Question / Help Sandy Bridge i7 CPU too weak to stream now?

[Niphrentil]

Greetings everyone,

I have stumbled uppon an issue which is, kindda, confusing. Ever since streaming became a thing, I wanted to build a PC to allow me to stream. Back then I had a Core2Quad CPU which was too weak to stream so I upgraded to a Sandy Bridge i7 2600K. And it was awesome! That CPU could handle anything. But lately, my PC started getting choppy while I stream. I got fps drops and even frame lag spikes on the games I play.

I assumed it was time for a secondary update on my PC, since I had the same setup for 5+ years so I did a GPU upgrade (from a GTX660 2GB to a GTX1060 6GB) and a RAM upgrade (from 8GB 1333 DDR3 to 24GB 1333 DDR3) since I didn't want to buy both a new Motherboard and a new CPU (I still think the 2600K is a strong CPU and I'm doing something wrong with the stream settings).

So, now that I got my PC setup out of the way, let me get to what I have already done to try and tackle my issue. First of all, let me say that I use TONS of outside sources for my stream. Which I know is bad by itself but I don't really know how taxing it actually is for the PC. I.e. I have a "title bar" on the top side of my screen where I display various infromation (song playing etc) and instead of making one unified media source (it's animated), I have one source for the background image, one for the stream logo and a douplicate of a media source to animate both sides of the bar. So, yes, I could just compile all that to a single media source and use that but I'm just stating the fact that I use TONS of sources like that (image sources, media sources, text sources, browser sources).

Here comes question #1. Some of the sources are unused or used less frequently than others. Having them on "hidden", are they still taxing to the CPU? Does OBS still load them and have them "ready to use" or are they idle until I reveal them to the stream?

Furthermore, I used to use scaling to adjust my main screen to the stream resolution. I ditched that and now I use a 1:1 screen to canvas ratio and then use the Lanczos downscale to get it to 720p, which is my output. I also changed the audio frequency to meet the one my PC was putting out (PC was on 48 MHz, OBS was on 44,1 MHz -now they are both at 48 MHz-). I also set the affiliation of OBS to the last 6 Threads of my CPU (through Task Manager) and set the first 2 Threads for the games I'm playing (Mostly League but also Tekken 7). So...

Question #2. Did I mess something up? Even after applying these settings, nothing changed, still having the same fps drops (maybe it fixed the frame lag but I only used these settings 2 times and the frame lags where not very often anyway). Am I missing something or do I just need to upgrade my CPU cause the 2600K isn't strong for streaming now?

Thanks for reading. Have a nice day! ^_^

P.S. I'm not on my streaming PC right now so I can't post a log atm. I'll post one when I get home (in a few hours), hopefully it will help a bit more.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Maybe you suffer from the latest Win10 Creator Update which introduced some problems with stuttering in games for many people.
Please make sure, that Game DVR in Windows is completely disabled and then you need to find out, if there is a CPU or GPU bottleneck (maybe you can monitor the GPU load while gaming+streaming).
If the GPU load is far below 99% it should be fine. CPU limit is a bit harder to see, as it can occur even with less then 90% CPU load (especially with SMT or Hyper Threading the CPU load is a bit misleading).
Last but not least you should check the temperatures and clockspeeds while gaming+streaming. Maybe the thermal paste has hardened or there is a lot of dust between the cpu cooler fins and the CPU begins to throttle its clockspeed in longer gaming session.

The freeware "HWMONITOR" from CPUID can be very helpful to check for GPU/CPU Limits and thermal/throttling problems as you can let it run in the backround and it will show you max/min values for cpu/gpu utilization, thermals, clockspeeds etc.

The log file could also help (as it might show, if and why frames were dropped).

 

[Boildown]

When Sandy Bridge was new, no games used more than 1 or 2 cores. Now-a-days games use as many cores as they can, which presents a problem for OBS, because OBS wants to use the left-over cores for video encoding. And for modern games, there isn't nearly as much left over any more.

Anyways, if you kept the software side a constant, Sandy Bridge is still just as good as it ever was. I've got a 2600K myself that I used as a dedicated streaming PC. The problem is games are using more cores and Windows 10 mussing about with stuff it shouldn't be. Every 4C/8T CPU has the same problem, not just Sandy Bridge. By the way, this is part of why I'm sticking to Windows 7 until the bitter end, lol.

 

[Niphrentil]

@BK-Morpheus @Boildown thank you guys for the replies. Here's an update...

I did check if Game DVR was on and it indeed was on. I turned it off but unfortunately, same thing happened, got fps drops as usual.

Also, I used Open Hardware Monitor to check for bottleneck, I did see something that suggests a bottleneck. My CPU usage is high (it was always high) and the temperatures where quite higher than normal (usually I got 70-80 degrees, today it went up to 86). My GPU barely reached 50% load.

Here's my log file from OBS, I skimmed through it but I have no idea what information in there could help me figure out what's going wrong, maybe you guys have better luck than me.


https://gist.github.com/anonymous/aae78e28b1b25d2be29c3b9597730b6f

 

[Boildown]

The CPU might be throttling if its hitting 86C. I think mine started throttling at 80C, but its been a long time since I OC'd it, so my memory could be off. Anyways you might take off the HS&F and remove and replace the thermal compound, especially if its been more than a few years since that's last been done.

 

[Niphrentil]

I don't think it's the thermal paste, maybe the cooling all-in-all is insufficient... I used to have this cooler: https://www.quietpc.com/images/products/dc-fiend-shark-large.jpg but the fan broke down and since I couldn't find a replacement fan, I got a new smaller/cheaper cooler: http://eu.coolermaster.com/uk/uploa...84acea2a3e8bb5955505c27ac86c71_1452687895.jpg

I changed the cooler about 8-10 months ago, so the thermal paste is rather new, I just think that the cooling isn't sufficient with this cooler...

Then again, I used to stream normally for like a few months with that cooler...

Guess I'll have to fix my older cooler and see what happens then. Maybe even OC the CPU 0,5-0,6GHz...??

 

[Niphrentil]

Update:

Put back my older cooler, temperatures dropped heavily (45-50 degrees MAX at 100% load) but the fps drops are still there... So I guess throttling due to temperature isn't the issue. And the original question returns... Is Sandy Bridge too old for modern day streaming? Sould I upgrade to a more recent CPU or is there something I'm still missing?

 

[Boildown]

Do a five minute test stream of the one game you think its the worst with, and make sure its 5 minutes of high action content, not just standing around at the starting area or anything like that, and post that OBS log file. Also make sure the problem occurred in that test.