Question / Help OBS with PS4, Elgato and Macbook Pro Retina

[hksmash]

This is a long one so get ready.

Hardware
Macbook Pro Retina (late 2013) Hasewell
2.6 i5 (turbo boost 3.1)
8GB RAM
Elgato Game Capture HD
OBS
PS4
Network Download 26.5mbps
Network Upload 12 mbps


Lately I have been having issues with using OBS and my Elgato Game Capture HD specifically with my Macbook Pro Retina 13'' (Late 2013) I'm running Windows 8.1 via BootCamp and using OBS and Elgato to stream from my PS4. The handful of issues are as follows.

Streams in general to Twitch.tv is dropping frames because it can't encode fast enough. I have been changing and testing different bitrates but can't seem to find a sweet spot. The hardware is capable of streaming 30fps at 720p without breaking a sweat. I can encode large 1080p video files in minuets on this little thing so for me to have encoding issues is odd.

When I use my FaceTime Camera as a scene within OBS after a short period of time the OBS crashes and becomes completely unresponsive. I cannot force quit the app and i need to actually restart my machine. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

When I'm streaming a game the audio is delayed from the game play. For example If I'm playing and FPS and I start firing at an opponent there is a delay with the gun fire, about 1.5 seconds of the gun action then the audio.


Im hoping that anyone else with a similar problem has found a solution. Main reason why I'm using a notebook is simply because I cannot move my desktop next to my 55 in television. This macbook pro outperforms my desktop that has an i7 processor and I stream PC games from that desktop and less quality. So for me to not even get the same quality as I'm doing from my desktop just seems strange to me.

Thank you

 

[FerretBomb]

Real-time video encoding is just that; real-time. You can't multi-pass it. The i5 you have is not powerful enough apparently to support the settings you're trying to use.

As far as an i5 outperforming an i7, unless the i7 is an older first-gen, I will call shenanigans right now. Regardless of system manufacturer brand, an i5 simply can't keep up. You will need to lower your settings until you bring it down to what the laptop can handle. Does the system support QuickSync video? If so, have you tried that?

To be able to offer any further (or specific) advice, you'll need to post a logfile from a live streaming session. There's a stickied thread at the top of this forum on how to do so (along with the link to it presented when you create a new thread, as it's kind of a necessary part of troubleshooting almost any issue).

 

[hksmash]

The QuickSync option is available which I have not tried. Just now I rebooted into windows and had the issue with the frames starting to drop. then the FaceTime camera became unresponsive causing OBS to become entirely unresponsive. Now in your personal opinion if i were to go to a 2.0 i7 quad should make all the difference?

 

[FerretBomb]

QuickSync will drastically lower your CPU utilization, but tends to sacrifice image quality.
Can't really help as far as the cam goes; I'm assuming that's the built-in webcam on your laptop? I'd suspect a driver issue, and advise trying to update whatever drivers are available for it. Or are you using a hackaround IP camera from a phone or something (which can be VERY glitchy)?

Can't really speak on theoretical upgrades, but you will have significantly more 'breathing room' with an i7. 'Quad' doesn't really tell us much of anything. A bit like saying 'my car has four wheels'. We kind of need the generation of CPU/model o get an idea of how effective those cores will be. For example, I'm on a first-gen i7 920 at stock clockspeeds. I can encode 1080p@30 video, or 720@60 without a problem with most games on the Veryfast preset, but moving down to Faster will cause problems, and some CPU-intensive games will start duplicating frames and showing significant in-game lag.

 

[hksmash]

Your logic is on point! The webcam is built into the display of the notebook. Reason that I'm using the notebook for broadcasting is because I simply cannot move my iMac into the living room and place it somewhere and use it as a studio. Now after doing some further analysis I was mistaken as far as the video encoding after the recoding was done which was a mistake on my part. The iMac is indeed faster! As far as the drivers are concerned everything is up to date and possibly just a bug related to OBS and FaceTime cameras. Now going back to what we were discussing. This particular Macbook has an i5 processor which is duel core. The processor also shares memory with the GPU which is not dedicated. Now if I'm not mistaken this could all be related, the CPU cannot encode fast enough simply because it needs to also run the integrated graphics. Now upgrading to a machine that has dedicated graphics memory and a Quad CPU "four wheels" will significantly increase the overall performance. What I'm getting at is just want to provide a quality stream to my viewers without an issue. Im about to leave and get the machine replaced but wanted to post a follow up. I will get everything setup and stream again later this afternoon. If you want to stop by and watch and maybe observe incase I have similar issues (which I doubt) but maybe I could at least reproduce the FaceTime Camera issue.

 

[zetmor]

I'm using a 2.5 GHz i5 (dual-core) Mac mini as a second computer for streaming.
It can run 720p30 fine with Elgato capture (for my cam) + Blackmagic design (thunderbolt) for PC capture.
I'm capturing at Full-HD and downscaling to 720p.
It's running at ~60% CPU usage, but it would definitely not be enough for Full-HD h264 encoding.
(1080p30 or 720p60 gets the CPU at 100% instantly)

I don't think your CPU would be enough for more than 720p at 30fps: you would need a quad-core at that frequency.
But give QuickSync a try, if the higher resolution is worth the lower encoding quality...

And that's nothing to do about the CPU running the graphics too: it's completely different parts of the CPU. It's just like a GPU, except it's in the die of the CPU. By the way, in some aspects it could be faster, reducing the use of PCI-E bus usage and sharing memory cache. The graphics part is of course much slower than a dedicated GPU, because it's just much smaller and as many less features (less cores). But from CPU point of view, using an integrated GPU doesn't slow down you CPU calculations, it's quite even the opposite. And, by the way, you have the benefit of QuickSync. Anyway! In short: for 1080p30 h264 encoding in real-time I think you need at least a 3.0 GHz dual-core i5 or i7 (too much for notebooks), or >2.0 GHz quad-core.

About your 1.5s delay. That's normal, read your Elgato manual: that device is compressing to h264 then sending to USB a compressed stream... with a delay of 1.5s exactly. That's by design. So just add a 1.5s buffer to anything else that is not coming from the Elgato, like an other cam or direct microphone to OBS, and all will be synced nicely (just the whole will have an additionnal 1.5s lag to live stream).