Question / Help Turn Off Game Mode (Windows 10 1809 Update)

[DEDRICK]

Don't need help, just dropping info.

TL:DR, Turn off Game Mode.

Windows 10 1809 re-enabled Game Mode but gives the user an option to disable it finally. I was curious about it and quite frankly I was astounded how much of an impact it has on OBS performance.

Simple test, all I did was turn Game Mode on, then off, restarting both OBS and PUBG each time then clicking record.

2700x, 1080ti, 1440p 60HZ

OBS - x264

PUBG - Un-capped FPS, 2560x1440 + 120% Screen Scale
Task Manager - 99% GPU usage

Game Mode On

Average time to render frame 18-33ms, resulting in below 30FPS output.

Game Mode Off

Average time to render frame 1.0ms, game mode increases rendering time substantially.

Note. The logs don't show if someone has disabled Game Mode, only Game bar and Game DVR, should this be considered to be added now that the user has control over it?

09:39:31.190: Windows 10 Gaming Features:
09:39:31.190: Game Bar: Off
09:39:31.190: Game DVR: Off
09:39:31.190: Game DVR Background Recording: Off

 

[Hudson555x]

Thanks for posting this. I updated a few days ago, and have yet to go through and clean out all of the bloatware, and I just went and turned Game Mode off, lol.

 

[thxne]

Thanks for the testing. It's always something with Windows

 

[DEDRICK]

Windows was sneaky and made it so you couldn't turn it off last year, you could still do it by editing the registry. I guess enough people bitched that they decided to bring the option to turn if off back.

 

[Styce]

I've researched this rendering lag thing for nearly 4 months. I've yet to find a universal solution.

Game mode is almost always the issue for the majority of people - that's undeniable. In my experiences, turning that off fixes most issues.
I, however, know I'm not the only person who's experiencing this issue because of game mode.

For reference, I'm using a Threadripper 2950x, GTX 1080, and 32gigs of 3200mhz ram. For the life of me, I cannot stop the rendering lag. You name it, I've tried it.

• Capping FPS (mixed success. Some games it works, some it doesn't)
• Disabling Shadowplay
• Removing Geforce Experience entirely
• V-Sync/Fast Sync
• Refresh rate changes and syncs
• Reformatting
• Rolling back display drivers (DDU) and OBS versions
• Capture methods
• Canvas size and scaling changes
• G-sync on and off/Windowed G-sync
• Checking bus speeds
• Fullscreen Optimizations On/Off

The list goes on.

To be clear, for anyone experiencing this issue, doing what Dedrick or Morpheus or thxne or what any of the other very patient people on here have said to do will be your best bet. For those that have tried that to no success, the ONLY thing that has even slightly mitigated the issue for me was removing Geforce Experience completely, and lowering the canvas size to match the output. It's not a fix, but it helped a little.

Anyway, I'm sorry to text bomb your PSA; just thought I'd drop a few cents in there for someone googling this on a rainy day.

Thanks for all your support, guys.

 

[thxne]

I've researched this rendering lag thing for nearly 4 months. I've yet to find a universal solution.

Game mode is almost always the issue for the majority of people - that's undeniable. In my experiences, turning that off fixes most issues.
I, however, know I'm not the only person who's experiencing this issue because of game mode.

For reference, I'm using a Threadripper 2950x, GTX 1080, and 32gigs of 3200mhz ram. For the life of me, I cannot stop the rendering lag. You name it, I've tried it.

• Capping FPS (mixed success. Some games it works, some it doesn't)
• Disabling Shadowplay
• Removing Geforce Experience entirely
• V-Sync/Fast Sync
• Refresh rate changes and syncs
• Reformatting
• Rolling back display drivers (DDU) and OBS versions
• Capture methods
• Canvas size and scaling changes
• G-sync on and off/Windowed G-sync
• Checking bus speeds
• Fullscreen Optimizations On/Off

The list goes on.

To be clear, for anyone experiencing this issue, doing what Dedrick or Morpheus or thxne or what any of the other very patient people on here have said to do will be your best bet. For those that have tried that to no success, the ONLY thing that has even slightly mitigated the issue for me was removing Geforce Experience completely, and lowering the canvas size to match the output. It's not a fix, but it helped a little.

Anyway, I'm sorry to text bomb your PSA; just thought I'd drop a few cents in there for someone googling this on a rainy day.

Thanks for all your support, guys.

Do you happen to have OBS and/or your Twitch stream on a 2nd monitor as you stream?

 

[DEDRICK]

Webcams running at 1080p have a nasty habit of causing rendering lag as well, the C920 atleast. Rendering lag isn't just GPU usage, getting the frames from capture devices takes time as well

 

[Styce]

Do you happen to have OBS and/or your Twitch stream on a 2nd monitor as you stream?

I do not.

Webcams running at 1080p have a nasty habit of causing rendering lag as well, the C920 atleast

That they do. I've never really tried with a webcam, but I know some people have had success by dropping webcam FPS and adjusting lighting settings within their logitech cam software. There's some kind of auto-adjustment setting for brightness that can be problematic.

On a side note, for any Threadripper users: changing from UMA to NUMA in bios or Ryzen Master will solve a lot of your problems, too. Just thought I'd throw that in there. UMA/NUMA is tied directly to your memory access speeds, including PCI-E. This can also boost general gaming performance, if you're so inclined to dive into bios settings or use Ryzen Master.

 

[Zidakuh]

thxne said:
Do you happen to have OBS and/or your Twitch stream on a 2nd monitor as you stream?
I do not.

Do you minimize OBS when you record? Because that for some reason will make your recordings lag.

 

[koala]

For the life of me, I cannot stop the rendering lag. You name it, I've tried it.

A problem is that many people don't have a methodological approach during research. They absolutely want that 2560x1440@60 stream with x264 slow preset while playing their game with unlimited (240+) fps (I'm exaggerating a bit, but only a bit), and they stick on that setup and wait for that magical switch that will make this happen. They just try all solutions they heard about, appropriate or not, (windows 7 compatibility setting, reformat pc, update drivers, buy new gpu) in the hope this will help, but they don't know if this will really help, because they never researched the real cause of their problem and know what the real solution is.

If someone is really interested to solve his problem on his own, start with a 720p30 stream, limit the game to 30 fps, and set the x264 preset to veryfast. It is supposed and assumed that for this starting base no lags will show up. If lags do show up, reduce the OBS canvas to 360p, stream with 360p30 and try again. Don't proceed if you still have lags with the starting base.

Now increase one of all these parameters one step (not all steps to the desired value), for example game fps from 30 to 60, and try again. Still no lags? Then increase the next parameter, for example resolution. Still no lags? Next parameter. But if lags start to happen (you have to do a test recording every time and inspect the logfile for the rendering lag message), look in your system what you can do to lower the stress, so the lags go away.
Now comes the troubleshooting part. You immediately see if a measure is effective, because you just introduced only a tiny bit of lag. If a measure is effective against lags, the lags must go away. Uninstall background software, lower some other stressing parameter that is less important, tune system parameters.
If you made the just introduced lags go away, continue with increasing the next parameter one step and see what you can do to stay lag-free. And so on.
Don't forget to not increasing a parameter all at once to the maximum but only to the next step (for example fps: 30->60->90->120->144), and if you finished with one step successfully, don't continue increasing the same parameter but increase the next parameter.

This way, you balance all your parameters and make all of them as high as they can by working together.

 

[AndrewCooper69]

THANK YOU TO POSTER!

I added a whole bunch of new accessories after Christmas and thought that was the issue, but turns out it was this! I turned it off and fixed everything. Thanks!!! I will link this post to my earlier inquires.

 

[thxne]

A problem is that many people don't have a methodological approach during research. They absolutely want that 2560x1440@60 stream with x264 slow preset while playing their game with unlimited (240+) fps (I'm exaggerating a bit, but only a bit), and they stick on that setup and wait for that magical switch that will make this happen. They just try all solutions they heard about, appropriate or not, (windows 7 compatibility setting, reformat pc, update drivers, buy new gpu) in the hope this will help, but they don't know if this will really help, because they never researched the real cause of their problem and know what the real solution is.

If someone is really interested to solve his problem on his own, start with a 720p30 stream, limit the game to 30 fps, and set the x264 preset to veryfast. It is supposed and assumed that for this starting base no lags will show up. If lags do show up, reduce the OBS canvas to 360p, stream with 360p30 and try again. Don't proceed if you still have lags with the starting base.

Now increase one of all these parameters one step (not all steps to the desired value), for example game fps from 30 to 60, and try again. Still no lags? Then increase the next parameter, for example fps. Still no lags? Next parameter. But if lags start to happen (you have to do a test recording every time and inspect the logfile for the rendering lag message), look in your system what you can do to lower the stress, so the lags go away.
Now comes the troubleshooting part. You immediately see if a measure is effective, because you just introduced only a tiny bit of lag. If a measure is effective against lags, the lags must go away. Uninstall background software, lower some other stressing parameter that is less important, tune system parameters.
If you made the just introduced lags go away, continue with increasing the next parameter one step and see what you can do to stay lag-free. And so on.
Don't forget to not increasing a parameter all at once to the maximum but only to the next step (for example fps: 30->60->90->120->144), and if you finished with one step successfully, don't continue increasing the same parameter but increase the next parameter.

This way, you balance all your parameters and make all of them as high as they can by working together.

Great advice and approach anyone who doesn't know what their issue is should do.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

A problem is that many people don't have a methodological approach during research. They absolutely want that 2560x1440@60 stream with x264 slow preset while playing their game with unlimited (240+) fps (I'm exaggerating a bit, but only a bit), and they stick on that setup and wait for that magical switch that will make this happen. They just try all solutions they heard about, appropriate or not, (windows 7 compatibility setting, reformat pc, update drivers, buy new gpu) in the hope this will help, but they don't know if this will really help, because they never researched the real cause of their problem and know what the real solution is.

If someone is really interested to solve his problem on his own, start with a 720p30 stream, limit the game to 30 fps, and set the x264 preset to veryfast. It is supposed and assumed that for this starting base no lags will show up. If lags do show up, reduce the OBS canvas to 360p, stream with 360p30 and try again. Don't proceed if you still have lags with the starting base.

Now increase one of all these parameters one step (not all steps to the desired value), for example game fps from 30 to 60, and try again. Still no lags? Then increase the next parameter, for example fps. Still no lags? Next parameter. But if lags start to happen (you have to do a test recording every time and inspect the logfile for the rendering lag message), look in your system what you can do to lower the stress, so the lags go away.
Now comes the troubleshooting part. You immediately see if a measure is effective, because you just introduced only a tiny bit of lag. If a measure is effective against lags, the lags must go away. Uninstall background software, lower some other stressing parameter that is less important, tune system parameters.
If you made the just introduced lags go away, continue with increasing the next parameter one step and see what you can do to stay lag-free. And so on.
Don't forget to not increasing a parameter all at once to the maximum but only to the next step (for example fps: 30->60->90->120->144), and if you finished with one step successfully, don't continue increasing the same parameter but increase the next parameter.

This way, you balance all your parameters and make all of them as high as they can by working together.

And people should also start with the bare minimum of sources and add other sources later, to see, if a driver/source is causing issues.

 

[DEDRICK]

And people should also start with the bare minimum of sources and add other sources later, to see, if a driver/source is causing issues.

This is one that always gets me, I literally have 3 sources when I am testing.

Game Capture, Webcam, Background

 

[Boyishdude]

What if I don't see an option to turn off game mode in my settings? The same goes for my laptop, not just my PC. ANd I have been getting encoding overload errors for a few days now because of something I can't turn off?

 

[Osiris]

Then you don't have the 1809 update.

 

[Boyishdude]

Then you don't have the 1809 update.

I know that I don't have it, but will using a .reg file to disable it on my laptop (my laptop doesn't have the storage capacity to get the 1809 update) will it fixing my recording issues?

Right now whenever I try to record my PS4 I get encoding overload errors, but this was not an issue a few days ago. I don't know how to fix it.

 

[DEDRICK]

Here is how to do it via the registry, you can confirm if your Reg file contains the same

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/disable-game-mode-in-fall-creators-update-windows-10/

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\GameBar

Here, look for a key called AllowAutoGameMode. If it’s not there, create it. Right-click inside the right panel and select New>DWORD (32-bit) Value. Rename the new value AllowAutoGameMode.

By default, this key will have the value 0. It will disable Game Mode. If you want to enable Game Mode, change its value to 1.

 

[jdgarcia1381]

I've researched this rendering lag thing for nearly 4 months. I've yet to find a universal solution.

Game mode is almost always the issue for the majority of people - that's undeniable. In my experiences, turning that off fixes most issues.
I, however, know I'm not the only person who's experiencing this issue because of game mode.

For reference, I'm using a Threadripper 2950x, GTX 1080, and 32gigs of 3200mhz ram. For the life of me, I cannot stop the rendering lag. You name it, I've tried it.

• Capping FPS (mixed success. Some games it works, some it doesn't)
• Disabling Shadowplay
• Removing Geforce Experience entirely
• V-Sync/Fast Sync
• Refresh rate changes and syncs
• Reformatting
• Rolling back display drivers (DDU) and OBS versions
• Capture methods
• Canvas size and scaling changes
• G-sync on and off/Windowed G-sync
• Checking bus speeds
• Fullscreen Optimizations On/Off

The list goes on.

To be clear, for anyone experiencing this issue, doing what Dedrick or Morpheus or thxne or what any of the other very patient people on here have said to do will be your best bet. For those that have tried that to no success, the ONLY thing that has even slightly mitigated the issue for me was removing Geforce Experience completely, and lowering the canvas size to match the output. It's not a fix, but it helped a little.

Anyway, I'm sorry to text bomb your PSA; just thought I'd drop a few cents in there for someone googling this on a rainy day.

Thanks for all your support, guys.

Your guide has been really useful for me. I've been trying multiple settings because I wasn't able to achieve real 60fps on my streams. I came up with a solution, it's a mix of multiple solutions that I found on the OBS forum. I hope you can solve your problems using my settings. I primarily stream Rocket League and PUBG.

My PC:

• BOARD: ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E
• CPU: i7-8700k @ 4.9Ghz [Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO]
• GPU: ASUS ROG STRIX 1080 @ 1959Mhz
• RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 16GB C15 @ 3200Mhz
• SSD: Samsung 960 EVO Series 250GB (NVMe)
• MONITOR #1: ViewSonic XG2402 (1920x1080 @ 144hz)
• MONITOR #2: HP VH240a (1920x1080 @ 60Hz)

Windows Settings:

• Windows 10 Pro (1809 Build 17763.253)
• Windows Defender
• Power Plan: High performance
• Game Bar: Disabled
• Game Mode: Disabled
• NVIDIA power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
• I did not install NVIDIA Experience

OBS Settings:

• Encoder: x264
• Enforce streaming service encoder settings: Disabled
• Rate Control: CBR
• Bitrate: 6000 Kb/s
• Keyframe Interval: 2 seconds
• CPU Usage Preset: slow (for Rocket League) / medium (for PUBG)
• Profile: main
• Canvas: 1280x720
• Output: 1280x720
• Downscale Filter: Lanczos (32 samples)
• FPS: 60
• Advanced > Process Priority: High
• Disable Preview and minimize OBS

Additional Settings:

• I changed my OBS shortcut so it will be always executed with "High" process priority. To do that, go to your OBS shortcut Properties and change the target as follows:
  

  C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "" /High "C:\Program Files\obs-studio\bin\64bit\obs64.exe"

The most important setting that solved my problem was the Process Priority. Once I set it to "High", my stream was much more fluid, solving my stutter problems. Besides that, I also found out that disabling the preview and minimizing OBS can give you better results. Minimizing OBS needs more testing across different games and monitor configurations (1 vs multiple monitors).
Also, I have to say that this problem was driving me nuts because on the OBS stats window I never got missed or skipped frames, but apparently you do if you don't set the process priority to High (at least on my build with the above settings).

Let me know if it helps :)