Question / Help OBS will seriously drop frames when the GPU usage is high.

WGzeyu

New Member
Log: https://obsproject.com/logs/44_4zzY0wUZKIGwB
Even if the encoding is not performed, as long as the GPU usage exceeds 95% (probably), the picture in the OBS interface starts to be stuck, and the number of frames displayed in the lower right corner of the OBS will decrease. If the video is recorded, the video effect is the same as in the OBS interface. Not a drop in the number of frames, but a serious stuck.
How did this cause this problem? How can I solve it?
TIM截图20181224224809.jpgTIM截图20181224225916.jpg
 

Narcogen

Active Member
There is no other solution than limiting GPU utilization. OBS can't encode frames it can't render. If it can't render the current frame, you get the last frame until a new frame is rendered.

If you can't decrease framerate, you can reduce resolution or other fidelity options to attempt to preserve GPU resources for OBS.
 

WGzeyu

New Member
I tried shadowplay and it won't be stuck, but the quality of shadowplay video is simply too bad. The quality at the same bit rate is much worse than the NVENC of OBS.
I used to play the same game with the same screen settings. OBS never stuck. Recently I updated win10 1809, updated the graphics driver, and slightly overclocked the CPU. OBS started to hang when the GPU was high. Later I went back. Turning the CPU frequency back to the default, there is still this problem.
The graphics card driver uses DDU to uninstall and reinstall multiple different versions, which is still the case.
But I remember that after just updating 1809, I recorded some game videos. OBS should not be stuck yet. After that, I updated the graphics driver and CPU overclocking. (But after turning these settings back, OBS is still stuck (╯‵ □ ') ╯ (┻━┻)
The resolution can not be reduced, the performance of the graphics card is not bad, the game quality has been adjusted to a very low level, the result is to increase the frame rate, GPU occupancy is still high.
I contacted NVIDIA SUPPORT in the past few days to ask how to limit the GPU usage of the game. They think this is a problem with OBS. It seems that NVIDIA SUPPORT does not know how to limit the GPU usage. They suggested that I contact the OBS SUPPORT feedback bug.
OBS is used so much, so easy to use, I have used it for so long, I can't believe that because the game uses GPU, it is normal for stuck. After all, many people use it to record games, I have never encountered it before, and Google No similar cases can be found.
There is no other solution than limiting GPU utilization. OBS can't encode frames it can't render. If it can't render the current frame, you get the last frame until a new frame is rendered.

If you can't decrease framerate, you can reduce resolution or other fidelity options to attempt to preserve GPU resources for OBS.
Limit the fps in the game to not cause such high gpu usage.
 

Narcogen

Active Member
Did you turn off game mode after updating to 1809? That may also negatively affect performance if it is on, and prior to 1809 it was set to on by default with no toggle for turning it off. The 1809 put the toggle back but it may revert to being on. You've also got the Windows 10 Game DVR feature on, which may reduce performance:

05:51:22.403: Windows 10 Gaming Features:
05:51:22.403: Game DVR: On

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-and-remove-game-bar-windows-10-creators-update

You limit GPU usage of a game by using the game's own settings-- detail, framerate, etc. There's some things you can do in the Nvidia settings but usually not as much as in-game. The biggest one that could be done either place is v-sync, which will cap the framerate.

You also can cap framerate in GTA5, either by turning on vsync, either by using Rivatuner, or by launching the executable with "fps_max 60" set in Launch Options.
 

WGzeyu

New Member
I just tested it. It seems normal after turning off the game mode. The video recorded by the game DVR has always been off. The recording audio is enabled. I also turned it off.
thank you very much
Did you turn off game mode after updating to 1809? That may also negatively affect performance if it is on, and prior to 1809 it was set to on by default with no toggle for turning it off. The 1809 put the toggle back but it may revert to being on. You've also got the Windows 10 Game DVR feature on, which may reduce performance:

05:51:22.403: Windows 10 Gaming Features:
05:51:22.403: Game DVR: On

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-and-remove-game-bar-windows-10-creators-update

You limit GPU usage of a game by using the game's own settings-- detail, framerate, etc. There's some things you can do in the Nvidia settings but usually not as much as in-game. The biggest one that could be done either place is v-sync, which will cap the framerate.

You also can cap framerate in GTA5, either by turning on vsync, either by using Rivatuner, or by launching the executable with "fps_max 60" set in Launch Options.
 

WGzeyu

New Member
When the game mode is turned off, even if the GPU usage exceeds 97%, the OBS is not stuck.
It seems that there is no need to reduce the quality of the game at all.
 

DEDRICK

Member
Correct, when Game Mode is off Windows will properly allocate GPU usage to OBS, within reason. There are things that can disrupt the balance and cause OBS to become starved, like watching a stream on a second monitor with hardware acceleration enabled.

You may also notice small blips of lagged frames here and there but we're talking less than 0.1%, I often end recordings with 6 lagged frames, usually happens when I alt tab
 

Necroshader

New Member
Bumping this. Because i experience this problem. It happens when game load gpu more than "100%-% obs need". If scene is simple then obs need 1-3% gpu, if complicated then up to 10%. Capping framerate isn't good thing, because in some places it can drop below framerate cap so that means gpu utilization will be maximum = obs dropping rendering frames (it looks like 10-20 fps, screen tearing, and chess artifacts). Also that happens when gpu framerate is high (2000-3000 fps) but gpu load is like 50%.
This problem should be resolved by obs team or nvidia drivers, NOT by games, framerate capping, etc.
 
Last edited:

Osiris

Active Member
OBS cannot solve resource issues, nor performance issues caused by other stuff like game mode in windows 10 for example.
 
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