Preview jumping between 60 and 30 fps and Discord stream stuck at 30

[Deleted member 434357]

I have a bit of unique situation since I'm not using obs for any streaming to Twitch or something, I'm using it purely to stream console games to friends via Discord. The way I'm doing this is basically fullscreening the preview window and streaming that specifically. There's a handful of problems I've run into, but the most common that I can't figure out is in regards to the framerate.

On obs itself, the preview while playing will run at 60fps like normal, but will randomly start displaying at 30fps for awhile. After sometime, it'll go back to 60, but then it'll go back to 30 and so on between the two. I am playing a 60 fps game and my output settings are set to 60, so I have no clue what's going on with it.

The other issue is that when I'm streaming the preview to Discord, the Discord stream is always at 30fps, and before you say I need Discord nitro, I do have that. I've been able to stream 60fps to Discord flawlessly with everything else. I can confirm it's not Discord. From what little info I can find from googling, it sounds like this an issue with obs itself, but I'm not sure if it's a bug or what needs to be done to fix it.

I'm using an Elgato HD60 X and my PC is more that strong enough to handle it, so I'm fairly certain it's not a hardware issue. I've been told to try the auto configuration tool, but that requires me to log into a streaming account and I don't have any of those. Again, I'm just streaming to Discord.

 

[Deleted member 434357]

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[Deleted member 434357]

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[equalfps]

bro, as i can understand you use obs just to mirror the preview window and capture that to discord window stream. so if obs doesnt even work or doing something how is this an obs issue? you use a function of an entire program, the preview function is there to give you a preview of what you present in obs and how it looks.

 

[Deleted member 434357]

as i can understand you use obs just to mirror the preview window and capture that to discord window stream.

Yes, this is the easiest and practically the only method to stream specifically Switch and older console games to Discord. I'm essentially using the Preview (either fullscreen or windowed) as a virtual TV within the monitor and streaming that.

so if obs doesnt even work or doing something how is this an obs issue?

This sounds... contradictory, but I'll explain either way. I'm playing a game that's running at 60fps. As stated earlier, I'm using an Elgato HD60X which has no problem capturing that and my PC is more than capable of handling it (I got a newer GPU in it), so I'm pretty confidant it's not a hardware issue. I've been able to stream PC games at 1080p 60fps to Discord without any problems so it's not a Discord issue. I've done multiple tests and can say with certainty that it has to be an issue with obs itself and doing some digging around on Google shows that I'm not the only one with this problem. From what I said earlier, this seems to be a long running issue that's never been resolved.

you use a function of an entire program, the preview function is there to give you a preview of what you present in obs and how it looks.

I get that, the problem is, based on my use case, I'm entirely reliant on how the Preview itself looks, and the problem is that it's not consistent with how the game is running. As stated above, the preview is randomly displaying the capture at roughly around 30fps even though it's set to 60fps. If the Preview stayed at 60 like I would think it's supposed to, this wouldn't be an issue and I wouldn't have bothered with this post, but that's not happening. Again, to reiterate, the Preview is randomly dropping to 30fps for up to minutes on end and going back and forth between the two. If anything, it stays on 30 most of the time.

As for the Discord stream staying at around 30fps, the only thing I can think of is maybe Discord is choosing to display the stream at the lower framerate due to it being inconsistent, but it's hard to narrow that down unless I can fix the Preview issue first.

 

[equalfps]

what i am trying to say is that, obs is a program to use either for streaming or local recording. so any problems occuring must be streaming or recording related. like a problem in your stream or the video you record. if it was a program that shows a preview of what you play and it was inconsistent on that, then we could help you in some way cause that would had to do with the basic function of the program as a preview/mirror program. i do not know if you can find a solution to your problem, cause it has nothing to do with the basic and main purposes of OBS as a program. If you had for example random fps drops in your streams or in your recordings it would be easier to dictate what causes it. but you have random fps drops in the obs preview, not the main concern of obs as a program. Try to run obs as admin see if it feels better.

 

[Deleted member 434357]

what i am trying to say is that, obs is a program to use either for streaming or local recording. so any problems occuring must be streaming or recording related. like a problem in your stream or the video you record. if it was a program that shows a preview of what you play and it was inconsistent on that, then we could help you in some way cause that would had to do with the basic function of the program as a preview/mirror program. i do not know if you can find a solution to your problem, cause it has nothing to do with the basic and main purposes of OBS as a program.

I know that and as I've said earlier, my use case is much different from the norm, but it would still be nice to have the option, especially since I'm far from the only user in a situation like this. Doing a Google search shows that there's a lot of threads dating back up to 5+ years having similar problems trying to keep the Preview window at a steady 60 and considering none of them seem to have found a solution, then yes, I'm assuming there isn't one.

So I guess the question now is, can we see a fix for this in the future? Have a Preview window that shows what's being captured exactly how it's running? My guess is the reason obs does this is to reduce resource load, but for users with a strong PC, again, why not at least have an option for it? I'm not much of a developer, but with everything obs can do, I can't imagine it would that hard to implement.

 

[nikkums]

I just came here to say I have the same problem you do. My CPU (Ryzen 9 5950X) and GPU (RTX 2080 Ti) are not being taxed at all, yet the preview randomly drops to 30fps coming from both my Elgato 4K60 and Elgato HD60 capture cards. It's been a baffling issue to try and troubleshoot and it annoys me to no end because, as you say, there's really no other way to stream consoles to Discord.

 

[RainGamma]

I just came here to say I have the same problem you do. My CPU (Ryzen 9 5950X) and GPU (RTX 2080 Ti) are not being taxed at all, yet the preview randomly drops to 30fps coming from both my Elgato 4K60 and Elgato HD60 capture cards. It's been a baffling issue to try and troubleshoot and it annoys me to no end because, as you say, there's really no other way to stream consoles to Discord.

yeah. same problem for me, though I wonder if discord canary would work