github.com
 
I see you're recording to your C drive, does it have plenty of free space? Drives slow down to a crawl if they are too full & it could impact your Virtual Memory performance. I like to keep at least a minimum 20-25% free space on anything I am writing to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top