Question / Help Super choppy/laggy Recording, game runs perfect

[CapoFantasma97]

Hello there.

Log: https://obsproject.com/logs/F76FUVjX7Z9bJgMC
I've attempted to solve this in a variety of ways without ever getting a change in anything. The log contains various recording with few changes in settings that did nothing to help.

Settings:
Format: mkv (tried flv) (tried converting files to mp4 with obs, no changes)
NVENC (new)
rate_control: CQP
cqp: 18
inverval: 0 (automatic)
preset: quality
profile: high
no look ahead
Psycho optimization enabled (tried disabled)
B-frames: 2

audio: 44.1 khz

video: 1920x1080 (native)
filter: bilinear
fps: 30

rendering: d3d11
color format: NV12
color space: 709
color gamma: partial

scene: fullscreen game (default) (tried with fast setting as well)


Being a gaming laptop with 2 graphics card, I also tried QuickSync, which captures successfully while still using the NVidia GPU for rendering the game, resulting in even less performance hit (10-15 fps drop vs virtually no drop) but is equally choppy as well.

I am out of ideas, I don't know what's going on. Please help.

 

[Narcogen]

What are you playing back your recordings with? Because this log shows very few dropped frames.

12:34:05.854: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1 (0.1%)
12:34:05.854: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 1/1279 (0.1%)

 

[CapoFantasma97]

What are you playing back your recordings with? Because this log shows very few dropped frames.

12:34:05.854: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1 (0.1%)
12:34:05.854: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 1/1279 (0.1%)

I tried VLC, Windows Media Player and the Windows 10 Video app.

 

[Narcogen]

Do the recordings created in the test runs in this log display the frame drops? Because they're all pretty short, but none show any significant frame drops, which would make me think game performance is affected, but you say it isn't, so I'm not sure where the stutter is coming from if it is also not from playback.

 

[CapoFantasma97]

Do the recordings created in the test runs in this log display the frame drops? Because they're all pretty short, but none show any significant frame drops, which would make me think game performance is affected, but you say it isn't, so I'm not sure where the stutter is coming from if it is also not from playback.

As a complete layman, maybe it's something regarding the rendering of the recording?
Here's another fresh log https://obsproject.com/logs/_IVsV-8FzW7UVj8C
I also tried recording to mp4 this time

 

[CapoFantasma97]

Further testing:
Streamlabs OBS produces equally choppy and laggy recordings.
NVidia GeForce's own recording system instead produces very smooth recordings.

Isn't OBS's NVENC powered by the same system of GeForce's built in recording software?

 

[CapoFantasma97]

I solved by launching OBS in Administrator Mode...

... I'm not sure how it would even make sense but it just works.

Log: https://obsproject.com/logs/UmRT2_csme1Xa-Bl

 

[Narcogen]

Running OBS in administrator mode can guarantee it gets system resources. It is necessary when using game capture on an application that is also running as admin.

Dedicated screen recorders like ShadowPlay and RECentral work differently and consume less resources, but they are unable to do the compositing and switching that are the reason OBS exists.

OBS can use the hardware encoder in Nvidia cards. There is no other connection to GeForce software, other than the drivers and the libraries for the encoder.