Question / Help stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only 1

[Moskibear]

I recently have tried to get into streaming for a few friends, but I have ran into the issue where my stream always shows very choppy if I have both my monitors enabled, one I use for the gaming, the other I intend to read chat on. When I enable the second monitor to read chat on, my stream starts to lag and stutter non-stop, no matter what settings I seem to use, I have tried nearly everything and I only found out today that my second monitor seems to be the culprit while livestreaming.

Is my system simply not good enough to stream with two monitors, or is there something else I may have missed? I constantly have checked if I have put my settings too high (I may have put my bitrate a bit too high, as it is 2500 instead of 2000, but none of that seemed to make a difference either so far)

I did my latest tests with Spelunky, a game I plan on playing quite a bit. The previous game I had played was Outlast and my recordings are on twitch, (example: http://www.twitch.tv/moskibear/c/3551377 ) . Those recordings look perfectly fine considering my settings, and the issue only occurs when livestreaming with the second monitor enabled.

My pc setup is:
Windows 7 64 bit
i7 2600k 3,40 Ghz
AMD Radeon HD 7970
8 gigs ram

It is not a top of the line rig, (2nd gen if I am correct, I do not own a sandy/ivy bridge) according to the OBS estimator I should be fine using 720 on 60 or 30 fps (I tried both options, 30 does not alleviate my problem, 60 actually does look better)

I hope the post and log have sufficient information. Many thanks in advance for answers.

best regards,
Moski

 

[Moskibear]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

I still have not found a solution yet, just figured out a way to be able to see chat with one monitor active so I can still interact, it is not perfect but for a workaround it is not too bad. Anyone that knows what may be going on?

 

[Lain]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

Where do you plug the second monitor into? I've only heard of this thing in the past when there's two different adapters involved. If plugging both into the same adapter, there really shouldn't be any issue. If there is I can only theorize, but I have the same model range of card (7900 series) as you do and I never particularly encountered any issue with it.

 

[Moskibear]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

thank you for the response!

I plug the second monitor into the HDMI slot of the same graphics card, my pc monitor is plugged in with analog, the other monitor with HDMI. Perhaps this is the issue? My Sapphire amd radeon HD 7970 only has one HDMI slot as far as I am aware, if I am terribly wrong I probably have to disconnect my pc sometime soon and take a good look at it.

When I did run some tests on the single monitor, I noticed the stutter is actually still present, but not nearly as much, so I am not even sure if *that* works fine. Can it be simply that watching my own stream is simply not a good idea and I should be fine if I just close it down?

best regards, and thanks in advance!

 

[Lain]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

No, I have a sapphire 7950 and I've never seen that issue happen. Could you check to see if the issue happens if you right click the preview and disable it?

 

[Moskibear]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

you mean disable the preview screen? I already tried that as well. I am not sure what else I can indicate that may be working against me, I do leave both my virus scanners on, which is AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials. Previously I did not have Microsoft Security Essentials and only AVG, and I had the same problem. I am at wit's end on what I could be doing wrong. I have around 6 MB upload so my speed has not been an issue either, It also never indicates I am dropping frames.

 

[Lain]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

It shouldn't be related to antivirus at all. It feels like a potential video card thing. Do you have the latest video drivers?

 

[Moskibear]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

I am using the Catalyst drivers version 13.12 , I am not 100% sure if they are the latest, I updated last month so in AMD norms it is quite recent, I'll take a further look at it.

 

[Lain]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

I'm not entirely sure what's going on unfortunately. I use two monitors myself and have almost the same exact model of card by the same manufacturer, so I'm really confused. I plug on into DVI and one into HDMI and have never had an issue

 

[Moskibear]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

thanks for the response, I still havent resolved it, but will keep experimenting.

 

[Lain]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

If you do figure out a workaround, or figure out what's going on, please let me know

 

[mattsenzo]

Re: stutter while streaming with 2 monitors, fine with only

Are you using a windowed game with the Aero border on?

When I play minecraft or War Thunder in a window with Aero on the stream will studder. If I turn it to a basic theme (one of the flat ones at the bottom of your Personalization) the stuttering stops.

Not sure if this is a bug with windows or OBS but when capturing another window if I cover it with something else I'll see the "top" window overlaping even if I have OBS capturing the "bottom" window. i.e. capturing TeamSpeak and move Chrome over TS I'll see chrome in the TeamSpeak source on the stream.