Question / Help Strange OBS capture lag (only on OBS, not game)

vulcanspirit

New Member
Hello everyone,

My issue has started only recently with OBS and is mainly regarding Total War: Warhammer. Basically what happens is my game is running at 60fps but OBS is capturing at about 23 - 30 fps and is visibly choppy. This is both before and after I've started recording. After pressing record my fps is fine in game, but when I run the footage, it shows the lag captured by OBS.

I've tried game capture, window capture and display capture all to the same effect. I've ran the game in both windowed and full screen. I've also tried deleting all scenes and starting from scratch.

The strangest thing is that when I'm clicked off the game and it's still running in windowed fullscreen, the fps on OBS goes up and matches the game. As soon as I click back into the window, it dramatically drops again.

Any ideas?

Wasn't sure a log would help too much but here it is anyway: https://gist.github.com/68067dca4fde974776b30c10caa99362

Thanks in advance!

Here's an example in pictures (I don't usualy run Fraps whilst using OBS, just did in this case for fps counter):

71a73024cb5988f6c238d3e9aaee19d0.png
41d1d62deb5ac261c9e63c95b380c678.png
 

Boildown

Active Member
Do a five minute or longer test using the best settings you've been able to determine on your own, from high action gameplay (not just standing around), from actual streaming or recording, not just preview mode, and post the OBS log file from that.

Also make sure any Windows 10 Game Mode is turned off.
 

vulcanspirit

New Member
Do a five minute or longer test using the best settings you've been able to determine on your own, from high action gameplay (not just standing around), from actual streaming or recording, not just preview mode, and post the OBS log file from that.

Also make sure any Windows 10 Game Mode is turned off.

Here is the log after doing what you requested: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/35ead10e90661f7de0c45571012845e9

I noticed the 54% lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls. I'm assuming that is the problem but I am unsure of the cause.
 
There are 2 cases you may be having

1) You have Game Mode enabled on Windows 10 which interferes with OBS
2) You're maxing out the video card in the game which leaves no room for OBS to use

I dunno if Total War: Warhammer has an option to cap the framerate but if it isn't, use Vsync and reduce some settings to reduce GPU load. Game Mode is under Windows 10 settings on the section called Gaming.
 

vulcanspirit

New Member
There are 2 cases you may be having

1) You have Game Mode enabled on Windows 10 which interferes with OBS
2) You're maxing out the video card in the game which leaves no room for OBS to use

I dunno if Total War: Warhammer has an option to cap the framerate but if it isn't, use Vsync and reduce some settings to reduce GPU load. Game Mode is under Windows 10 settings on the section called Gaming.

I have had Game Mode turned off for a while but I'll have a look into GPU usage. The game itself is having optimization problems since the latest dlc.

Also, not sure if it makes that much of a difference but even if I don't use NVENC I still get the same issues.

Edit: Is there maybe a way to use only cpu based capture with obs?
 
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I have had Game Mode turned off for a while but I'll have a look into GPU usage. The game itself is having optimization problems since the latest dlc.

Also, not sure if it makes that much of a difference but even if I don't use NVENC I still get the same issues.

Edit: Is there maybe a way to use only cpu based capture with obs?
Did you try disabling the preview to see if fps changes in obs? right-click on the preview video screen
x264 is just cpu / like boil make sure vsync is enabled as well for the game as well
 

vulcanspirit

New Member
VSync On or Off?

The VSync caps at 60 fps, and I get about 54 fps when I'm playing on Ultra settings with 4x AA. Considering this, you are telling me that I have to play on low settings with a GTX 1080 in order to get 60 fps recording with OBS (with VSync capping)?

Yet with Fraps I can play on Ultra and record at least 40 fps (on obs it's like mid 20s, as shown in example pictures)?

Did you try disabling the preview to see if fps changes in obs?

Helped recover a few fps but nothing substantial.

I never had issues like this before. Seems to be a recent thing, and also appears to happen in some other games on occasion. The latest update increase GPU usage of OBS or something?
 
The VSync caps at 60 fps, and I get about 54 fps when I'm playing on Ultra settings with 4x AA. Considering this, you are telling me that I have to play on low settings with a GTX 1080 in order to get 60 fps recording with OBS (with VSync capping)?

Yet with Fraps I can play on Ultra and record at least 40 fps (on obs it's like mid 20s, as shown in example pictures)?



Helped recover a few fps but nothing substantial.

I never had issues like this before. Seems to be a recent thing, and also appears to happen in some other games on occasion. The latest update increase GPU usage of OBS or something?
vsync on games suggestion is so obs doesn't mess up, sometimes uncapped fps lags obs capture

Go extreme, uninstall current version and try older obs studio versions: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/releases
Also does running obs x86 make any difference?
 
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