Question / Help Recordings very laggy/choppy no matter the settings

[blacklabel8829]

Hello,

I am 2 days in to playing around with OBS. I am wanting to do local recordings with game capture, face cam, and mic. I tested just game capture yesterday with decent success.

Today I have been trying to figure out my settings for game capture with facecam and mic. No matter what settings I use the footage is VERY choppy/laggy.

My PC Specs:
CPU | Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor |
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard |
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory |
Video Card | EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Dual FTW ACX Video Card |
Power Supply | Corsair Builder 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply |


Can someone help me figure out what I can do to correct this/provide recommended settings? Can I just not pull 1080@30FPS with my hardware?

Here is my latest log file: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c518fae3e5c92300801d

 

[Harold]

Have you tried with the x264 preset of ultrafast yet with the crf-based settings?

 

[blacklabel8829]

O

Have you tried with the x264 preset of ultrafast yet with the crf-based settings?

I have only left it on the default of very fast. My cpu is already getting maxed out, wouldn't this just tax it further? But I have tested with and without crf of 20-25, no difference.

 

[Harold]

No. Faster sounding presets reduce cpu usage. Slower sounding presets increase them.

Use CRF of 15-18 with ultrafast.

It will offset what would otherwise be reduced picture quality with increased filesize.

 

[blacklabel8829]

Ah, I misunderstood how that works. I will try this when I get home tonight.

To check the other settings, would you think the settings below should theoretically work?

Encoding
Use CBR: Disabled
Quality Balance: 10
Bitrate: 1000
Use custom buffer size: Enabled
Buffer size: 0

Advanced Options
x264 preset: Ultrafast
Use custom x264 parameters: Enabled
Custom x264 parameters: crf=18

 

[Harold]

That should work, at a minimum you will have less choppyness.

 

[blacklabel8829]

That should work, at a minimum you will have less choppyness.

It also just hit me that I had only re-sized my 1080 facecam source, not actually changed the resolution. I'm hoping dropping the facecam down to/past 720 will help some.

 

[johndough]

Hi,

Since upgrading to the 358.50 driver on my GTX 770 I have seen the same issues with choppiness.

Posted an example here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMEdpBt2ocA

Compared to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKkjN6czd_o (Same settings except being CPU captured)

 

[blacklabel8829]

That should work, at a minimum you will have less choppyness.

New log using settings listed above: https://gist.github.com/3a747d30321aa26002b2

I changed the facecam to 864x480, then shrunk the window to my preferable size. Prior to these settings the capture was basically frozen, it worked much better with some portions being smooth but still dropping frames pretty bad. Like 1 second freezes ever 5 seconds. CPU still hitting 100%.

 

[Harold]

https://obsproject.com/forum/thread...ing-too-long-to-encode-read-this-first.23334/

If your game is taking up too much cpu, it will likely be a problem.

 

[blacklabel8829]

https://obsproject.com/forum/thread...ing-too-long-to-encode-read-this-first.23334/

If your game is taking up too much cpu, it will likely be a problem.

The best it has worked was just now with the settings above but downscaling to 720/60fps. Still some dropped frames. So I'm thinking im going to have to settle with 720/30fps until I can upgrade some hardware in the near future.

If I am stuck with 720/30fps would I still need to be on ultrafast and crf18?

 

[blacklabel8829]

https://gist.github.com/3359eb6f812779cfc8c3

Same settings at 720/30FPS, still skipping frames. CPU going between 95-100%, as one would expected skipping is happening when I hit 100%. I really didn't think my hardware would have this much trouble, and I definitely didn't think I would have to drop down to 720/30FPS.