Question / Help Why Does OBS Lag No Matter How Low I Set Things?

[Rayman684]

OBS always lags out even though my game did not, I don't have the best PC, but it runs most modern games, for instance My Hero Academia: One's Justice runs fine as a game, but my recordings of it are so laggy, I don't know what settings to have it on and I'm getting a bit frustrated after a few weeks of experimenting with no success, here's my specs if you need more let me know:

CPU: AMD FX(tm)-870K Quad Core Processor 3.60 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: AMD Radeon (TM) R7 350
log file: https://obsproject.com/logs/lJGEosGjaKI58Kd0

 

[Narcogen]

You're overloading your GPU, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a bit more than that:

14:39:26.980: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 535 (0.4%)
14:43:39.209: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1630 (11.3%)
14:55:48.714: Output 'adv_file_output': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 290 (1.1%)

Adding recording with OBS always introduces more GPU load. The easiest way to obviate this is to cap the framerate your game runs at to make sure OBS has resources to work with.

You also have some Windows features on that should be turned off, as they can degrade OBS' performance:

12:51:50.767: Windows 10 Gaming Features:
12:51:50.767: Game DVR: On

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-and-remove-game-bar-windows-10-creators-update

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/75936-turn-off-game-mode-windows-10-a.html#option1

Game Mode in specific makes OBS run poorly, and if you have it on, you should turn it off.

Lastly, it may just be that you can't record well in 60fps which is demanding. I am sure you could probably record this game in 720p30 without issue.

 

[Rayman684]

I did everything you recommended, capped my game to 30fps, recorded in 720p30, disabled windows gaming features, and now my recordings are still laggy, but whats new is its trapped in the upper corner, which is not shown in the OBS preview, so i know its not the red box and it says my screenshots too large to upload so :/
heres the log: https://obsproject.com/logs/scJ5_TlMMSfyUNDL

 

[Harold]

And you changed the preset from medium to slow which INCREASES system load.

Switch your output mode back to simple
Change your recording quality to indistinguihsable
Change your recording encoder to software (X264, low cpu usage preset, increased file size)
Change your recording format to FLV.

 

[Ninety9]

Just out of curiosity, try setting your rate control to CBR and your bitrate to 2500. What happens?

 

[Rayman684]

Thanks so much! My recording has never been clearer, it slows down at points but its the best ive ever seen it, thank you guys!

 

[Rayman684]

I tried the CBR thing with 2500 bitrate and its still laggy, but its alright, changing it to simple made things better, thanks!

 

[Jannick]

It looks like you already fixed your problem, but if you run obs as administrator it will allow obs to take al the resources it needs and leaves the rest for your game. Since obs does not need a lot of resources, this will decrease quality los but wont take away a lot game performance.

 

[JeffHaskin]

You guys are a bunch of life savers. I'm streaming facebook live videos on a Lenovo Yoga 910 that only has an integrated Intel GPU, and your advice has done WONDERS.

• Turning off Windows Game Mode IMMEDIATELY reduced the lag
• Running OBS as Administrator suddenly made my computer calm WAY down. The CPUs are cool, the fans are slow, suddenly it's a different machine.

However, and I haven't tested this since I made those changes, but my screen does a classic movie computer screen glitch out when I try to use OBS to stream my camera feed to YouTube.