Severe random stuttering in recordings

nerten

New Member
Hi everyone,

I’ve recently started experiencing severe random stuttering in all my game recordings using OBS. In-game performance is perfectly smooth with no visible lag or frame drops — the issue only appears in the recorded video. Before this issue, there were minor, short lags, but now for some unknown reason the stutters are much longer and stronger, making the footage (at least for me) unwatchable.
Here’s what I’ve already tried (none of these helped):
  • Ran OBS as administrator
  • Disabled Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling (HAGS)
  • Tested many different encoder settings and lower bitrates
  • Tried recording with and without VSync in the game
  • Limited FPS to match monitor refresh rate (60 FPS)
  • Tested recording with NVIDIA ShadowPlay — the same issue occurs there
Some system specs:
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with Max-Q Design
  • iGPU: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-11300H @ 3.10GHz
  • RAM: 16 GB
Log from a recent recording: https://obsproject.com/logs/iNrGS3GBucYTJQAa
I can also provide a short sample video if needed.

If anyone has ideas on what could cause random heavy stutters despite stable FPS in-game, I’d really appreciate some help or troubleshooting advice.
Thanks in advance!
 

Attachments

  • obs64_3YsOfDpUc3.png
    obs64_3YsOfDpUc3.png
    54.2 KB · Views: 33
  • obs64_fL9NPXquSi.png
    obs64_fL9NPXquSi.png
    54.5 KB · Views: 38
why is your bitrate set to 30k?
I set the maximum bitrate to 30,000 Kbps because I think that’s more than enough for 1080p60 recording quality. I didn’t want to push it higher to avoid unnecessary load on the system or encoder. From what I understand, going beyond that wouldn’t noticeably improve visual quality but could cause more GPU usage or larger files.
 
Since the last time I posted I’ve tried several older NVIDIA drivers (some of which are known to be more stable for my GPU), cleaned my laptop since it was getting a bit hot and even reinstalled Windows — nothing helped at all.

No matter what I'm doing the recordings still lag. I’m honestly going crazy at this point because I’ve tried everything I could think of.
If anyone has any idea what else could be causing this pls help

 
There's barely any rendering or encoding lag in either of your logs, 1 frame, that's it. Audio does lag in the 2nd log, that could indicate some system overload.

I would try with Avast out of the way & see if things improve. Maybe a recent update is the issue.

Another thing that could be causing issues, is having the iGPU enabled. If you're not using it, disable it. They do waste resources.
 
There's barely any rendering or encoding lag in either of your logs, 1 frame, that's it. Audio does lag in the 2nd log, that could indicate some system overload.

I would try with Avast out of the way & see if things improve. Maybe a recent update is the issue.

Another thing that could be causing issues, is having the iGPU enabled. If you're not using it, disable it. They do waste resources.
That’s actually really strange to me because even though there’s barely any rendering or encoding lag in the logs I still get short stutters in the recorded video every minute or two.


Also I can’t disable the iGPU since I’m on a laptop with no MUX switch or Advanced Optimus...
 
Back
Top