Question / Help Screen tearing-esque performance issues

Pixel Perfect

New Member
My friend and I are having interesting issues with OBS and screen tearing-esque performance issues

Here is a video of me trying to capture the problem using my own RTMP server. This happens in his preview window, on Twitch, my server, or even local recordings. At that timestamp, VLC catches back up with the frames he started sending, then stabilizes, then BAM. GLITCH.

The glitch is when the entire frame freezes, returning after a second, sometimes resulting in screen tearing. Audio usually also cuts in the same manner.

His specs are as follows

AMD FX 8350 Black Edition (Stock or 200Mhz overclock doesn't change this)
Radeon RX 480 4GB (Stock)
8GB RAM
Windows 10 (1703) (but the issue has been here long before that)
OBS 18.0.1/18.0.2 (but the issue has been here long before that)
Logitech C922

I've had him try both x264 and AMF, various bitrates, presets, and resolutions, including everything from veryfast to veryslow. I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure this one out.

This also happens with desktop streaming, so it's not the camera, as far as I can tell. We've tried cleaning the scene, switching cameras, RMAing cameras, etc.

This also happens in Xsplit

It is allegedly worse in 18.0.2 but there's no easy way to track just how bad it is. We don't have a metric for the issue.

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/dc9fca6fc5b87a7b242ebae245e7cfc7
 

Xaymar

Active Member
I don't think this is caused by OBS. This looks more like an issue with VLC than anything else, especially the skipping is usually either due to frame dropping (would be shown in OBS itself) or the player not keeping up. And VLC isn't exactly keen on keeping everything correctly, which can be seen if it actually runs out of data in the buffer.
 

Pixel Perfect

New Member
I don't think this is caused by OBS. This looks more like an issue with VLC than anything else, especially the skipping is usually either due to frame dropping (would be shown in OBS itself) or the player not keeping up. And VLC isn't exactly keen on keeping everything correctly, which can be seen if it actually runs out of data in the buffer.
Stupid question - Would installing VLC help? And is there anything else I can do to assist VLC in doing better?

To clarify, OBS's preview window on his computer also shows this glitching, but it doesn't show any dropped frames
 

Xaymar

Active Member
Stupid question - Would installing VLC help? And is there anything else I can do to assist VLC in doing better?

To clarify, OBS's preview window on his computer also shows this glitching, but it doesn't show any dropped frames

Is his preview window actually showing screen tearing or these green/gray blocks that show up on your end? I've never seen that happen and the log doesn't suggest anything actively wrong with OBS (aside from running 1.4.3.11 with a broken default configuration).

Installing VLC will only give you access to the VLC Video Source.
 

Pixel Perfect

New Member
Is his preview window actually showing screen tearing or these green/gray blocks that show up on your end? I've never seen that happen and the log doesn't suggest anything actively wrong with OBS (aside from running 1.4.3.11 with a broken default configuration).

Installing VLC will only give you access to the VLC Video Source.
No, if you watch the video from the exact frame I linked, you'll notice the pixels stabilize, then it acts almost as if he drops frames, but that drop is also shown in his preview window.
 

Xaymar

Active Member
Looking at both the log and the video, the only issue that is actually there is a short freeze every ~20 seconds. There's no screen tearing, just the camera skips ahead. This is likely because you have the same Video device in multiple Video Capture Sources instead of reusing the one you have already added.
 

Pixel Perfect

New Member
Looking at both the log and the video, the only issue that is actually there is a short freeze every ~20 seconds. There's no screen tearing, just the camera skips ahead. This is likely because you have the same Video device in multiple Video Capture Sources instead of reusing the one you have already added.
Created a new scene collection, and JUST added my webcam. Still having the same issue. I've tried different USB ports and everything
 

Xaymar

Active Member
Created a new scene collection, and JUST added my webcam. Still having the same issue. I've tried different USB ports and everything

Log and Video from that attempt? Edit: And upload the video to a freehoster, not YouTube - YouTube transcodes which may make your issue invisible for other people.
 

Pixel Perfect

New Member

Xaymar

Active Member
https://dbr.ee/F7tG - Video file.

https://gist.github.com/4a44a6693a5f6ca80eaf012ec98dd356

Looking at this full log, there was one glitch and one memory leak. When I've had more glitches, there have been more leaks

The glitch can be seen in the YouTube video pretty well.

There's a frame skip happening at ~0:32 into the video from what i can see, however once again there's nothing in the log that shows that this happened. Did you test the camera in other programs (Windows 8+ Camera App, DirectShow playback)?

Also 1 memory leak is always there, has been for a while. Don't really know why, but it's there.
 
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