Question / Help [SOLVED] Enabling webcam makes the game choppy even if not streaming/recording

[ShermanZero]

Hey all,

So over the past week, I've noticed a problem I've started having whenever I try and play a game. When I enable my webcam, my game performance suffers greatly. The frames supposedly stay at around 300, but its refresh rate feels like 60. I have a pretty beefy computer, and don't see why I'm suddenly running into issues, when I don't recall having them before. I've spent the past week and many hours scouring forums for a solution to this problem, and I've tried just about every recommendation I've found. These include:

- Clean install of Windows 10
- Clean install of graphics drivers
- Clean install of webcam drivers
- Older install of OBS 21.0.X
- Running OBS/games in administrator mode
- Disabling Game DVR through regedit
- Setting process priority and affinity of OBS
- Setting Windows to High Performance
- Lowering webcam resolution/adjusting exposure/gain
- Using NVENC encoder in OBS
- Switching USB ports used by the webcam
- Overclocking the CPU/GPU
- Manually setting game settings in NVIDIA Control Panel
- Using a capture card

And probably some others I'm not immediately remembering. Here are my specs:

Windows 10 64bit
Intel Core i7-8700k (OC'd to 5Ghz)
16GB DDR4 4133Mhz Memory
GeForce GTX 1080Ti
Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD

I use four monitors, but my primary display is the ASUS PG248Q 180Hz. It's connected with DisplayPort, and two of the other monitors use HDMI, and my last one uses DVI. I have checked my OBS logs for any sign of "using memory capture", and have not found any. I'm at a complete loss for what could be suddenly causing me trouble, and it doesn't matter what game I'm running. I have the same issue in Overwatch, Fortnite, CS:GO, and a plethora of other games I've tested. In Task Manager, the GPU and CPU easily stay below 80% at all times. Does anybody have any clue what might be going on, or any other suggestions on what I might be able to do?

 

[vapeahoy]

consider getting a capture card and normal camera instead with hdmi out. black magic cards are good.
What webcam is it?

 

[ShermanZero]

consider getting a capture card and normal camera instead with hdmi out. black magic cards are good.
What webcam is it?

I use a Logitech c920. I'll try using a capture card and see if that makes a difference. Since I already use some Elgato peripherals, I'll try them first.

 

[ShermanZero]

Using a capture card makes no difference for me.

 

[vapeahoy]

is your pci-e bus overclocked?

 

[Deleted member 121471]

Could you post the following:

1) OBS log file of a streaming or recording session, preferably stressing your system as much as you can;
2) Refresh rates and resolutions of every single monitor connected;
3) Are you running all games with uncapped FPS?

Depending on how you're tracking it, CPU load figures can be useless since most tools I've tried show the average load across all cores, which means you can still have some cores hitting 100% load.

Lastly, since it's a sudden issue, have you checked if your voltages and temperatures are within specification, given the fact you are overclocking?

 

[ShermanZero]

Could you post the following:

1) OBS log file of a streaming or recording session, preferably stressing your system as much as you can;
2) Refresh rates and resolutions of every single monitor connected;
3) Are you running all games with uncapped FPS?

Depending on how you're tracking it, CPU load figures can be useless since most tools I've tried show the average load across all cores, which means you can still have some cores hitting 100% load.

Lastly, since it's a sudden issue, have you checked if your voltages and temperatures are within specification, given the fact you are overclocking?

1) I've attached my log below. Today I tried to stream, and I didn't even turn my webcam on, and it was unbelievably choppy. I have no idea what's going on with it since it has always been perfectly fine in the past. OBS indicated it was using 8% of my CPU, and Process Lasso showed all cores and memory at a low load.

2) All my monitors are 1920x1080, my primary is 180Hz but I have it set to refresh at 144. My other three are all 60Hz monitors.

3) I've done both capped and uncapped. I'm currently capping at 144.

I haven't seen any problems with my temps, but I did revert my overclocking yesterday temporarily to see if that was causing the issue, and it wasn't. Current voltage is +1.3, and temps stay below 80c. I have a watercooler hooked up to my CPU to keep it running cool.

Here's another head-scratcher. I played for a little bit today and tried recording it (without the webcam), and my frames were smooth. Then, as I've already stated, when I tried to stream a few hours later, it was completely unplayable. I should probably mention that my up/down speeds average 100/11mb. It's so frustrating. I used to play and stream a lot of Overwatch, and my CPU Usage preset in OBS could be set to fast and I wouldn't see any performance issues. Now, I use veryfast, and can barely get through a game. I've wondered if my performance issues are coming from having so many apps open at the same time... my typical setup looks like:

- OBS
- Voicemeeter & Macro Buttons
- Discord
- Spotify
- Ground Control (StreamElements)
- Restream Chat
- Chatty (lightweight Java client)
- StreamSAK (lightweight Java client I developed)
- Rainmeter
- Game

But I've noticed that even with only Discord open, I still have the same issue, so I don't initially think that's the problem.

 

[vapeahoy]

22:22:36.709: Output 'adv_stream': Number of dropped frames due to insufficient bandwidth/connection stalls: 1088 (10.6%)
Maybe try without restream? You may have more then 1 issue here.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

First, I recommend trying a clean scene with only game capture source and no additional programs running besides voicemeter to confirm if it's a problem with current OBS configuration and additional programs.

Try the following:

1) When running multiple monitors running different refresh rates, I noticed that if they aren't multiples of each other, you end up with a stuttering mess. Try 120Hz on primary, 60Hz on secondaries;

2) Your GPU is being slightly overloaded. You have 2 options, turn VSYNC on or cap your frame rate at 120FPS either ingame or using rivatuner;

3) Since you're using a 10x0 series NVIDIA GPU, NVENC is pretty close in quality to x264 "very fast", I recommend using it instead of x264. If you want to use a slower x264 preset than "very fast", ignore this.

4) In one of the sessions, you had bandwidth issues but on the other you did not. Not sure if it was a temporary issue but keep an eye on it. You can press View--->Stats in the main OBS window to pop up a window with very useful information on what might be causing an issue while live streaming/recording;

5) Could you check your game capture source properties and see if SLI/Crossfire capture mode needs to be turned off?


As for programs, the only ones I have personally found to be problematic, at times, were certain java programs and mouse/keyboard software (damn you, corsair engine >:( )

 

[ShermanZero]

First, I recommend trying a clean scene with only game capture source and no additional programs running besides voicemeter to confirm if it's a problem with current OBS configuration and additional programs.

Try the following:

1) When running multiple monitors running different refresh rates, I noticed that if they aren't multiples of each other, you end up with a stuttering mess. Try 120Hz on primary, 60Hz on secondaries;

2) Your GPU is being slightly overloaded. You have 2 options, turn VSYNC on or cap your frame rate at 120FPS either ingame or using rivatuner;

3) Since you're using a 10x0 series NVIDIA GPU, NVENC is pretty close in quality to x264 "very fast", I recommend using it instead of x264. If you want to use a slower x264 preset than "very fast", ignore this.

4) In one of the sessions, you had bandwidth issues but on the other you did not. Not sure if it was a temporary issue but keep an eye on it. You can press View--->Stats in the main OBS window to pop up a window with very useful information on what might be causing an issue while live streaming/recording;

5) Could you check your game capture source properties and see if SLI/Crossfire capture mode needs to be turned off?


As for programs, the only ones I have personally found to be problematic, at times, were certain java programs and mouse/keyboard software (damn you, corsair engine >:( )

1) Okay, I set my refresh rate to 120. Wouldn't 180 still be okay though since it's a multiple of 60?

2) I definitely don't want to use VSYNC because of the huge input delay that comes with it, so I capped at 120.

3) I changed the encoder to NVENC.

4) My internet has a tendency to drop occasionally, so that's probably what you saw.

5) SLI was turned off. I don't use multiple graphics cards, although maybe I should.

So I did some quick testing, and I found that when I created a new Scene Collection with just my webcam and Game Capture, it was smooth. But then I switched over to my main Scene Collection, and it became choppy again. So, I hid every source except for the Game Capture, and it was still choppy. Does OBS still use resources to render in scenes even if they're hidden? And if so, I'm not sure what I could do to make the scenes less resource consuming. I use a couple browser sources for animated gifs I wrote some HTML for to put them on a delayed loop, but I could turn those into images from OBS. Other than that, I have mostly static images for aesthetics.

-----UPDATE: So here's something interesting. I was continuing to test, and I decided to completely remove my Video Capture Device (webcam), even though I had it disabled/hidden. I immediately noticed better performance, and was able to reapply my 180Hz settings with no problems. I downloaded GPU-Z as well, and kept an eye on the GPU Load. It consistently stayed below 40% with or without the webcam. I noticed when I switched to my Stream Starting scene, and tried to play the game, it became noticeably choppy again, but I expected that since I have media playing during that time. I also use a screen capture in some of my scenes (Webcam, Handcam, Stream Starting, Stream Ending) to capture a little corner of one of my monitors which has a visualizer displayed. I'm beginning to wonder if that may also be causing issues, although it still baffles me why I'm having this problem now when I wasn't before.

-----UPDATE: I just finished some more testing and tweaking. I downloaded Driver Booster and it turns out that I had 17 drivers that were out of date, although none appeared to be directly related to my webcam or other peripherals. However, I updated them, and tried adding my webcam back into my scene. Everything is still smooth, so the next step is for me to try my visualizer, but I'm just happy that it appears that I'll at least be able to have my webcam on my stream, if not my fancy visualizer flair. Moral of the story so far: even if you think you've updated every driver you possibly can, download a tool that will scan and update for you. I'm not sure if that was my issue or not, but it is starting to look more promising than it was.

TL;DR: Update your drivers. Even if you think you've updated all your necessary drivers, I still recommend downloading a third-party application such as Driver Booster to double check and catch all the ones you wouldn't immediately think of.

 

[vapeahoy]

Yeah covering your basics is kinda a given here. Happy it worked out for you.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

17 out of date drivers o.O that's a first.

Glad you could sort it out :D