Question / Help [SOLVED] Lag when streaming (connection wise)

[ForeGoneGaming]

Hey there guys!

So I've recently switched from xsplit to OBS studio. I actually have to admit, that you guys did a great job with this one.

Though I've got a couple of problems with it. But first I'd like to start with my specs.

Log file: https://gist.github.com/ef255bdc465eae774bf6580b6907ea62
Specs: Ryzen 1800x @3.8 gHz, GTX 980, 16GB RAM
Internet connection: 35+ mbit down, 8+ mbit up, 20-35 ping (depends on location)
Game mostly played: PlanetSide 2 (where all of these problems happen most of the times)

Now, every now and then I get the "red square" at the bottom of OBS when streaming a game. This mostly happens when I am turning around in a shooter or something huge happens, like when there's a lot of movement on the screen.

I already tried lowering the bitrate (from 5000kbit to 3000kbit), but the problem still persists. Now I thought it might be because of packet loss, though I tried 4 sites for packet loss now and all of them (all over the world) stated, that there's no packet loss at all.

I already checked my CPU and GPU, which are actually fine and not over 90% usage and set the CPU-affinity in the task manager to 50/50, to test if there's something changing.

So I checked the logs of OBS what might be the issue and I saw that I am dropping frames (~5% to ~10%). Probably when a lot of movement is happening. I am having my own stream opened on the second screen to check all this and can see, that the screen is lagging for about a second (though sound is still going on). I also tried to switch locations from Frankfurt to Amsterdam (Twitch-servers).


The second problem I am having is, that when I start streaming I get this slight "stutter" when playing a game. I know, that the FPS should go down by about ~10-20 FPS when streaming, but that stutter keeps coming back every 1-2 seconds. It feels like it would "skip" one or two frames.


Thanks in advance for an answer. :)

 

[ForeGoneGaming]

Quick addition:
I also tested around with the presets (very fast to medium). Still no difference.

 

[cuongit]

There are more answers are helpful to you. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2634656/game-lag-xsplit-open-high-end-streaming.html

 

[ForeGoneGaming]

There are more answers are helpful to you. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2634656/game-lag-xsplit-open-high-end-streaming.html

None of the provided solutions work for me. Already tried all of that. Switching to a HW encoder is no option for me, since the Ryzen 1800x should be capable to handle all this on it's own with SW encoding... at least for older games like PlanetSide2.

 

[ForeGoneGaming]

The problem is solved!

For everyone who has issues with streaming: I'd recommend to update to the new version 20.1.3, which seems to have been released today! Completely fixed all my problems.

• Reverted x264 version to the previous stable build due to AVX512 optimizations causing stability issues on some system

This was probably the point, that fixed it for me. :)


Edit for the interested ones: I noted, that the bitrate that is stated in the lower right of the OBS studio window exceeded the regular bitrate i set up (for example: max bitrate settings were 3800 and when a lot of screen movement came it the bitrate in OBS jumped to 5000 to 6000). After I installed the update, this issue has gone.

 

[R1CH]

The problem was with your ISP, that update has no effect for you since the Ryzen can't do AVX512.

 

[ForeGoneGaming]

The problem was with your ISP, that update has no effect for you since the Ryzen can't do AVX512.

Well then, I wonder why it didn't work the whole time (tested several days on multiple servers, every time with dropped frames) and now it works perfectly fine, as soon as I updated the software.

Especially when every network check (both in general and made for twitch) told me that there was no packet loss or bad connection at all.

 

[ForeGoneGaming]

Hey there guys. Just a quick update. Someone might be interested in this one.

Before you read any further: I'd like to point out, that this post isn't meant to promote xsplit in any kind of way. OBS Studio is a really good software and if it works for you, you should keep using it


I apparently had some connection issues and bandwidth problems, as far as R1CH said. Every time i tried to stream 720p@60 fps at a bitrate of 3600+ it "lagged". The red square was showing on the lower part of OBS Studio every time I had a lot of movement on my screen. For whatever reason (i know, there's a buffer), the shown bitrate in the lower right corner exceeded my set bitrate by A LOT (about up to 4500).

I then tried to go for xsplit, because a bitrate of 3600 isn't a lot, if you're aiming for 720p@60. And... for whatever reason... xsplit seems to be able to manage even a bitrate of 6000+ without any problems. I hadn't had a single dropped frame, even though i tried both of the programs DIRECTLY after each other, where OBS Studio wasn't able to keep up.

Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of the OBS issue. I thought it wouldn't be necessary because of the upper post. But here you go with at least the bandwith tester of xsplit. I used it about 10 times now after my stream has finished and it hasn't caused any problems yet.

Again. This is not a post to discredit OBS Studio. Use it, if it works fine for you. This is just a simple post for those who might have the same problem as I do and for the developers, to maybe be able to keep an eye on it. Not saying, that the it is the devs fault, but there are often a couple of things you just might oversee.

Best regards.