Question / Help Random stuttering in preview which goes into recorded videos.

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Carnifex665

New Member
I am having a weird problem since upgrading to windows 10 and the latest version of obs studio. Using NVenc or x264 makes no difference. When I use "game capture" I get random stuttering in the preview window that makes it look like it's at 30fps but is still reporting 60fps. This is just the preview window while not even actually recording. When I do record these random stutters in obs make it into the recorded videos themselves. Game is running a constant smooth 60fps and obs reports 60fps with a cpu usage of 3.0% and gpu usage of 68%. When I use "display capture it is smooth for a while but still randomly stutters without any actual fps drops in game or obs, just stutter in the preview window that makes it into recorded videos. I'm ata loss. I have tried tweaking everything. Nvenc, cbr, 12000kb bitrate, i7 4790k, gtx 1070, 16gb ram, recording to seperate drive. Had no problems when on windows 7 using older version of obs and much less powerful amd 390x gpu. recordings and preview window were perfect back then. Anyone have any ideas? Remember this happens without actually recording at all, just random stutters in the preview window that are quite frequent but not 100% all the time that make it into video when i do record.

Here are a couple of videos demonstrating what I mean.

Video 1: Jerky in some spots with "game capture" in dx11 and dx12. https://youtu.be/cllL-zSfCfs

Video 2: Smooth as the game looks while playing in ":display capture" mode but display capture still shows some of the jerkiness once in a while. https://youtu.be/mrfT9YrRFic
 
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BK-Morpheus

BK-Morpheus

Active Member
Log File is missing,

Nevertheless I got a problem that sounds looks identical.

Example Destiny 2 with window_capture and Rocket League with Game Capture.
In D2 sometimes it's stuttering in the preview and video right from the start of a recording. It helps when I go into OBS settings>video and switch down to 10fps, apply, switch back to 60fps and apply again.
But even when it's is smooth, this won't last long. Could take 20minutes till i see heavy stutter in the OBS preview (which can also be seen in the stream/recording) and some times this stutter goes away after 2-5minutes.
My logs show not skipped/lagged frames, and OBS is showing 60fps all the time.
Game runs smooth all the time (60fps vsync) but preview+recording show stutter every now and then.

I already tried different drivers, Win10 Game DVR and Game Mode is off, GPU load stays below 80% (spikes up to 90%) and CPU load stays under 80% as well.
Fast, Very Fast, Ultrafast preset...no difference in stutter. Disabling OBS preview or minimizing OBS = no difference.
Having just one scene with just Webcam + Game = no difference.
 
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Carnifex665

New Member
Very frustrating lol. I didn't include the log file because it literally says nothing about anything. Nothing failed to load or initialize. No skipped,dropped, or lagged frames at all. According to the log everything is perfect. I did notice rolling back to older versions of obs made the game capture for dx12 look like it was 30fps in the preview window but still reported 60fps. Display capture however with older versions of obs seem to work flawlessly. Just went back to the version I was using before they added dx12 support and use display capture and I'm getting nice smooth videos again. Not a fix by any means but I don't have to check every single recording and re-record something if it ends up being lagged out. Time and sanity saver lol. Thanks for the reply. Hopefully we can get this nailed down soon. Still wondering if it has anything to with windows 10 itself?
 
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Carnifex665

New Member
My thoughts exactly. I used to run a sapphire 390x a couple months ago on windows 7 and everything i captured with "game capture" was perfect. Upgraded to a 1070, still perfect on windows 7. Upgrade to win 10 for dx12 benefits, random stutter no matter if it's capturing dx11 or dx12 with "game capture". The weirdest part I think is that it happens in the preview window while obs isn't even recording. Hopefully we can get some real support from the obs developers. Tried using shadowplay... me no likey lol.
 
BK-Morpheus

BK-Morpheus

Active Member
By the way, I completely reinstalled Win10 1709 on saturday....no change in OBS stuttering.
From my extensive testing I see different patterns on different games/capture modes:

1. Rocket League (game_capture, vsync on)
Runs smooth, records smooth, no matter if fullscreen or borderless window. Most of my testing, the stutter only occurs after 20-40 minutes, keeps stuttering for a few minutes, and goes back to smoothness after that.

2. ARK survival evolved (game_capture, vsnyc on via config file)
Runs smooth (at least outside of the base), recording shows stutter a lot.
After switching from borderless window to normal fullscreen mode, the recording is smooth.
No idea, if there is this 3-5min stutter time after a while, as I haven't recorded clips with more than 20 minutes.

3. Destiny 2 (window_capture, vsync/fpslimit ingame)
Some times it stutters right from the first second I press record, some times it starts smooth and gets suttery after a few minutes. Most of the time, that stutter will eventually go away (back to smooth recording) after a few minutes.
Sadly game_capture is not an option, due to the anti cheat methods of the game engine.
If the stutter is present right from the start, It helps to change OBS video settings from 60fps down to 10fps, apply and then set it back to 60fps and apply again).

It doesn't make a difference, if i remove all sources and just use game+webcam only, or if I reduce base resolution from 2560x1440 to 1920x1080 or 1280x720.
Changing downscale filter from lanczos to biliniear or bicubic won't help.

Log is not showing skipped/dropped frames, my GPU is not utilizes with more that ~90% total.
Disable/Enable OBS preview, minimizing OBS while recording, putting it on the main monitor...nothing helps.
 
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kzpl23

Member
Yup Im with you on this I have been trying to figure out what causes this issue and no idea its hard to diagnose as it happens at random times and like you said it works smooth no issues and then all of the sudden it gets choppy and then it will smooth itself out again. I use a 2pc stream setup so its not like im overloading anything.
 
Kapu

Kapu

New Member
Hi there,

I have tried to fix the exact same problem on my computer for months now but with no success...
Reinstalling Windows 10, updating drivers, rolling back to previous OBS builds, tweaking OBS settings, resetting the BIOS to default configuration... I don't know what else I can fiddle with to get a flawless OBS preview/recording on my I7 6700k/GTX 1070 rig.

Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
 
Kapu

Kapu

New Member
As far as I'm concerned it's not a Windows related issue since W7 and W10 give me the same results.

What are your PC specs, guys ? It seems to be some sort of compatibility issue between the encoding software (within OBS/Xsplit) and a specific computer part (motherboard ? RAM ?).

Here are mine :
mb : ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming
cpu : I7 6700K 4.5Ghz (I tried without OC, it doesn't help)
gpu : MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G
ram : 2x8GB G.Skill DDR4-3200Mhz (I tried without XMP profile as well)
power : Corsair AX 650W
ssd : Samsung 850 EVO 500GB / Crucial MX300 750GB

Feel free to add me on Twitter (details on my profile) so we can talk about it and eventually find a solution.
 
BK-Morpheus

BK-Morpheus

Active Member
R7 1700X@3.8GHz
2x8GB Kingston Dual Rank DDR4 2666@3066
Asus X370 Prime-Pro
GTX1070 Palit JetStream
Samsung Evo 850 250GB + EVO 850 500GB
Cooler Master Silent Pro M600 600W

No difference between everything @Stock or OC.
 
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Kapu

Kapu

New Member
I've just discovered that the stutterings are not random at all... They are on a timer that doesn't start when you launch OBS (or a preview).

I get the stutterings every ~13 minutes on W10. I checked the tasks, processes... but still can't find where I can disable the timer.
 
BK-Morpheus

BK-Morpheus

Active Member
After testing a lot with Rocket League and checking processes, disk activity etc., I can definitely say, that my "timer" is not 13min.
Sometimes I can record/stream over 30min, till I get 2-3minutes of stutter, some times, it takes only 15-20minutes.

At one point I was sure, that this happened, when Windows was running the search indexer or writing in my pagefile.sys (although only 7GB from 16GB RAM was in use).
After turning off the pagefile, the problem still occured, so I'm still not sure, if and how the stutter is related to Windows activities.
 
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Carnifex665

New Member
Hey guys... it's been a while and figured I would check the forums to see if we have made any progress. Guess not lol. Still having the same issues after a clean install of windows 10 and all drivers updated. Log files still show nothing in the way of dropped or lagged frames but videos sometimes look like they are dropping to 30 fps and after a few minutes it goes back to normal smooth video.

Specs:
Cpu: I7 4790k 4.2-4.4
Ram: 16GB 1600
Mobo: asrock z97 extreme4
GPU: Gtx 1070
 
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JohnCiber

New Member
My specs:
Cpu: i7-4790 (non k)
Ram: 16GB
Mobo: Asus B85-PRO GAMER
GPU: GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10

Maybe its a Windows process that cause all the problems? I'm running out of ideas :/
 
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5arz

New Member
Did anyone find a solution for this? I'm having the exact same issue.

Specs:
Cpu: I7 5820k 4.2
Ram: 32 2200
Mobo: X99 SLI Plus
GPU: Gtx 1070
 
Lapppy

Lapppy

Member
Keeping an eye on this thread since I've had this issue for over three years or so.

Every 15 minutes give or take, the framerate of the video appears to cut in half for around 30 seconds and then it returns to normal. Though for some people, it happens every 45 minutes or every 30 minutes.
From what I can tell, this only seems to affect recordings at 60fps. I do not seem to experience this issue when recording at 30 fps or 120fps.
Therefore If I want high framerate recordings (at least 60fps), the potential workaround I have found is to record videos at 120fps and also enable 60fps cap or vsync in your game.
This either works because the stutter issue doesn't happen at 120fps or when it does happen, the framerate gets cut to 60fps every 15 minutes and it appears that there isn't an issue.
The downside is that it can be demanding on hardware, and you certainly wouldn't want to stream at 120fps.

That Is what I have found that works for me. it probably won't work for you and it might be worse since you're putting twice as much of a workload on your system.

Also, I haven't had the time to test it but there was a change to how the preview is rendered in version 21.0 which may have increased performance and fixed a bunch of issues.
Actually scratch that, it happens in 21.0 as well.
 
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JohnCiber

New Member
Lapppy said:
From what I can tell, this only seems to affect recordings at 60fps. I do not seem to experience this issue when recording at 30 fps or 120fps.
Therefore If I want high framerate recordings (at least 60fps), the potential workaround I have found is to record videos at 120fps and also enable 60fps cap or vsync in your game.
This either works because the stutter issue doesn't happen at 120fps or when it does happen, the framerate gets cut to 60fps every 15 minutes and it appears that there isn't an issue.
The downside is that it can be demanding on hardware, and you certainly wouldn't want to stream at 120fps.
Click to expand...

Recording at 120fps fix the problem for me, but of course it can be demanding and cause fps drop in some games (and as you said, stream at 120fps... nope)
So, we can say that the problem is that for some random reason OBS cut the fps in half when recording at 60 or higher fps?
 
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