Question / Help Video Hitching HORRIBLY No Matter My Settings

[DarkSwordmaster]

System:

Intel i5 2500K @ 3.3Ghz
8Gb RAM
nVidia 970


So at one point several months back while using OBS Multiplatform I was able to record 60FPS at "lossless" (as lossless as you can get with x264, CRF = 0) and it worked perfectly fine. There was no hitching either during recording (IE the game) or in the video itself. It looked flawless and was smooth. The only drawback was that due to the colorspace of CRF = 0 I couldn't use it with Sony Movie Studio. So I switched it to CRF = 1 and again it worked flawlessly.

Then, after an update, it suddenly stopped working well. The gameplay itself still doesn't really hitch (at least not badly, there's more than there used to be) but the video itself is HITCHING LIKE CRAZY. I figured the update had changed something so I went ahead and lowered the CRF to do some testing. Nothing I did made it run any better and that's bizarre considering that prior to the update the videos were perfectly smooth at CRF = 0 60FPS 1080.

Here is a sample video of what it currently does (in Doom, specifically the Brutal Doom mod so nothing very taxing) as well as screenshots of the settings it was recorded on. I have tried multiple variations of these settings, 30FPS, 720 resize, CRF between 0 and 25, various CPU speed presets, many things.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me out, I used to be able to record anything I played but now I can't record ANYTHING since all videos are incredibly hitchy. More intensive games are more hitchy so as "not that bad" as this looks it's even worse on any more modern game.

One thing important to note is that this hitching is NOT in game. The game was running 60FPS perfectly the whole time. It's the video itself hitching.

Also this is visible on the raw video from OBS (IE no other compression or editing) though just to test if it was "this video player is having issues playing a 15GB file" I went ahead and threw this through Movie Studio Platinum and then into MeGUI to compress further and it still suffered from this hitching.

https://youtu.be/WI8s2Jt4o20

LOG ATTACHED

 

[Harold]

x264 preset of ultrafast for recording using CRF based bitrate selection

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Care to expand on what you mean? Is that to say that when using CRF I should ONLY use ultrafast?

 

[Harold]

basically.
When you use CRF, the preset doesn't really matter as much when it comes to picture quality since the encoder gets to set its bitrate to match the quality target.

 

[VanDuits]

Use vsync in-game when using x264 encoder.
and ultrafast preset.(maybe this alone does the trick)

If you don´t want do enable vsync, then use the nvenc encoder. you have a maxwell card, so you will be able to use lossless setting

btw. you should use color space 709 (better color range) and a keyframeinterval of 1( better for editing, cutting).

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

That pretty much solved it. I just tried recording new DOOM (2016) at CRF = 0, 1080, 60FPS and it was mostly hitch free. I will probably have to turn the CRF to somewhere around 5 to get rid of the hitches completely but for the most part it's incredibly good quality and doesn't have a lot of hitching. There's still some to be sure (regularly too) but it's nowhere NEAR what it used to be.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Thanks for your reply!

I'll look in to the colorspace and keyframe interval. Someone in the other thread already said to turn it to ultrafast and that solved it 99% of the way. It still hitches a little bit but for the most part it's fine, I just tried recording DOOM (2016) at 1080, 60 FPS, and CRF = 0 and it was fairly smooth and of good quality, just small hitches in the video every so often (fairly regularly) so I may have to take CRF to 5 or so.

Also I always play with vsync on, I can't stand tearing in the least.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Weird. Switching CRF to 5 (which as I understand is lower quality) actually made it CONSTANTLY hitch on the video. Turning it back to 0 (which at one point apparently defaulted it to 20 or 25, not sure if that's still the case) and it only hitches during shots with very fast movement, IE a glory kill. The hitching then is pretty awful (I would say it's unwatchably bad) and I'm not certain what to try to resolve that as setting the quality lower made the hitching worse.


I set the color space to 709 and keyframe interval to 1 as you said and it doesn't seem like that's the problem.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Weird. Switching CRF to 5 (which as I understand is lower quality) actually made it CONSTANTLY hitch on the video. Turning it back to 0 (which at one point apparently defaulted it to 20 or 25, not sure if that's still the case) and it only hitches during shots with very fast movement, IE a glory kill. The hitching then is pretty awful (I would say it's unwatchably bad) and I'm not certain what to try to resolve that as setting the quality lower made the hitching worse.


I set the color space to 709 and keyframe interval to 1 as someone in the other thread said to do and it doesn't seem like that's the problem.

 

[Osiris]

CRF is fine at 15.

 

[Harold]

Try with crf of 15 and x264 preset of ultrafast.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

15 actually makes it MUCH worse. Using the same settings as above (barring the 709 color space and keyframe interval of 1) but putting the CRF up to 15 makes it CONSTANTLY hitching in the video.

Here are two comparison videos. The first is CRF=0 I took from last night. You can see plenty of hitching but it's relatively smooth throughout. The second video I took tonight at CRF=15 and it is constant hitching and nearly impossible to tell what's going on. The first video does indeed lack audio, that's not on your end.


CRF=0
https://youtu.be/mQtBvkUOYnY

CRF=15
https://youtu.be/Lob8aT0RiBg


Again, it is SUPER SMOOTH 60FPS during actual gameplay. Only in the video is it this bad.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

15 actually makes it MUCH worse. Using the same settings as above (barring the 709 color space and keyframe interval of 1) but putting the CRF up to 15 makes it CONSTANTLY hitching in the video.

Here are two comparison videos. The first is CRF=0 I took from last night. You can see plenty of hitching but it's relatively smooth throughout. The second video I took tonight at CRF=15 and it is constant hitching and nearly impossible to tell what's going on. The first video does indeed lack audio, that's not on your end.


CRF=0
https://youtu.be/mQtBvkUOYnY

CRF=15
https://youtu.be/Lob8aT0RiBg


Again, it is SUPER SMOOTH 60FPS during actual gameplay. Only in the video is it this bad.

 

[Harold]

Got the session logs for those?

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

YEP! Sorry I forgot to upload those. ALSO FUN: I just found out that the initial logs I posted in the OP were from the old OBS Win version I had installed last year, NOT the logs from OBS Studio from this year. So clearly those aren't helpful and the logs accompanying this post should maybe provide more answers.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Sorry, I realized I forgot to upload the logs from last night.

ALSO FUN: I just found out that the initial logs I posted in the OP were from the old OBS Win version I had installed last year, NOT the logs from OBS Studio from this year. So clearly those aren't helpful and the logs accompanying this post should maybe provide more answers.

 

[Harold]

In your CRF=0 log:
21:39:58.600: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 6323 (16.3%)
22:59:12.413: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 2655 (11.7%)

In your crf=15 log
20:45:24.460: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 3565 (49.4%)

Your system isn't quite powerful enough for either at 60fps.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Weird, it used to do it just fine prior to the update. I'll try 30 and see how it fairs.

 

[DarkSwordmaster]

Sorry for the long absence, I had some friends in town and had to deal with family issues. I FINALLY got back to a regular schedule and had time to test it out this afternoon. It's much more smooth using 30FPS and CRF=15 than but there's still some mild hitching. I've included the log from this afternoon.


I'm also hoping that it may just be a "DOOM and other new games" issue and that recording anything from a couple years back should run smooth as silk.

 

[achmetha]

since you have a 970, try out nvenc as your encoder, use lossless mode, and high444p profile. works great for DOOM at 1080p60 for me.