OBS Videos Look Laggy Despite No Dropped Frames

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.
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Not sure how it could say that because I do not monitor audio at all, it's disabled and always has been. Unless I'm not understanding this correctly. The sound I get on my recordings comes from the Desktop Audio, which is not monitored as I said.
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.
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It's only 50% full.

I'll post my testing results when I get to it. My eyes are very strained from looking at recordings all day trying to spot random screen tearing.
 
I searched that graphics hook failing & this is what came up.

Understanding the Error​

The error message indicates that the update for the graphics-hook32.dll file has failed because it is currently in use by another application. This is a common issue when trying to update software that relies on shared DLL files.

Steps to Resolve the Issue​

1. Reboot Your Computer​

  • Restarting your computer can free up the graphics-hook32.dll file if it is being used by another application.

2. Update OBS Studio​

  • After rebooting, try running the installer for OBS Studio again. Ensure that OBS Studio is not running during this process.

3. Additional Troubleshooting​

If the issue persists, consider the following:

  • Check for Running Applications: Ensure that no other applications that might use the graphics-hook32.dll file are open.
  • Use Task Manager: Open Task Manager and check for any processes related to OBS Studio or other applications that might be using the DLL. End those processes if necessary.
  • Reinstall OBS Studio: If the problem continues, uninstall OBS Studio completely and then reinstall it. This can help replace any corrupted files.
By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the update issue with the graphics-hook32.dll file.
 
Encoding settings, overall they're OK no issues. But, you may want to get rid of those B Frames. B Frames are the lowest quality frame type. If you disable them, they will be replaced with higher quality P Frames. All of this can be disabled.

16:12:24.740: b-frames: 2
16:12:24.740: b-ref-mode: 0
16:12:24.740: lookahead: true (8 frames)
16:12:24.740: aq: true

I use B Frames with CBR in low bit-rate situations only. If I don't need to limit bit-rate, B Frames are eliminated.
 
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Check Advanced Audio & make sure Monitoring is Off for all Audio Sources.

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Check Advanced Audio & make sure Monitoring is Off for all Audio Sources.
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It is. Exactly the same as your sceenshot.
No, it's not OBS causing any of the lag, skips or dupes, it's your rig & or the source(s)
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Well at least I know for sure that Audio Buffering and 180Hz are not the culprits since the frames are being duped without audio buffering and on the lowest possible framerate of my monitor (60Hz).

I still have to actually run more tests but I wanted to know if I should enable GSync? I've had it off for practically all my tests and I wanna know if it's worth it.
 
A couple of other settings in that control Panel.

Preferred Refresh Rate, set it to Highest Available.

v-sync, if it's On or Adaptive, Triple Buffering should be enabled. If you are using Fast v-sync, Triple Buffering should be disabled. v-sync can be tricky, Fast doesn't work well in all situations, depends on the game in play which one is used. I don't do much gaming so I'm almost always using Fast.
 
I'm back with the results.

My testing conditions:
- OBS recording at 60
- Monitor at 120Hz
- GSync OFF
- All graphics drivers updated
- Game Capture only
- 2 games running at 60
- No audio monitoring on OBS
- 0 B-frames
- VSync ON in-game and in NVIDIA Control Panel, as well as Triple Buffering
- 1 recording per game with RTSS enabled at a flat 60FPS, and 1 recording per game without RTSS
- All RTSS settings are set to default, I've changed nothing at all except the framerate
- Both games are running from Steam

GAME A RESULTS:
Without RTSS, duped frames were present. They weren't super bad but very frequent so I deemed it unacceptable.
With RTSS, seemingly no duped frames. I made 2 recordings just to check if it was dumb luck, but it looked good.

GAME B RESULTS:
Duped frames were present regardless of RTSS. Sometimes there weren't any for a whole minute, sometimes there was one lonely duped frame which is acceptable, but sometimes there were duped frames for several seconds in a row, it looked like garbage. I know Steam is apparently unreliable on this but there's clearly an inconsistency, and there are tons of gameplay recordings on Youtube without any noticeable duped frames. I doubt the people who post them went through even 5% of what I'm going through to try and solve this problem.
My point being that there is an underlying problem SOMEWHERE, be it refresh rate desyncs or OBS or whatever. And solving my max audio buffering issue or changing my refresh rate has not made it disappear.

I've attached my logs, the analyzer wasn't helpful at all beyond confirming I had no audio buffering.
 

Attachments

After further investigation on Game A and a few longer recordings (over 5 minutes), it turns out RTSS actually does nothing. There are still duped frames, making some parts barely watchable because of the heavy stuttering it causes. It never lasts too long but long enough to be distracting and looks terrible frankly.

Turns out it wasn't a driver issue, or some kind of magical Nvidia control panel setting issue, or audio buffering issue, or refresh rate issue, or even a Steam issue since I got duped frames from recording a Youtube video. The problem is on some different level.
Since Game B didn't record properly anyway, that meant the core issue wasn't fixed. On the bright side, I think if I can fix the stuttering on Game B I would've fixed it for everything else but I am seriously running out of ideas and options.

I'm back to square one with no answer or fix in sight.
 
Logs look OK, almost. Audio seems to be doing much better now too.

Here's the almost, it's still showing up in the log. Honestly not certain if this may be the issue, capture not being updated.
update_hook_file: failed to update C:\ProgramData\obs-studio-hook\graphics-hook32.dll (32)

This is an old thread but check out the last post. Chrome was preventing the update.
S

Bug Report Thread 'Graphic Hook.dll'

Not sure where I should be posting this but . When I got to install OBS it is giving me this error

Extract: graphics-hook32.dll
Can't write: C:\Program Files (x86)\obs-studio\data\obs-plugins\win-capture\graphics-hook64.dll

It will not proceed past this point. I have uninstalled and deleted the windows folder for OBS and reinstalled. What prompted this was from time to time . I go to record and there is just a black screen. No snap , no nothing. So yeah, Please help ! Thank you in advance.
 
I didn't see anything in the logs pointing to a potential conflict but just in case, take a look & see if any of them are running on your system.

Known Application Conflicts | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com obsproject.com
 
rockbottom said:
Here's the almost, it's still showing up in the log. Honestly not certain if this may be the issue, capture not being updated.
update_hook_file: failed to update C:\ProgramData\obs-studio-hook\graphics-hook32.dll (32)

This is an old thread but check out the last post. Chrome was preventing the update.
S

Bug Report Thread 'Graphic Hook.dll'

Not sure where I should be posting this but . When I got to install OBS it is giving me this error

Extract: graphics-hook32.dll
Can't write: C:\Program Files (x86)\obs-studio\data\obs-plugins\win-capture\graphics-hook64.dll

It will not proceed past this point. I have uninstalled and deleted the windows folder for OBS and reinstalled. What prompted this was from time to time . I go to record and there is just a black screen. No snap , no nothing. So yeah, Please help ! Thank you in advance.
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That's weird because I downloaded the zip version of OBS, not the installer. I can try to delete it and reinstall with Chrome turned off.

I didn't see anything in the logs pointing to a potential conflict but just in case, take a look & see if any of them are running on your system.
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Nothing at all, except MAYBE some kind of Windows Defender stuff but I doubt it.
 
I decided to test with a different approach: use NVIDIA Shadowplay and completely turn off Vsync, both ingame and control panel.
My monitor was at 120Hz which is double the FPS of the games I tested.

Aside from having a tolerable amount of screen tearing in 2 separate and very different games (at this point I don't care if my own gameplay experience is slightly worse as long as my recordings are clean), both game recordings had in fact duplicated frames. In the same pattern as with OBS: sometimes only 1 duped frame, sometines a few, sometimes multiple seconds in a row filled with duped frames making the video look like crap.
Reminder that there was no syncing at all: Vsync off in Nvidia control panel AND ingame, no Gsync or Freesync or anything of the sort.
It """SEEMS""" as though the issue was less prevalent, but it was still there. I say """SEEMS""" because this problem is so random and evil and stupid that I cannot trust any form of improvement that isn't a straight up fix (and I've yet to find one).

Does this actually prove that Vsync isn't the culprit?
 
Back to OBS, I can also confirm that there is stuttering (in the form of duped frames) in the preview window, not just the recordings. I got it regardless of Vsync being enabled or disabled.
 
Jumping in to say I have the exact same issue on my rig.
0 dropped frames in OBS, 0 rendering/encoding lag, yet the footage visibly stutters while my game runs perfectly smooth at 60 fps.
Following this thread in hopes of an actual fix.
 
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