Question / Help stutter in retro game capture with El Gato HD60 Pro in OBS stream and preview

[bovined]

Hello been fighting with an issue for a while now and believe I have exhausted all I know and configured so many settings I am at a loss. I have noticed in my retro game capture streams there is a very slight stutter every few seconds in the majority of all of my upscaled 1080p game capture footage. All of my consoles are upscaled to 1080p and then sent via HDMI to an elgato HD60 Pro PCI card. All side scrolling games appear to stutter every few seconds when in motion and I wanted to see if there were any settings within OBS that might correct it.

Here is a video of the stutter:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

and here are my logs:

https://obsproject.com/logs/bEcPAX1tb7S2DFBM

Thanks for any help that anyone can provide!

 

[bovined]

I have been testing with additional hardware and software and seemed to have narrowed it down to a framerate issue. I saw the same issue with my avermedia GC550 capture device as well in OBS studio however If I open the Avermedia REcentral4 stream/recording software I see that it correctly auto detects the framerate coming out of the frameister as 59.94 fps and the scrolling is smooth with no stutter.

I tried to set the same 59.94 fps setting in the game capture source in OBS as well as the vidoe settings using both common FPS values a fractional value to get 59.94 but I STILL see the stutter in OBS studio preview and streams.

The thing that really confused me is that I tried to record a capture of the REcentral4 software but it STILL shows the stutter in OBS. Any ideas as to why OBS studio seems to be the only endpoint that stutters in this situation?

 

[Narcogen]

01:04:42.161: Windows Version: 10.0 Build 14393 (revision: 3274; 64-bit)

Windows is VERY out of date. If you're going to keep updating OBS, you may want to keep Windows current also.

 

[bovined]

I am using a LTSB since I dont need windows features. It updates all security fixes and patches. I will test with a vanilla 19H2 release to make sure the issue is still present.

 

[deFrisselle]

Have you tried 30FPS
Those retro machines were made to display on old CRT that did 24-30FPS So if the upscaler is outputting 1080p60 it is makeing up every other frame Basically copying frames 112233445566 from 123456 That's were the stutter comes from, it gets out of sync every few seconds

 

[bovined]

thanks deFrisselle. It does seem that dropping the capture cards to 30fps masks or does not show the stutter but the problem is that it then appears choppy since most of the retro consoles have a native output of near 60fps such as 59.73, 59.84, 60.08 etc. What I dont understand is why other capture softare can accomodate these slightly out of spec framerates and show no stutter but when I get it into OBS studio I then see the stutter.

 

[deFrisselle]

Have you tried setting OBS to 59.94 in the common FPS menu You could also try fractional
What upscaler are you using
Also what Systems are you streaming

 

[bovined]

Yes I set OBS to 59.94 in the common values and also set fractional fps based on whatever consoles FPS value I am seeing as reported from the framemeister. I also tested an OSSC that reported the same FPS input values as the framemeister but the stutter is still there. Its almost as if the fps value I set in OBS doesnt seem to be changing anything.

For the Frameisterit has a function to either allow the incoming FPS value to output the same way or normalize it out to 60. I tried both to send the fps value through to OBS as is with the non standard rate and selecting the same rate in PBS studio but this seems to produce more if not the same stutter.

When I select to normalize the fps to 60 and then match it in OBS studio the stutter is about once ever 7-8 seconds as shown in the video above so I am not sure what to make of it.

I stream every old retro console from ColecoVision, NES, Genesis,TurboGrafx16, Neo Geo,etc.

 

[bovined]

Here is a stream where I did some more testing to try and sort things out:

Twitch

Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers.

www.twitch.tv

Timestamps: 0mins: Gameboy Advance games through Gamecube with component cables using GBI software at 240p upscaled to 1080p at 59.73 fps normalized to 60 withFrameister

10mins: switch to TurboGrafx at 59.82fps and OBS studio at 60fps with 240p test suite with screenscroll

47mins: another streamer helping out verifying results on SNES using Amarec that shows matching FPS but also stutter through OBS studio

1hour: SNES RGB through Frameister reported at 60.08 fps and normalized out at 60 from frameeister this seems to produce the least sutter(?) not sure

1h6min: Genesis RGB reported as 59.91 fps

1h25mins: Back to GB games at 59.73 with lots of stutter