Question / Help Video/Stream not smooth

[BK-Morpheus]

I have a problem that I still was not able to fix.

When I stream or record locally I can see some stuttering. It's not there all the time, but every now and then the video is not smooth (looks like FPS goes down to 57fps or something) and a few minutes later it's smooth again.
It happens with every game.
The game itself runs perfectly smooth, and OBS is not showing any dropped frames, but the recording/stream is a little stuttery from time to time.

Settings:
x264
720p 60fps
CBR, ~3700kbits, Keyframeinterval 2, Main Profile
Vsync enabled, 60Hz Display

Harware:
R7 1700X @ 3.8GHz
GTX 1070
16GB DDR4 RAM
2x Monitor 1080p 60Hz

Win10 x64 Build 1703 is a fresh USB/ISO installation (installed ~4 Weeks ago).

What I already tried:
borderless Windows vs. Fullscreen
X264 very fast instead of fast/medium etc.
CPU SMT disabled vs. enabled
FPS Limit instead of Vsync
Default BIOS Settings for CPU
Removed looped video backround from OBS Scenes
Windows Game Mode is disabled (Shadowplay is disabled as well)

With Games like Rocket League or League of Legends the Ryzen 1700X is far from limiting here (I could set x264 down to "slow" without problems and as I said, the problem also appears with "very fast" preset).
Same Story for the GPU: It never exceeds 60% GPU Load in those Games with Vsync on.

Some times I need to record/stream more than 15minutes until the problem is noticeable.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

For reference, I own a Ryzen 7 1700 and can stream at 720p@60FPS@fast preset without issues.

Have you updated BIOS to latest revision and set windows power plan to "High Performance"?

Temperatures remain within specifications for your processor? Default BIOS settings have pretty terrible fan curves.

NVIDIA Power management set to "Prefer Maximum performance"?

Does this happen with only OBS running and game as the only source?

Resetting your overclock still has same issue?

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Max CPU Temp 57°C (manual fan curve), no throttling, resetting OC = no difference (as I already mentioned), Chipset Driver installied, so Ryzen poweplan is active (or in other words: Core parking is disabled).
I tested "Prefer Max Performance" in Nvidia Settings once, but after this did not change anything, I wen back to nvidia defaults.

I could try to make a test recording with only OBS+Game opened, but this would be far from real world usage, as I'm usually using Teamspeak an Chatty Tool, while gaming.

I thought those stutters could be seen as dropped frames in OBS or in Twitch playback statistics, but I can only see 0 dropped frames and playback says "60fps" even in scenes, where the video is not smooth (microstutter).

I feel like this is even present at 30fps streams, but It's harder to tell, as the light stuttering is easier to see on 60fps videos.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Update:

I tried a few different things without success:
- new scene collection with just one scene and 3 sources (1x game capture, 1x wallpaper jpg, 1x webcam)
- reducing x264 threads with parameter "threads=12"
- closing tools/services that are usually running while I play games
- switch to high performance mode on windows energy options and nvidia control panel

During my last tests, it always took 15-22min until the OBS preview began to show micro-stutter (and so does the recorded video). They only last ~2minutes and than everything is smooth again for another 20minutes or so.

While the stutter appears it has positive effect to minimize OBS, tab in/out of the game or switch between different OBS scenes. I still have to wait 2-3 minutes until the stream/recording goes back to smooth footage.
As I already said: The game itself is not affected...still smooth, just OBS preview+stream/recording is stuttering.

The Log file looks always the same (there is no line that shows lagged/dropped frames). With media player classic I can see the actual video framerate and during those stutter sections the video stays at 60fps.
So it seems that OBS is recording 60fps correctly (therefore no dropped/lagged frames in the log file) but maybe it is recording out of sync or it records the same frame more than once?

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Push: Interesting news!
As soon as I disable my windows pagefile.sys, OBS behaves crazy. Webcam stuttering, 1CPU Thread at 70-80% usage and streaming/recording will produce very hard stuttering video.

When I set the pagefile to 128-256MB the recording is fine for 2-3minutes and then stutters.
This could explain, why I can stream/record for ~15-20minutes, before the stutter begins and why it gets back to smooth video after 2-3minutes.
It seems that OBS/Windows is using the pagefile instead of my 16GB RAM.
Any tips?

 

[Deleted member 121471]

That's a really old bug on Windows 10 that causes stuttering in some apps, though I've never seen it affect streaming itself but it's worth a shot.

If you're not using a SSD for pagefile, select "No paging file" then press "Set".

Then select "Custom size" and make sure "Initial size" and "Maximum size" are set to the same number, either 8192 or 16384 MB. The recommended values displayed on the same windows are adequate but I've fixed micro stutters on my rig by allocating more space, before I even considered streaming.

Your log does show micro stuttering, unless I'm reading it incorrectly.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

I'm using an SSD and had 4048MB-4048MB manually set before testing without pagefile. Still Microstutter after ~20minutes of recording (not ingame, just in the video).

Any Idea why OBS is totally freaking out then the pagefile is completely disabled?

 

[interspool]

Sorry to resurrect this ancient thread, but did OP ever fix the issue? I'm running a Ryzen with the same overclock and experiencing the exact same issue if I'm understanding it correctly. Game has periods of perfect fluidity on stream and then all of a sudden will dip down as if its getting 45-50fps on stream, yet 200fps+ showing up in game. It can even happen when the scene in game is not even particularly taxing which makes it even more confusing. OBS log showing no render frame drops or bandwidth drops. It can happen on any x264 preset and NVENC as well. I'm thinking it's some ridiculous Windows setting, as I was playing around disabling Aero last night and that didn't seem to fix it either.

Edit: It was Windows. I have a 144hz main monitor and 60hz secondary. I always watch streams in Chrome on my secondary monitor. Windows + Chrome for some reason cannot handle this. If I watch on my main monitor in IE it will drop 0 frames and the stream will be flawlessly buttery smooth @ 60fps. The recordings were fine all along, it was the playback of them in Chrome that was causing issues.

 

[kzpl23]

I have the same issue, where the preview will start to get choppy and the fps dips like it feels 40ish or so even though obs is still showing 60fps. Tried a bunch of settings nothing helps. Sometimes its smooth and then all of the sudden it starts to get laggy. I have a amd FX 8320 4.7ghz. I have a 2 pc setup and doing the fullscreen preview does not work because of this issue. In clone mode I have no problems and the obs on my streaming pc is smooth so it has to be something with obs on the gaming pc as thats where the preview comes from. Still have not figured it out.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

My initial problem is still there. Depending on the game and capture method (Destiny 2 for example can only be captured in windowed mode with window_capture) this problem is present, not present or only happening rarely.
In ARK, the micro-stutter went away, after I switched from windowed full-screen to exclusive full-screen mode.
In Destiny 2, where you can only use windowed full-screen + window_capture, the stutter happens every now and then for a few minutes.
In Rocketleague 95% of the time every thing is smooth and then the preview+stream is showing micro stutter for 3-4minutes and then going back to full smoothness.

No encoding lag, rendering lag or bandwidth problems in the log files (I always use fps limits via Vsync, in-game fps limit or RTSS).

 

[Trollberserk]

Hi :)

The problem is:
- Game run at 60 fps, but OBS stutter and it's visible in the preview windows? That's it?

Same issue there : / And... I'm also using an AMD Ryzen 7 1700. In my opnion, there is a conflict with Win10 and OBS when we use an AMD cpu.

 

[kzpl23]

Well i meant to say that on my gaming pc its a i7 4790k and when i do fullscreen preview its still laggy so Im not sure if its just amd related. Im really tired of trying to figure out what causes this.. im thinking about just getting an elgato 4k60pro so i can clone them and be done with it. As when i tested it clone mode work great other then i get screen tearing cuz of my different refresh rates.

 

[kzpl23]

here is actually a link to my thread https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/choppy-preview-anyone-else-has-this-issue.84910/#post-353200 and i made 2 videos one with clone and one with full screen preview and you can see the difference in fluidity. Im assuming thats what you guys are referring to as one of the problems.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

If you guys are willing to try longshot solutions...

Disable windows 10 fast startup. This has given me issues before.
Disable then re-enable shader cache in your driver settings. There's a bug where shader cache is not being populated and may cause stutters.
Manually set CPU affinities through task manager. Cores 0-7 for OBS and 8-15 for everything else OR vice versa.

For Ryzen owners, in your BIOS settings, look for "Performance Bias" setting (or close enough name) and choose CB11.5 or CB15. This improves the latencies of L2 and L3 CPU cache.

 

[Holdmyham]

I'm having the exact same issue and it carries over to my Decklink output (1080p60) as well. Runs silky smooth 90% of the time, then starts to drop to about 40 fps (cant measure exactly because logs and stats window show no dropped frames) for about 2 minutes. Then returns to being nice and smooth.
The only thing i'm doing is game/display capture straight to decklink out, no preview enabled, no encoding.
What trips me up is that stats window shows 0 dropped frames on the rendering side, 0 dropped on the encoding side (no stream encoding is happening but some decklink encoding is)