RTX 3080 + OBS NVENC, smooth gameplay but recordings stutter

[Chiizukeeki]

I've been trying to record Watch Dogs Legion in 1440p with a RTX 3080. When I'm playing it's smooth, but the OBS recording using NVENC new encoder has uneven stutters and lagging.

CPU: i7-8700k (no OC)
GPU: EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra
RAM: 32 GB

Log: https://obsproject.com/logs/mUNpYMx0HgXdq-LA
Video: https://streamable.com/i5hr1i
This is the benchmark test in Watch Dogs - you can see in the top right corner that the FPS is around 60 but the captured footage doesn't reflect that. OBS also indicated that there are very few missed frames due to rendering lag/skipped frames due to encoding lag.

Things I've tried:
- Latest GPU drivers
- Lowering in-game quality settings
- Limiting in-game FPS to 60
- Vsync
- Another game (COD Black Ops Cold War - same issue)
- Using DX11 instead of DX12

The above helped to various degrees but I am still unable to get a 100% smooth recording with OBS despite the game running fine the entire time as I'm gaming. I've tried ShadowPlay and it can do it smoothly, but I like OBS a lot more so I really want to figure this out, and without lowering settings if possible (since I did pay for a higher end GPU and all that!)

So far I've had this happen with the latest new games (Watch Dogs Legion, COD), but less intensive titles (Hades) have been fine.


Thanks for any help in advance - please let me know if any other info would help.

 

[Riffeur]

same as me I also have an RTX 3080, 32gb ram Ryzen 5 5600x, plzz anyone helpp

 

[FerretBomb]

@Chiizukeeki Could you try right-clicking the preview pane, selecting 'Disable Preview', and do another test-recording to see if the issue persists? The Win10 2004 update was supposed to fix the long-standing multiple refresh rate bug in Windows, but in some edge cases it does not, and even the 20H2 doesn't. I'd also recommend temporarily setting your primary monitor to 60hz just to be absolutely certain and fully rule it out as the cause, as your sample video looks a LOT like how it presents.