Question / Help Should I limit my in-game fps?

[sebistrong]

Hello!
First of all my specs are:

Monitor: Dell S2417DG
CPU: i5-7600k overclocked to 4.6GHz (it's stable)
GPU: GTX 1080 A8G
RAM: 16GB at 2400MHz

From my understanding G-Sync synchronizes GPU frames to monitor frames and this doesn't affect my recordings at all since OBS captures GPU frames. For the same reason monitor refresh rate is irrelevant when recording. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

My monitor is set on 165Hz and my games are limited at 160FPS via the NVIDIA control panel Max Frame Rate setting. My frametime is a solid 6.1ms, very stable.
My video settings are 1440p, Lanczos, 60FPS and my Output settings are in the attached screenshot.

What I'm wondering is if my in-game FPS (locked at 160FPS) affects the OBS recording.
Should I limit my in-game fps to multiples of 60?

 

[carlmmii]

There's three major concerns.

With running at a higher framerate, you have the potential of the game's GPU load possibly affecting OBS's ability to perform GPU functions like scene compositing and potentially encoding. This comes down to windows and GPU prioritization, and is a problem even without gsync if you allow your GPU to run at maximum. There is a workaround in OBS 24.0.3 where you can run as administrator with game mode on, and it will attempt to add OBS to the priority list, but this has varying success depending on the hardware being used and the games in question.

The next is more of a windows specific issue. Windows 10 currently has issues dealing with multiple monitors operating at different framerates which are connected to the same GPU, running hardware accelerated programs on each. This has the potential of causing issues during capture, which is amplified when gsync is thrown in the mix.

The last is an underlying problem that will always exist when trying to capture variable framerate. If you're generating frames at non-standard times, then you can't be guaranteed that pulling 1 frame every 60th of a second will be displaying the right state. The only way around this would be to run at a sufficiently high framerate such that the difference between one frame and the next is nearly imperceptible when it's pulled down to 60fps.... and that kind of defeats one of the main purposes of gsync (namely being able to run at a relatively high framerate without having to always hit a minimum framerate). If you're pushing 160+ frames though, this is kind of a non-issue, but you would probably be better off running at a locked 120fps and getting a perfect 2:1 down-timing.

With all of that said, we've got no idea what you're actually experiencing without seeing a log of a recording session.

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

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