Question / Help Stream looks choppy but I cant figure out why.

[Ribadiba123]

So my stream was running fine until a month ago but suddenly it started switching from a smooth 60 fps to a choppy like 30/40 fps feel. However, there is no fps drops according to the OBS. I run a dual stream pc setup with a capture card. I also fullscreen project my gamecapture / display capture (tried both) onto my capture card through a hdmi 2.0 cable. Due to cloning feeling a little delayed and also not fixing my issue ( and before it worked on fullscreen project so why not now? All my monitors are 144hz, 2 on gaming pc and 1 on stream pc. It seems to have something to do with the dual pc setup. Its not present on my gaming pc single pc setup when streaming.

Streaming Pc:

• I7 8700 (non k)
• 16 gb DDR4 Ram
• Gtx 970
• Samsung SSD
• Live Gamer 4K - GC573 (capture card)

Gaming Pc:

• 8700k
• 16 gb DDR4 Ram
• RTX 2070
• Samsung SSD

What I have tried:

• Reinstalling obs on both pc’s
• Using older obs versions
• Try a different capture card. 4k60 pro mk.2.
• Reinstalling windows on both pc’s
• Capping my framerate ingame.
• Try different settings on the capture card (144 hz, 240hz etc)
• Turn off the windows game setting.
• Removing any overclocks to my cpu and gpu’s
• try a bunch of obs settings (turning down bitrate, encoder settings, Cpu preset, high priority mode etc)
• Tried a different hdmi 2.0 cable.
• Reinstalling all my motherboard drivers etc. Same for gpu drivers.
• Using older capture card drivers
• Updated bios. (also tried older ones)
• Changing windows power mode and stuff.
• Tried using clone display but game the same issues
• I tried to see if the issue was present on a single pc stream (my gaming pc) and it was not present.
• Tried streaming single pc on streaming pc and it was present.
• Check if anything was overheating or even close to it and that was not the case.
• Checked if anything was getting close to 100% usage and nothing got anywhere close to that.

These are all the things I could name from the top of my head. I am pretty sure I have tried more but my brain is just washed rn. If you need any more info from me or have something I could try please tell me. I am out of options. I have posted a log at the bottom of the post. And a clip of what I am talking about (account is made for this issue not my main chanel)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/536680417 (look around in the start of the vod then around 26:04 that is a clear example. The log provided is the one from that vod!

Thanks in advance

 

[Ribadiba123]

Also tried the most recent versions of obs etc

 

[carlmmii]

I also fullscreen project my gamecapture / display capture (tried both) onto my capture card through a hdmi 2.0 cable

What exactly do you mean by this?

The log file you posted is from your streaming PC, correct? As you've already assessed, it's showing absolutely no issues with rendering/encoding, so whatever it's receiving from your capture card is being faithfully sent out to stream. So, if there's some issue with what's being sent out from your stream PC, that means the problem has to be upstream.

You've already gone through multiple modes of your capture card, so unless we rule everything else out, we can assume that's operating properly.

The real question is how you're sending your output video from your gaming computer to the capture card... and also, why aren't you just using the passthrough of the capture card?

 

[Ribadiba123]

What exactly do you mean by this?

The log file you posted is from your streaming PC, correct? As you've already assessed, it's showing absolutely no issues with rendering/encoding, so whatever it's receiving from your capture card is being faithfully sent out to stream. So, if there's some issue with what's being sent out from your stream PC, that means the problem has to be upstream.

You've already gone through multiple modes of your capture card, so unless we rule everything else out, we can assume that's operating properly.

The real question is how you're sending your output video from your gaming computer to the capture card... and also, why aren't you just using the passthrough of the capture card?

You mean why dont I clone my display? It used to work by projecting my screen onto the capture card and it also makes it so if I recieve emails it doesnt show up. Haha. I tried multiple capture cards aswell (elgato 4k60 mk2) didnt work either. So the problem should be in the gaming pc as you said wich makes sens. I didnt figure that one out tho.

 

[carlmmii]

No, as in, why don't you just use the passthrough of the capture card directly? No cloning or projecting involved.

If it's to prevent having the entire display captured for privacy concerns, that I can understand. With that said though, how exactly are you going about "projecting" your screen? Are you using OBS on your gaming PC? Or is it something else?

If you're using OBS on your gaming PC, then we need to see a log of that computer's OBS session to see what's going on -- and even though you aren't actually doing any recording during normal use, just do a test recording session while you're playing one of your games, just so we have the necessary information about how OBS is handling scene building.

 

[Ribadiba123]

Hey, I go about projecting my screen by opening obs on my GAMING pc and then clicking on "display capture" --> Fullscreen Projector (source) --> to whatever monitor my capture card is. The point is when I record or stream from my single gaming pc its smooth af. What I will try tomorrow is stream on my single pc and clone my display on the same pc at the same time and then make a log out of that. I have been trying to fix this issue for 10 hours straight and that is just today. Yikes. Thanks for all the help you have provided already tho.

 

[Ribadiba123]

No, as in, why don't you just use the passthrough of the capture card directly? No cloning or projecting involved.

If it's to prevent having the entire display captured for privacy concerns, that I can understand. With that said though, how exactly are you going about "projecting" your screen? Are you using OBS on your gaming PC? Or is it something else?

If you're using OBS on your gaming PC, then we need to see a log of that computer's OBS session to see what's going on -- and even though you aren't actually doing any recording during normal use, just do a test recording session while you're playing one of your games, just so we have the necessary information about how OBS is handling scene building.

Hey, I go about projecting my screen by opening obs on my GAMING pc and then clicking on "display capture" --> Fullscreen Projector (source) --> to whatever monitor my capture card is. The point is when I record or stream from my single gaming pc its smooth af. What I will try tomorrow is stream on my single pc and clone my display on the same pc at the same time and then make a log out of that. I have been trying to fix this issue for 10 hours straight and that is just today. Yikes. Thanks for all the help you have provided already tho.

 

[Ribadiba123]

So here is the log I made by streaming on my gaming pc. So what I did is I streamed on my gaming pc and still projected my gameplay to my capture card. To make it realistic. This is the log it made.

 

[Ribadiba123]

Hey, I go about projecting my screen by opening obs on my GAMING pc and then clicking on "display capture" --> Fullscreen Projector (source) --> to whatever monitor my capture card is. The point is when I record or stream from my single gaming pc its smooth af. What I will try tomorrow is stream on my single pc and clone my display on the same pc at the same time and then make a log out of that. I have been trying to fix this issue for 10 hours straight and that is just today. Yikes. Thanks for all the help you have provided already tho.

I narrowed it down to this. When I stream by cloning my display to my capture card my stream is smooth and runs perfect. BUT If i clone my display people can see everything on my screen like emails etc AND Alt tabbing takes like 20 seconds........ But this does mean it has to be my obs on my Game PC. Any idea?

 

[carlmmii]

Sounds like you're running into the issue where the preview just doesn't run at full framerate.

Honestly, since your gaming PC is having no issues either, your best option would probably be to use NDI to send your game capture over to your stream PC. It may seem like a waste taking the capture card out of things, but if you're needing to avoid a pure screen capture, this would be the way to go.

 

[Ribadiba123]

Sounds like you're running into the issue where the preview just doesn't run at full framerate.

Honestly, since your gaming PC is having no issues either, your best option would probably be to use NDI to send your game capture over to your stream PC. It may seem like a waste taking the capture card out of things, but if you're needing to avoid a pure screen capture, this would be the way to go.

Hey, But what if I wanted to use cloning instead. Cuz I could deal with my stream being able to see everything but what i cant deal with is the insane alt tabbing times that come with cloning display. Is there a fix for this. It takes like 5-10 secs to alt tab.

 

[carlmmii]

What are you actually referring to when you say "cloning"? That to me means going to the nvidia control panel, and setting the output of the two screens to be identical. That doesn't match up with the issues you're talking about though.

 

[Ribadiba123]

What are you actually referring to when you say "cloning"? That to me means going to the nvidia control panel, and setting the output of the two screens to be identical. That doesn't match up with the issues you're talking about though.

Yes I am talking about cloning the display in the nvidia control panel. This does fix my issue BUT I cant normally alt tab and ill just be a little carefull of what i show. But I also cant use the direct passthrough because my 144hz monitor doest have hdmi 2.0. It uses DP.