Question / Help Strange inconsistent stutters during intense gameplay?

[kanthos]

I've had some weird inconsistencies for a while now. But especially the last few days it has been pretty bad. During my Overwatch stream every time I got into a gunfight the game started stuttering pretty badly, but ONLY on stream. I uploaded a test recording to youtube I'll link down below and you should be able to see my FPS counter stay comfortably at 60 fps even during those moments, but the stream starts stuttering quite badly. I have tried quite a lot of things so far. Reinstalling OBS Studio, making a whole new set of scenes with ONLY the game being recorded and flipping on and off all the settings for game capture. I tried window capture (fixed some issues in Dark Souls 3 for me) and even monitor capture but nothing changes the stutters.

I'm not sure if it's related but my OBS studio preview window has been pretty laggy lately as well, and completely unreliable in monitoring the video quality of my broadcast. My preview stutters more than the actual live broadcast.

Log link: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e6a49df40d288f6e2f5a8af28bfbfece

YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/a2C5zS8Ipp8

PC Specs:
Intel Core i7 3770k
NVIDIA GeForce 770 GTX
16 gb RAM

 

[Joe33345]

15:05:17.762: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 620 (7.4%)

Your "Fast" Preset I believe is the problem here. Overwatch might be using too much CPU for your computer to be able to handle broadcasting and playing at the same time so OBS drops frames. I would try setting your CPU Preset to Faster or Very Fast. Then it should be okay. :-)

JoeNumb3rs

 

[kanthos]

I actually haven't tried doing that yet because I've been monitoring my CPU usage and it never went above 85% total usage in windows. And previously I streamed the game with a i7 2660k with the same preset and had no issues so I didn't think I'd have to lower it. But I'll try and see what results I get. Thanks!

 

[Joe33345]

The problem here may not necessarily be the processor but the operating system. I've always found Windows 10 to utilize more processing power for no reason due to 'system and compressed memory' using processing power in the background when OBS Studio is open. So the adjustment should fix it for ya :D

 

[kanthos]

I turned the setting down now and tried another full match just to see and there's definitely less frequent stuttering but it's still there. Thing is, when the game was still in closed beta I streamed with the same settings as I had before (fast preset, also highest ingame settings) with no problems. Now I have the random stutters. I've been using Windows 10 since it's release and sure it's probably part of the problem, it wasn't a problem until recently. I'm just really considering going back to Win 7 again at this point but that's a lot of extra work I would like to avoid if necessary.

Second test log: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/2e470c6a8ecf813a9956a48538f74972

 

[Joe33345]

17:20:07.563: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 710 (3.9%)

It is better. It went from 7.4% average to 3.9%.

You sure there's nothing else in the background that could be utilizing your processor more than you realize? Might wanna check task manager for anything out of the ordinary.