YouTube/OBS streaming running super sluggish on Macbook:(

[SJH777]

Hi guys,
My YouTube channel has been growing quickly but my shows lately have been getting completely ruined by this issue. I don't know if there's anything that can be done. From the moment I open OBS, my whole computer begins to heat up, fans run on high and everything begins to operate so sluggishly that I'm unable to deliver my show. My fans have been left disappointed and I've been becoming very sad over this.
I have a 2019 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4. Upon purchase 2 months ago, I was told this would be more than enough to successfully live stream OBS off of. I bought another MacBook because I use Logic a lot for music. Any help, advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Hell, I'd even pay someone for their time and consultation on this provided they were confident in being able to resolve this for me.

Thanks for reading, appreciate it.

 

[SJH777]

Any thoughts anyone? Thanks much.

 

[Lopez903]

What's your setup look like, besides laptop specs, and do you have any heavy applications running while live streaming through OBS? What version of OBS are you currently running for your shows?

 

[SJH777]

What's your setup look like, besides laptop specs, and do you have any heavy applications running while live streaming through OBS? What version of OBS are you currently running for your shows?

Thank you for responding. I make sure to run no applications during streaming. My Macbook immediately begins getting hot and running very slow upon opening OBS. By the time I get to streaming I always get the
"Error YouTube is not receiving enough video to maintain smooth streaming." message. I'm running OBS Studio 27.0.0 (64 bit).

 

[Lopez903]

Can you upload a screen shot of your OBS scenes, and tell me more about the settings you're using. Output and Video settings in "Preferences". I've had that error before and from my experience it's been the internet connection causing that. Any devices live streaming while you're streaming, anyone uploading a video on youtube, essentially anything thats using up your upload bandwidth.

I also have access to that same spec'd Macbook Pro 2019 and have used it plenty of times to livestream to Youtube for my Smash Ultimate Tournaments without issues.

 

[SJH777]

Thank you again for the follow up! I noticed my streaming connection with YouTube is often listed as "poor"....my modem set up is also downstairs and i'm streaming upstairs so perhaps it's more of an internet issue? I do know my MacBook heats up a lot with the fans going whenever I open it. It's so frustrating because my channel started to take off but the technical difficulties have really slowed down the momentum.

 

[Lopez903]

I have a strong feeling it's going to be the internet connection, wether it be your network speeds or something interfering with the wifi signal reaching upstairs to your streaming setup/macbook pro. Unless you're using an ethernet connection which you can buy those adapters for cheap on Amazon. The macbook pro I use (same as yours) also heats up, fans turn up, when I have OBS open. It's always been that way for me for the past 7 months while using it. I have always had it plugged in to the wall bc OBS will chug away at the battery at a ridiculous rate.

If this isn't normal behavior for OBS to do while open using Macbook Pros, anyone feel free to chime in on this. From what I understand streaming software isn't a small task for computers.

Try doing a test stream downstairs next to your modem and see if you get positive changes to your live stream.

 

[Lopez903]

I have another solution for you, it's a problem I've been having with OBS for awhile now. Whenever I'm streaming I have only one or two tabs of Google Chrome open, My stream is running at 1280x720 @60 fps. The frames per second counter would drop drastically every now and then and would get worst the longer the stream would go on.


I believe now what the issue I was having was something called "render lag". OBS was fighting for GPU resources from macOS and Google chrome. Google chrome being a resource hog.

SOLUTION
Go into Google Chrome settings> Advanced> System> Turn off - "Use hardware acceleration when available"
and also
Under OBS Settings> Advanced> Sources - Turn off "Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration"

I will be posting this solution throughout the Forums to people who have had similar problems with OBS being "sluggish"

but in your case I'm sure it has to do with the internet connectivity, but trying this out won't hurt!

 

[JP_NZ]

Hi. I've just been struggling with this same issue on a similar system and can share what I've found, which may help you.

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro, 2.6gh 6 core I7 with 16GB ram on it, so a less high performing system than you. Overlooking my immediate mac envy :) I've just started using OBS for a business stream.

I was having the same issue - processors maxing out and my stream dropping to virtually zero. I thought it might be the broadband (which is an issue, as I'm on rural wireless), but that's not actually the main factor. Yes, when my wireless broadband signal drops down to 1mb/s it will, but usually it's stable at about 10mb/s upload speed, which should be enough to stream.

Before upgrading to the latest OBS, I'd also followed some advice and switched to using the Hardware graphics card in OBS. Interestingly, this wasn't working for me (when running zoom, as I use zoom for meetings, so it uses hardware acceleration too).

Here's what I've done which seems to be working:

1. Quit everything I don't need running that is a resource hog - Microsoft Excel, for example, so I'm just running zoom (for my guests who are on the show), Safari (for the YouTube livestream window) and I'm using an Elgato Streamdeck, but as little else as possible going.

2. I changed my setting down to 30 fps and it wasn't running usably at 1920 x 1080. I've scaled this down on the stream to 1280x720 at 30fps. That made a big big difference for a start, obviously.

3. I found that switching OBS to using the x264 encoder for streaming, with the advanced settings tweaked to set bit rate at CBR 4500kb/s, keyframe interval of 2, CPU usage preset to ultrafast and profile of High has now given me a stable stream output of around the 4000kb/s mark and none of the pausing and delays on my YouTube stream I previously had.

that's bizarre, as I thought the hardware graphics setting you h ave would have perfomred better, but no.

4. I have just set recording to be using the hardware processor, as I want to record at the same time, so I switched that away from "use stream encoder" to keep the CPU usage down. Looking at my CPU usage monitor (which I keep running during an OBS session), it's been lower on the second core of each processor when OBS is running now.

Performance is okay for me streaming out a business video, so not game streaming, and the issue of my bit rate dropping down to a poor quality stream *was* down to the processor usage on the mac and not the internet broadband service.

The above settings have made that much more consistent, so give that a whirl and see what you can come up with.

 

[Yarurito]

I have another solution for you, it's a problem I've been having with OBS for awhile now. Whenever I'm streaming I have only one or two tabs of Google Chrome open, My stream is running at 1280x720 @60 fps. The frames per second counter would drop drastically every now and then and would get worst the longer the stream would go on.


I believe now what the issue I was having was something called "render lag". OBS was fighting for GPU resources from macOS and Google chrome. Google chrome being a resource hog.

SOLUTION
Go into Google Chrome settings> Advanced> System> Turn off - "Use hardware acceleration when available"
and also
Under OBS Settings> Advanced> Sources - Turn off "Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration"

I will be posting this solution throughout the Forums to people who have had similar problems with OBS being "sluggish"

but in your case I'm sure it has to do with the internet connectivity, but trying this out won't hurt!

thanks. Im gonna try it. My stream is lagging a lot since i ve updated the OBS to 27 version.

 

[SJH777]

Hi. I've just been struggling with this same issue on a similar system and can share what I've found, which may help you.

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro, 2.6gh 6 core I7 with 16GB ram on it, so a less high performing system than you. Overlooking my immediate mac envy :) I've just started using OBS for a business stream.

I was having the same issue - processors maxing out and my stream dropping to virtually zero. I thought it might be the broadband (which is an issue, as I'm on rural wireless), but that's not actually the main factor. Yes, when my wireless broadband signal drops down to 1mb/s it will, but usually it's stable at about 10mb/s upload speed, which should be enough to stream.

Before upgrading to the latest OBS, I'd also followed some advice and switched to using the Hardware graphics card in OBS. Interestingly, this wasn't working for me (when running zoom, as I use zoom for meetings, so it uses hardware acceleration too).

Here's what I've done which seems to be working:

1. Quit everything I don't need running that is a resource hog - Microsoft Excel, for example, so I'm just running zoom (for my guests who are on the show), Safari (for the YouTube livestream window) and I'm using an Elgato Streamdeck, but as little else as possible going.

2. I changed my setting down to 30 fps and it wasn't running usably at 1920 x 1080. I've scaled this down on the stream to 1280x720 at 30fps. That made a big big difference for a start, obviously.

3. I found that switching OBS to using the x264 encoder for streaming, with the advanced settings tweaked to set bit rate at CBR 4500kb/s, keyframe interval of 2, CPU usage preset to ultrafast and profile of High has now given me a stable stream output of around the 4000kb/s mark and none of the pausing and delays on my YouTube stream I previously had.

that's bizarre, as I thought the hardware graphics setting you h ave would have perfomred better, but no.

4. I have just set recording to be using the hardware processor, as I want to record at the same time, so I switched that away from "use stream encoder" to keep the CPU usage down. Looking at my CPU usage monitor (which I keep running during an OBS session), it's been lower on the second core of each processor when OBS is running now.

Performance is okay for me streaming out a business video, so not game streaming, and the issue of my bit rate dropping down to a poor quality stream *was* down to the processor usage on the mac and not the internet broadband service.

The above settings have made that much more consistent, so give that a whirl and see what you can come up with.

Thanks. I've tried these suggestions and they didn't help me. I'm losing income, momentum and my audience over these issues. On top of that, the latest update has seem to make things even worse than they already were. I will happily pay someone for a zoom call or something to help me sort this. Either that or that the nearly 3K i've recently spent on this macbook was for nothing when it comes to my live streaming. I'm chronically ill right now so my live streaming income is super important to me since i'm unable to work.
If ANYONE out here can help me sort this please reach out. Thanks so much.

 

[SJH777]

UPDATE. Something that I tried which seems to be the only thing that's helped so far, is switching my Output encoder from software to hardware..

 

[Lopez903]

UPDATE. Something that I tried which seems to be the only thing that's helped so far, is switching my Output encoder from software to hardware..

Hope you're doing well, did you see massive improvements changing it to "Apple VT H.264 hardware encoder" when working with OBS during your streams? Your spec'd macbook pro 2019 is more than capable of running OBS. Which is why this is all strange.