You have a cbr target bitrate of 25.000 kbps on a non-nvenc intel graphics hardware? :o ... At the end of July you're told already to avoid unrealistic bitrate and quality settings...
I have not been using VBR or CBR for several months now, rather CQP. So the 25,000 bitrate is not a factor these days.
You go down and up with resolution, run as admin and return to non-admin mode,
I'll explain why I do that:
First, it seems that while I run OBS as an admin , OBS "highjacks" the computer and does not let me interact with non-chosen-window programs I have running in the background. 'Why would it matter?' you ask? Well... I use a program called "XIM Link" to play on my Playstation consoles (mainly PS3) with non-playstation peripherals, such as mouse, keyboard and nunchuks (essentially Imagine the "XIM Link" program running, with the PC connected to the Console via a special cable) .
For the occasion of using a mouse I have intentionally left out a button on my mouse and made it wholly dedicated to the action of switching between gameplay on the console and regular PC use ( such as momentarily answering chats or adjusting settings).
if I let OBS highjack my setup by going admin, I cannot insta-switch between Console and PC. Instead, I will have to let go of the console-mouse , switch to a different PC-connected mouse / touch controls, choose the XIM Link window as my active window and ONLY THEN will the program register my input and switch the console-mouse to PC.
Such accommodation is not workable.
Second, I feel as if adim mode has worse performance. There is significant stutter and tearing on screen when doing 2560X720 30fps (CQP,
no extra sampling or scaling enabled)
qhobbes gave alot of hints and input to you.... qhobbes asked you to start with a fresh clean empty scene collection (without replay-buffering).We asked for logs containing recording sessions.... we haven't seen any since then.
Make no mistake. I'm not ungrateful for qhobbes' help. In fact, I have a "Tiger" from Winnie the pooh shrine dedicated to him in my parents' house; for putting up with me.
The reason why did not come back is because - perhaps out of frustration - I had decided to strike out on my own then.
And I made disturbing discoveries.
First, it would seem as though qhobbes never asked me to change my Battery Status to "better performance".
Second, Did you know that checking your update setting on Windows 10 and seeing you're up to date does not mean you necessarily have the latest Graphics drivers installed?
Furthermore, did you know that going to "device manager" and seeing "there are no new drivers for your graphics card" does not mean there are no new drivers?
They certainly did not teach us that in school.
So I went to Intel's website , downloaded some app , installed the latest graphics driver, made sure I was on better performance and voila! As I recall I was so satisfied with the results I saw no reason to contact the fourm with any logs or questions. Gone were the 1 frames per second ; Hello stable thirty!
Alas, it was not to last.
Evil had bobbed its' head yet again.
Slowly, I began to notice inconsistencies. I attributed them to perhaps me being more experimental with the resolutions, like 2592x720 , or 2872x720. The further I went , the more inconsistent it got. These weren't only dropped frames, sometimes it it was the audio that got distorted/delayed. Sometimes only a few beginning frames or/and last few frames of a clip would exhibit dropped frames, while other frames were stable.
Today my CPU usage got to the 30's% (on 2560x720, 30 fps). I have not seen such numbers since first trying OBS' default settings when I first got the computers. What's more , when I opened up Task Manger my CPU usage showed 20%. Both 30% and 20% literally showed side by side !
Your surface cam delivers at 30, the elgato at 59.94, which is bad too.
Did you tried completely without the built-in surface camera?
I have a GoPro Hero 3+ Black as well. I can connect it to OBS via an adapter (called the 'Elgato Cam Link 4k') , but I can't attest to it netting me consistent frame rate either.
To be clear: I have in my possession clips depicting - at least to my naked, un-trained eye - stable frame rates. We are talking about scenes of 2560x720|30fps&combos|2 sources , even 2592x720|30fps&24fps combos|extra browser sources.
It just the inconsistency that is killing me...
Why in the world would CPU usage fluctuate between ~ -10% and +30% ? Why would frame rate be stable one time , while all-over-the-place another (same scene; different sessions)?