OBS will start to lag until I restart my computer

Hyliandescent

New Member
The title wasn't the best way to describe this issue but...

Ever since about 3-6 months ago, my OBS will occasionally start to use double if not triple its normal CPU usage, mid stream.
I can't stress enough that this isn't normal at all, as I've been streaming on this computer and with this set up for years now. I believe it started happening before I upgraded to Windows 11, but it could have been after my W11 jump.

Either way to clarify, normally as long as I restart my computer once daily, OBS will be fine. If I don't however, its as if I have some sort of memory leak going on because it will randomly decide to use double the cpu usage as normal, causing my whole computer to sort of "lock up" Browsers become laggy, the games I'm playing become laggy(Capture card & PC native included). This can happen *MID STREAM* which is the really confusing part, as if something happens in the back end of OBS and it is causing this change to occur mid stream.

Below I've attached two logs. The first is a zip file because it was too big to upload and is from my stream today in which this problem occured mid stream. So it started normal, and happened about 2 hours in.
The second is a log of me loading OBS up after I closed it out via task manager and it loaded straight into having this problem. Normally the problem will not go away until I full restart my computer, and sometimes it will still come back again quickly after.

Thank you in advance for any help!
 

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Hyliandescent

New Member
After digging further, clearing out scenes and the like. It seems to be a problem with "Video Capture Device" and my Elgato 4k MK.2
If I add the capture card to any scene, it instantly doubles my cpu. Restarting my computer clears this issue up, as mentioned up above, however it comes back randomly, even if I'm not using my capture. For example, my logs above are from streams not using the capture card at all, yet this problem is still persisting.
 

Hyliandescent

New Member
I don't know if I can close this thread myself but I think I found the issue. I never installed proper drivers for my Elgato capture card after I upgraded to Windows 11. Once I installed the 4k Utility off of Elgato's website, the extra CPU usage stopped. I will still be watching to see if the issue occurs again but so far, things seem very smooth.
 
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