Question / Help Why is OBS So Garbage & Complicated?

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SmikeyKanji

New Member
It's bad because I can't record 60 FPS videos like everyone else says you can. I don't want to Stream. Recording should take less work but for some reason I struggle. Since 2013 I have never been able to get 60 FPS recordings. 1080p doesn't look like 1080p. The 60 FPS setting is useless because while you play and record at the same damn time, the game maintains 60+FPS but when you watch the video non of that shows and the quality looks like SH!T! You can't get any help from anybody. I've watched 48 videos on how to record 1080p 60 fps and nothing works, I even tried 720p 60FPS and that proves impossible. My PC is more than capable with SLI disable but OBS is stupid. WHY CAN'T I FIND HELP FROM ANYBODY? I made 567 test videos that I had to delete from my recycling bin because of space AND NON OF THEM EVEN REACHED 60FPS, NOT F#$KING ONCE! HOURS WASTED! I have no issues with other recording software other than the fact that you have to pay for them and those give me great quality 60FPS recording. Bandicam serves me well but I use the trail version which interrupts game play after 10 minutes and time goes by fast. I can't bug report this because the bug doesn't exist, it's the software being stupid.

Specs:
EVGA GTX 1070 SC in SLI
Intel i5-7600K CPU 3.8GHz (doesn't improve recording at 4.2GHz)
32GB Corsair RAM (2666 clocked speeds XMP)
Asus STRIX z270-F motherboard
3TB WD hard drive space
 
First, you can not expect someone to hep you with that attitude. I can understand you are upset because of your problems. But that does not give you the right to come in here and shout around.

But lets continue on with your problem. It would be helpful if you can provide some kind of Logfile. OBS has a built-in automatic upload function so you can easily post a link here. In addition, you could have given not only the specs but the OBS settings also.

Let go of the expectation to have the recording look exactly like your actual game. That is not possible because the video has to be compressed. Imagine all pictures you have on your computer were .BMP format. .BMP is uncompressed, therefore lossless, but the files are at least ten times larger than a .JPG for example, which is a lossy format. Imagine this happening with a video: 60 uncompressed 1080p pictures in a single second.

So you see, to get a useful file or stream, it has to be compressed. Now comes the question for the compression strength. the lower the strength, the lower cpu is used to compress, but the bigger the file gets. the bigger the strength, the more cpu power is used but the video gets smaller.

Then, it is important to have a bitrate fitting to the movement you want to record. a bitrate of 1000 might be enough for hearthstone but a game like counterstrike needs 2000-3000. the faster the movement, the higer the bitrate has to be to get rid of the artifacts. Since you said you dont want to stream and just record, you can put a 20k bitrate or even more, to get a crispy look to your recordings.

Then, it is important which encoder you are using:
x264 utilizes the CPU for encoding. it is the best quality choice because it gets the most quality out of the given bitrate. Preferred for streaming, because these service only allow so much bitrate.
h264 (Quicksync) utilizes the internal graphics contained inside Intel CPUs. The bad thing is, if you dont have a display attached to it, it is not active. There are workarounds with virtual screens, but since i actually have Displays attached to it, i cannot verify if they work.
h264 (NVENC) and h264 (AMD) utilize the power of the graphics cards to encode.
h264, all three of them, are Hardware encoders. They can encode your Video without using the CPU, leaving the CPU to give its Power to the Game. However, Hardware Encoding has its flaws: To get the same picture quality as in x264, you need to almost double the bitrate. Not really usable for streamers, but when recording locally this might not be a problem.

Then, it is important how you capture your actual gameplay:
Game Capture is the most effective way since OBS gets its picture Information directly from the GPUs buffer.
Window Capture is less effective but still better than Monitor Capture, which is least effective and can cost you some CPU, too.
Capturing a Game that uses Fullscreen Window can cost you some Frames, too, even when using Game Capture.

Then, it is recommended to run OBS with "higher than normal" priority.

Then, it is recommended to record to an internal hard drive. it does not necessary have to be an SSD, but never use external hard drives to record.

Watch the dropped frames counter. If it rises, watch the statistics. There you will find if Frames were dropped because of Rendering or Encoding. Dropped Rendering Frames occur if OBS has too much to do besides capturing or encoding. Dropped Encoding Frames are most likely because the Encoder is overloaded and there is not enough time to render the incoming frames in time, the encoding settings are too demanding to be computed by the encoder in the necessary time.

In statistics you can find the average Time to render a frame. Mulitply this with your chosen FPS, substract it from 1000 (1s=1000ms) and you will get the time that is left for OBS to encode this second. you might divide it by your chosen FPS and you get the time that is left for a single frame. Remember, all the rendering and encoding has to take place in this time. The bigger your picture is and the more FPS you use, the more work it has with a single picture. All this is just for the video, adding the audio uses some time also.

You might want to fiddle around with your settings, try different encoders, bitrates and capturing methods. There are many possibilities and i know several persons using OBS for their recordings in 1080p@60 without problems.

I wish you good luck :)
 

koala

Active Member
If you only want to record, your best option to get a quick start is this:
First, clean all configuration changes you made before and start with all defaults. This is very important, because if you tried and failed, you might have mis-set many settings that make recordings worse. To reset OBS configuration, start Windows Explorer and delete the directory %APPDATA%\obs-studio.

Then deactivate Windows Game mode in the Windows settings. This is very important, otherwise OBS doesn't get enough CPU and GPU resources to create smooth streams.

Then do either this:
- use Tools->Auto Configuration Wizard to let OBS evaluate your system and create a base configuration
or this:
- go to Settings->Output and use simple output mode
- choose nvenc as encoder for recording
- choose "indistinguishable quality" as recording quality

Then create one scene and within the scene one game capture source to capture your game (source type "game capture").
 

Banyarola

Active Member
It's bad because I can't record 60 FPS videos like everyone else says you can. I don't want to Stream. Recording should take less work but for some reason I struggle. Since 2013 I have never been able to get 60 FPS recordings. 1080p doesn't look like 1080p. The 60 FPS setting is useless because while you play and record at the same damn time, the game maintains 60+FPS but when you watch the video non of that shows and the quality looks like SH!T! You can't get any help from anybody. I've watched 48 videos on how to record 1080p 60 fps and nothing works, I even tried 720p 60FPS and that proves impossible. My PC is more than capable with SLI disable but OBS is stupid. WHY CAN'T I FIND HELP FROM ANYBODY? I made 567 test videos that I had to delete from my recycling bin because of space AND NON OF THEM EVEN REACHED 60FPS, NOT F#$KING ONCE! HOURS WASTED! I have no issues with other recording software other than the fact that you have to pay for them and those give me great quality 60FPS recording. Bandicam serves me well but I use the trail version which interrupts game play after 10 minutes and time goes by fast. I can't bug report this because the bug doesn't exist, it's the software being stupid.

Specs:
EVGA GTX 1070 SC in SLI
Intel i5-7600K CPU 3.8GHz (doesn't improve recording at 4.2GHz)
32GB Corsair RAM (2666 clocked speeds XMP)
Asus STRIX z270-F motherboard
3TB WD hard drive space
Demand your money back and make sure your refund requeset has the same tone and attitude as your request for help..
 
Then deactivate Windows Game mode in the Windows settings. This is very important, otherwise OBS doesn't get enough CPU and GPU resources to create smooth streams.").

I did not even know this one, thank you for showing this. Used it for myself since the messages bothered me. if it gives back some power, thats only good for me :D
 

dinny

New Member
First, you can not expect someone to hep you with that attitude. I can understand you are upset because of your problems. But that does not give you the right to come in here and shout around.

But lets continue on with your problem. It would be helpful if you can provide some kind of Logfile. OBS has a built-in automatic upload function so you can easily post a link here. In addition, you could have given not only the specs but the OBS settings also.

Let go of the expectation to have the recording look exactly like your actual game. That is not possible because the video has to be compressed. Imagine all pictures you have on your computer were .BMP format. .BMP is uncompressed, therefore lossless, but the files are at least ten times larger than a .JPG for example, which is a lossy format. Imagine this happening with a video: 60 uncompressed 1080p pictures in a single second.

So you see, to get a useful file or stream, it has to be compressed. Now comes the question for the compression strength. the lower the strength, the lower cpu is used to compress, but the bigger the file gets. the bigger the strength, the more cpu power is used but the video gets smaller.

Then, it is important to have a bitrate fitting to the movement you want to record. a bitrate of 1000 might be enough for hearthstone but a game like counterstrike needs 2000-3000. the faster the movement, the higer the bitrate has to be to get rid of the artifacts. Since you said you dont want to stream and just record, you can put a 20k bitrate or even more, to get a crispy look to your recordings.

Then, it is important which encoder you are using:
x264 utilizes the CPU for encoding. it is the best quality choice because it gets the most quality out of the given bitrate. Preferred for streaming, because these service only allow so much bitrate.
h264 (Quicksync) utilizes the internal graphics contained inside Intel CPUs. The bad thing is, if you dont have a display attached to it, it is not active. There are workarounds with virtual screens, but since i actually have Displays attached to it, i cannot verify if they work.
h264 (NVENC) and h264 (AMD) utilize the power of the graphics cards to encode.
h264, all three of them, are Hardware encoders. They can encode your Video without using the CPU, leaving the CPU to give its Power to the Game. However, Hardware Encoding has its flaws: To get the same picture quality as in x264, you need to almost double the bitrate. Not really usable for streamers, but when recording locally this might not be a problem.

Then, it is important how you capture your actual gameplay:
Game Capture is the most effective way since OBS gets its picture Information directly from the GPUs buffer.
Window Capture is less effective but still better than Monitor Capture, which is least effective and can cost you some CPU, too.
Capturing a Game that uses Fullscreen Window can cost you some Frames, too, even when using Game Capture.

Then, it is recommended to run OBS with "higher than normal" priority.

Then, it is recommended to record to an internal hard drive. it does not necessary have to be an SSD, but never use external hard drives to record.

Watch the dropped frames counter. If it rises, watch the statistics. There you will find if Frames were dropped because of Rendering or Encoding. Dropped Rendering Frames occur if OBS has too much to do besides capturing or encoding. Dropped Encoding Frames are most likely because the Encoder is overloaded and there is not enough time to render the incoming frames in time, the encoding settings are too demanding to be computed by the encoder in the necessary time.

In statistics you can find the average Time to render a frame. Mulitply this with your chosen FPS, substract it from 1000 (1s=1000ms) and you will get the time that is left for OBS to encode this second. you might divide it by your chosen FPS and you get the time that is left for a single frame. Remember, all the rendering and encoding has to take place in this time. The bigger your picture is and the more FPS you use, the more work it has with a single picture. All this is just for the video, adding the audio uses some time also.

You might want to fiddle around with your settings, try different encoders, bitrates and capturing methods. There are many possibilities and i know several persons using OBS for their recordings in 1080p@60 without problems.

I wish you good luck :)
nah dude this software is a fat piece of dogshit that never works, tell me why 99% of time I open this steaming hunk of trash the screen is black. When it does open (it never does) the quality is literally 5 fps in the recordings. I have an rtx 2060 so OBS is just trash idk what to tell you. This blackscreen problem has been going on for years and for some reason their team can't get their shit together and fix it.
 

Banyarola

Active Member
nah dude this software is a fat piece of dogshit that never works, tell me why 99% of time I open this steaming hunk of trash the screen is black. When it does open (it never does) the quality is literally 5 fps in the recordings. I have an rtx 2060 so OBS is just trash idk what to tell you. This blackscreen problem has been going on for years and for some reason their team can't get their shit together and fix it.

Maybe you have problems because you lack the mental skills like others have...
It seems like the description you gave for the software applies more to you then OBS...
Have a nice evening....hugs and kisses...
 
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