Question / Help Why is 'Compatibility mode is not recommended for capturing games'?

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Boom123

Member
Hello,
one of the games I'm trying to play and record with OBS only outputs a black screen in the recorded footage. Doing some research, I came across this stickied thread 'Laptop? Black screen when capturing? Read here first.' (https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/laptop-black-screen-when-capturing-read-here-first.5965/).

I'm recording with a desktop though, not a laptop. Anyway, the point of interest that raised a question for me from that thread was:

'Window capture and "compatibility mode":
  • Compatibility mode is not recommended for capturing games, but it basically guarantees a capture.'
Why isn't Compatibility mode recommended for games if it guarantees the capture? Any negative effects on the game or the outputted footage?

Thanks in advance for any clarification.
 
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Dilaz

Member
It has a huge performance cost compared to normal capture. With compatibility mode, everything goes through RAM to your GPU when scene is rendered, but without it everything stays inside GPU's memory which is very fast.
 
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Boom123

Member
Hello, thank you both for such quick replies.
@Dilaz: By performance cost you mean CPU usage (I use x264), or just RAM? (I have 32GB of RAM in case it makes a difference).

Due to this performance cost, will the outputted footage have any negative effects? (stutter, frame drops, etc)

@Suslik V: So if I understood your posted link correctly, OBS usually uses method #2 to capture (which does sound more efficient), but if using compatibility mode it will be using method #1?
 
Suslik V

Suslik V

Active Member
Yes #2 (shared texture).

And, in general, compatibility - uses additional loop ram to video ram upload/download and thus uses more bus bandwidth. Usually, compatibility needed for multi-GPU setups (like SLI and CrossFire), but sometimes can be used for laptops too. Compatibility should be used only when no other methods works. This info - as I understand it from the mentioned link.
 
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Boom123

Member
Got it, thanks, I'll try avoiding it when possible then, and stick to normal capturing methods. Unfortunately Game Capture, Window Capture, and Display Capture aren't working on this particular game (I could record other games fine though), so I'm forced to give Compatibility mode a shot for this one. Thank you for the advice :)
 
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