Question / Help STRONG DESKTOP BUT CHOPPY VISUAL

[ReyRoc]

Hi, I have a Mac Desktop, see specs below:

And am running, the 19.0 version of OBS and my issue is the quality of the video is laggy/choppy. I have a HD c920 webcam, I have adequate lighting, my camera settings are in place and I'm using Ethernet not wifi. I stream to Periscope.tv for my music shows using green screen effect. I did notice on Activity Monitor that OBS was utilizing a whopping 296.1 CPU%. I always close everything down on my computer when I stream to try and have a smoother stream. I mean it's choppy/laggy BEFORE I start streaming. I've tried playing with the settings on OBS but to no avail. I'm hoping someone here can help me out. Thank you.

 

[Narcogen]

No reason to be running OBS 19.x on MacOS 10.10; you can use 20.x which is the latest.

Can't possibly diagnose your performance issue without a complete log including a stream attempt.

 

[ReyRoc]

Hi Narcogen, thanks for the reply. I wasn't aware there was a new version out. Upgraded to it immediately. I'm not the savvy mac guy so I'll need you to explain in lament terms what do you mean "a complete log"? Also, I've changed computers to a stronger MacPro but still choppy visual. I've notice the CPU% when VTDecoderXPCService kicks in with the HD Webcam it's very high as is OBS. See below.

 

[Narcogen]

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/include-a-log-file-if-you-have-a-problem-heres-how.16571/

 

[ReyRoc]

https://gist.github.com/54d91d829d25d0422d2e02f05f516b1e (Last log file)
https://gist.github.com/89cc041142eade02c93ba10deefb4b59 (current log file)

next steps?

 

[Narcogen]

20:34:02.857: Output 'simple_stream': Total frames output: 1228
20:34:02.857: Output 'simple_stream': Total drawn frames: 737 (1500 attempted)
20:34:02.857: Output 'simple_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 763 (50.9%)

Your computer cannot draw frames fast enough to meet the settings you've put in.

Your video bitrate is really, really low (1200 in some places, 900 in others) so you're asking OBS to crunch those frames down to a very small size, and it is unable to do it in the time allotted.

You're also using the CPU preset "veryfast" which is two notches down from the top (the highest value is ultrafast, followed by superfast).

So basically you want every frame to be very small, but you also want the CPU to spend a fair amount of time to make each frame look good, and it can't do it before the next frame needs to be compressed-- you are losing half your frames.

You need to either increase the bitrate, increase the CPU preset a step or two, or both. Experiment with some values for those two settings until you find something you're happy with that doesn't cause lag.