Preview Stutter that appears in Streams/Recordings

[Zakkaruu]

Platform

Operating system and version: Windows 10 20H2 OBS Studio version: 26.1.1

Expected Behavior

Display a non-stuttering image if the source is not stuttering and resources are not constrained.

Current Behavior

After an indeterminate amount of time, the preview window will begin stuttering, irrespective of capture method (Window, Display, Game). This stuttering will make its way into the stream and/or recording.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open OBS
2. Create Game/Window/Display capture, depending on source
3. Watch the preview for stutter (usually about 5-10 minutes before it shows up in my case)
4. Stutter appears

Recording of Behavior This recording was made with a second instance of OBS. I thought there was some correlation by running two instances that the stutter went away, but this instance also experienced stutter, albeit, far later on.\ Log from Stuttering OBS Instance shown Timestamps: At the beginning and again at 2:20.

Recording of Stutter Behavior Log from Recording

Another Recording from a completely different machine at another location. 2021-02-04 19-56-16.txt

Laptop Recording with the same exact issue. 2021-02-04 21-13-15.txt

Additional information

In my video, I am using the following link: TestUFO. I have also made an imitation of this pattern as an MP4 for use in a video player supporting D3D11 (Potplayer).

The stuttering will eventually cease and reappear after different periods of time. However, if you change the profile in-use during the stuttering, it goes away...and eventually reappears. The behavior shows up significantly faster when using I444 color format; NV12 still does it, but it takes MUCH longer to appear..I waited probably about 15-20 minutes on NV12 vs about 5-10 with I444. This happens in games and really anything being captured, I chose the test pattern because it makes it easy to see.

I have used nSight Graphics/Systems and GPUView, but there does not seem to be a correlation with anything else going on. This has been tested on two different systems thoroughly. On one of the test systems, I did a fresh install of Windows, installed only necessary drivers/chipset drivers, OBS, Steam, and one game.

I believe this issue is related to the following forum topics: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/persistent-stutter-issue-tried-everything.137045/ https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/stutter-in-stream-preview-no-rendering-encoding-lag.114986/ https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/random-stuttering-in-preview-which-goes-into-recorded-videos.77744/ https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-preview-stutters-while-not-recording.106424/

I am willing to be a test dummy for this, just let me know what you need from me.

Additional Examples

Vermintide II Gameplay Example

[Fenrirthviti]

Potential duplicate of #4117? I am unable to replicate either situation, I suspect this is a system/environment issue more than an OBS issue. However, I am just one test case, if there are others who can test and attempt to replicate that would be helpful to narrowing down what might be going on.

[Zakkaruu]

I forgot to post timestamps for the first recording. It first occurs right at the beginning, and then again around 2:20.

[Adega-Studio]

I confirm and 3 of my friends with different hardware and all have almost the same stuttering. As in my post on the video. I changed everything in my PC and the result is the same. I'm sure 98% this is OBS and 2% my monitor, did not change.

[Fenrirthviti]

A few of our support team were able to replicate, but I can't make any promises in to how long it will be until we can devote time to digging in to what the cause of this might be, as it doesn't seem to affect everyone.

[Adega-Studio]

This is for everyone, but not everyone writes about the problem.

[Zakkaruu]

I understand, thank you all for looking into this.

[fatmatrow]

I'm also having this problem on 2 separate computers. Also willing to contribute whatever is needed

[fatmatrow]

A few of our support team were able to replicate, but I can't make any promises in to how long it will be until we can devote time to digging in to what the cause of this might be, as it doesn't seem to affect everyone.

I have two computers with the issue, I'm willing to run whatever tests etc are needed, I have the free time.

[WizardCM]

If you're able to reproduce this issue, please include a session log. While it won't provide any details about the actual source having issues, it'll help us determine what combinations of hardware are more likely to have the issue.

[fatmatrow]

alrighty, I'll do one either later tonight or tomorrow. For a heads up, I'm on a 3700x with a 3060ti and a 1700x with a 1070

On Sat, Feb 6, 2021, 6:09 PM Matt Gajownik notifications@github.com wrote:

If you're able to reproduce this issue, please include a session log. While it won't provide any details about the actual source having issues, it'll help us determine what combinations of hardware are more likely to have the issue.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/4191#issuecomment-774557345, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEXRKHJEQFZICGS3XCB5E23S5XD4LANCNFSM4XDUZ63Q .

[fatmatrow]

If you're able to reproduce this issue, please include a session log. While it won't provide any details about the actual source having issues, it'll help us determine what combinations of hardware are more likely to have the issue.

https://obsproject.com/logs/5ReRr6FDButiGDIV

[Adega-Studio]

A few of our support team were able to replicate, but I can't make any promises in to how long it will be until we can devote time to digging in to what the cause of this might be, as it doesn't seem to affect everyone. Hi. If you could create a problem, tell me how? Maybe there is a chance to temporarily fix it before the global update.

[fatmatrow]

there's no way to force the problem to happen, other than having obs open for 20-50 minutes. It seems to happen somewhere in the pipeline between obs receiving the frames and the preview and output flips, and it affects them independent of each other at first, always in the preview first, then after a few minutes it'll hit the output flip.

On Mon, Feb 8, 2021, 12:35 PM Adega-Studio notifications@github.com wrote:

A few of our support team were able to replicate, but I can't make any promises in to how long it will be until we can devote time to digging in to what the cause of this might be, as it doesn't seem to affect everyone. Hi. If you could create a problem, tell me how? Maybe there is a chance to temporarily fix it before the global update.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/4191#issuecomment-775316623, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEXRKHK462VI2X3J5FWTLFLS6AOHTANCNFSM4XDUZ63Q .

[energizerfellow]

So everybody seeing this has both a Zen CPU and a Nvidia GPU? Does anybody with an Intel CPU and/or a AMD/Intel GPU see this issue?

[Zakkaruu]

So everybody seeing this has both a Zen CPU and a Nvidia GPU? Does anybody with an Intel CPU and/or a AMD/Intel GPU see this issue?

The third and fourth log in my OP are two instances of Intel with nVidia GPU. https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/files/5930046/2021-02-04.19-56-16.txt https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/files/5930276/2021-02-04.21-13-15.txt

Sorry for all the edits.

[Adega-Studio]

Feels like a 30 fps drop when capturing while recording or streaming at 60 fps. I have exactly 6 minutes smoothly in time, then 10 seconds with jerks and again 6 minutes smoothly and so on in a circle.

[Zakkaruu]

Feels like a 30 fps drop when capturing while recording or streaming at 60 fps. I have exactly 6 minutes smoothly in time, then 10 seconds with jerks and again 6 minutes smoothly and so on in a circle.

Similar to what I get, the timing is different and random for me--doesn't seem to be on a cycle.

I had tried to lower the fps to 30 in the video settings, but even 30fps feels like it shudders occasionally..it looks different than "normal" 30 fps.

Edit: I went back and timed (on one system) how long it takes for the stutter to occur. In the first run, it took 7m 36s--but in the second run it took 1m 28s.

One thing I noticed is that the use of the Start Menu makes the stutter disappear if the preview is already stuttering. This behavior is not unique to Display Capture, but can be done with Game/Window capture as well.

If the preview is perfectly smooth, sometimes using the Start Menu can cause a fraction of a second stutter, sometimes it causes the regular heavy stuttering.

In this testing, I tried killing the StartMenuExperience.exe process and renaming the C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy folder to prevent it from starting. The stutter still appeared, but I could no longer use the start menu to affect it.

[Adega-Studio]

I also tried 30 Fps and different resolution but does not cure the problem. I've tried everything. Other programs record smooth video, which means that the problem is even in the OBS.

[gwilym]

I've been having what appears to be very similar stuttering issues ever since I started out trying to use OBS with a single PC setup. Under normal circumstances it will blip occasionally (producing a duplicate frame in the recording when examined frame-by-frame), sometimes it will be more severe as if it drops to 30 fps capturing for minutes at a time. This is with game, window and display captures. I haven't had responses on Discord yet.

Example log: https://obsproject.com/tools/analyzer?log_url=https%3A%2F%2Fobsproject.com%2Flogs%2FyiVckWVqAnIeaRlI

The logs above will show that the two monitors in use are both at 60 hz but, in addition, I've also used CRU to fine-tune both monitors to as close to 60 hz as I can get as reported by displayhz.com.

For me at least, to try and rule out rendering or encoding issues, I put a basic text overlay with a scroll filter over the capture. I rarely (if ever) see the text scroll stutter, only the capture source. So in my case I'm almost certain it's isolated to something capture-related.

I've found for me that switching between scenes of capture sources temporarily alleviates the issue: for example, if game capture starts to stutter severely, I can swap to a scene featuring display capture which is unaffected (swapping back immediately confirms that game capture remains affected so the scene-swap itself does nothing), and vice-versa swapping back to game capture once display capture exhibits symptoms as well. Though sometimes both will be simultaneously affected.

[evgen70rus]

У меня такая же проблема! Спустя 10-15 минут происходят заикания. И так продолжается весь стрим время от времени.

[Karamaz561]

Потверждаю о проблеме и заикания на видео.

[fatmatrow]

Feels like a 30 fps drop when capturing while recording or streaming at 60 fps. I have exactly 6 minutes smoothly in time, then 10 seconds with jerks and again 6 minutes smoothly and so on in a circle.

Similar to what I get, the timing is different and random for me--doesn't seem to be on a cycle.

I had tried to lower the fps to 30 in the video settings, but even 30fps feels like it shudders occasionally..it looks different than "normal" 30 fps.

Edit: I went back and timed (on one system) how long it takes for the stutter to occur. In the first run, it took 7m 36s--but in the second run it took 1m 28s.

One thing I noticed is that the use of the Start Menu makes the stutter disappear if the preview is already stuttering. This behavior is not unique to Display Capture, but can be done with Game/Window capture as well.

If the preview is perfectly smooth, sometimes using the Start Menu can cause a fraction of a second stutter, sometimes it causes the regular heavy stuttering.

In this testing, I tried killing the StartMenuExperience.exe process and renaming the C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy folder to prevent it from starting. The stutter still appeared, but I could no longer use the start menu to affect it.

I can recreate this issue and I have a video of it

[rysolv-bot]

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The total bounty is now $150.00. Solve this issue on Rysolv to earn this bounty.

[dodgepong]

FYI: I have blocked rysolv-bot from the repo for the time being, as Rysolv not a service we endorse at this time (the bot posting here was the first our team has heard of the service). If and when we decide to implement a bounty system, we will make a public announcement.

You're within your rights to give your money to whoever you want for whatever reason, but just know that, as of this posting, the OBS Project developers have absolutely no control over anything on Rysolv's website or bounty fund, including the listed OBS Project organization. We are currently working to rectify this.

[Adega-Studio]

Curious to know if a solution has been found

[fatmatrow]

Curious to know if a solution has been found

I don't even think the cause has been found let alone a solution

[jp9000]

When the preview itself stutters and that stutter makes it onto the recording, it's almost always render lag. This is often caused by OBS and say, a game, fighting over rendering priority with OBS losing most of the time. On Windows at least, we have a solution for that, but it requires running the program as administrator. If you could try again while running the program as administrator and see if you reproduce the same effect there, that'd probably be useful to note.

[Adega-Studio]

When the preview itself stutters and that stutter makes it onto the recording, it's almost always render lag. This is often caused by OBS and say, a game, fighting over rendering priority with OBS losing most of the time. On Windows at least, we have a solution for that, but it requires running the program as administrator. If you could try again while running the program as administrator and see if you reproduce the same effect there, that'd probably be useful to note.

Have tried. Nothing helps.

[Zakkaruu]

In my tests, I made sure to run as administrator, but unfortunately the behavior stills persists. It's bizarre, because the behavior appears whether I am in a resource intensive game, or sitting on the desktop with only Firefox and OBS running (as in the recordings).

I did some more testing and this behavior seems to show when using Direct3D 11 as the renderer in OBS. Using the --allow-opengl launch parameter, I changed to the OpenGL, and could not get the stutter/shudder to appear to the extremes as in the provided videos. I'm going to continue to test to see if the behavior appears, but so far it does not. Unfortunately, OpenGL on Windows does not have feature parity resulting in Game Capture artifacts and reduced performance overall, so it wouldn't be a suitable workaround.

One difference, is that the OBS fps counter in the bottom right, actually acknowledged that the FPS was dropping when I used the Start Menu to try and force some stutter. Previously, OBS would have the counter remain at 60fps solid no matter if there was stutter or not.

[fatmatrow]

I feel like I've been pretty clear in my posts about the problem that I get zero render lag, completely clean logs. And I'm running as admin, and the problem happens even without a game running. Obs its receiving 60fps and outputting 60fps but between that something is messing up.

Also I'm willing to run whatever logging software, provide any information, test anything, whatever it takes to help get to the bottom of this. I have the free time, I'm ready to work on this in any way I can. I have 2 systems with the same problem so that could be a valuable source to check against.

On Mon, Mar 1, 2021, 10:53 AM Jim notifications@github.com wrote:

When the preview itself stutters and that stutter makes it onto the recording, it's almost always render lag. This is often caused by OBS and say, a game, fighting over rendering priority with OBS losing most of the time. On Windows at least, we have a solution for that, but it requires running the program as administrator. If you could try again while running the program as administrator and see if you reproduce the same effect there, that'd probably be useful to note.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/issues/4191#issuecomment-788057310, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEXRKHJXUDPAEQOQZLMUUL3TBOZ7HANCNFSM4XDUZ63Q .

[gwilym]

I've been doing hours of testing of some older versions to see if there is a difference and I'm almost certain that -- for my issue at least -- using OBS 24.x drastically reduces if not removes the stuttering.

For testing I obtained non-installer binaries from GitHub releases over at https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases and unpacked each to their own location.

I've tried 24.0.3 (the final stable 24.x release for Windows), 25.0.4 (the first stable 25.x release without a hotfix), 25.0.8 (the final 25.x release), and 26.1.1 (the current release). I did not try any 25.x-RCs but I'm not opposed to doing so.

For each version I created a shortcut to run it as Administrator and in "Portable" mode to isolate them from any other installed versions: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-and-obs-studio-portable-mode-on-windows.359/

In each version I configured the same basic settings for 60 fps video with a scene for Game Capture and a scene for Display Capture, both with the scrolling text I've mentioned earlier. I changed nothing else since I wasn't going to stream anything.

In all tested versions apart from 24.0.3 the capture sources eventually stutter in the preview but the scrolling text does not. Recording during stuttering results in capture source stuttering in the video (in the form of duplicated/skipped frames).

In 24.0.3 the stuttering is gone entirely or shows up very rarely. When it does show up the whole scene is stuttering (text included) but the stuttering does not appear in the resulting recording.

Downgrading entirely to 24.x isn't practical for most I imagine but the isolated testing above might be.

[mufunyo]

So everybody seeing this has both a Zen CPU and a Nvidia GPU? Does anybody with an Intel CPU and/or a AMD/Intel GPU see this issue?

Just to add a data point here, I've been using OBS virtualcam at 60fps frequently for Discord chats (protip: use Chrome; Discord desktop restricts you to 30fps) and most recently added four scrolling marquees to my camera overlay. There was no stuttering at all. I'm on a Zen CPU (3970X) with a Radeon VII.

[Zakkaruu]

I've been doing hours of testing of some older versions to see if there is a difference and I'm almost certain that -- for my issue at least -- using OBS 24.x drastically reduces if not removes the stuttering.

In all tested versions apart from 24.0.3 the capture sources eventually stutter in the preview but the scrolling text does not. Recording during stuttering results in capture source stuttering in the video (in the form of duplicated/skipped frames).

I tried out 24.0.3, I still seem to get the same sort of stutter. I had previously gone back to the initial release of OBS Studio, but even that was the same result for me. OBS Classic did not seem to have this behavior, but I honestly didn't test for very long as it the previous and no longer supported iteration. (Classic was an amazing tool in its own.)

However, I can confirm that it is only the capture source that experience the persistent stutter. Using version 24.0.3, I also used the -p portable switch as @gwilym did, in addition to the --allow-opengl. For D3D11, it's the same result, but the scrolling text and media source do not stutter as the Display Source does. OpenGL did experience some stutter, but not to the same degree.

D3D11 Example D3D11 Log

OpenGL Example OpenGL Log

[fatmatrow]

I have an update:

In a last ditch effort, just to rule it out, I replaced the motherboard in my 3700x/x570/3060TI system with a b550. Still got the same stutter. In this system I have tried swapping EVERY component to no effect. I believe this effectively eliminates a hardware fault issue.

[Zakkaruu]

I did a couple more tests using 26.1.1. Both the source & other scene items stutter at times, while other times only the source stutters--both are shown in these examples. You'll notice one is recorded in I444 vs NV12, with the same results. I'm hoping this is all useful in someway and I'm not just spamming, lol.

26.1.1 Example 1 Log 1

26.1.1 Example 2 Log 2

Here is the Scene Collection if anyone wants to use it for testing, it's a JSON file that goes in the following folder: %appdata%\obs-studio\basic\scenes

Default.json

[energizerfellow]

When the preview itself stutters and that stutter makes it onto the recording, it's almost always render lag. This is often caused by OBS and say, a game, fighting over rendering priority with OBS losing most of the time. On Windows at least, we have a solution for that, but it requires running the program as administrator. If you could try again while running the program as administrator and see if you reproduce the same effect there, that'd probably be useful to note.

We've had a slow boil of people come into #windows-support on Discord with this issue, frequently on rather beefy hardware, e.g. Ryzen 3950X + GTX 2080 Ti, and no notable CPU and/or GPU load outside of OBS. If anything, higher-end hardware up in HEDT/workstation territory seems to experience the periodic jitter issue more frequently. @Xaymar may be onto something about the lack of NUMA awareness causing hitching? https://ideas.obsproject.com/posts/1113/improve-numa-awareness-in-obs-studio

Here's a forum thread from somebody an identical periodic frame pacing jitter issue that I personally worked with on Discord and was unable to resolve the issue: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/ill-pay-%C2%A3300-to-anyone-who-solves-this-problem-for-me-intermittent-video-stuttering.131223/

[mufunyo]

We've had a slow boil of people come into #windows-support on Discord with this issue, frequently on rather beefy hardware, e.g. Ryzen 3950X + GTX 2080 Ti, and no notable CPU and/or GPU load outside of OBS. If anything, higher-end hardware up in HEDT/workstation territory seems to experience the periodic jitter issue more frequently. Xaymar may be onto something about the lack of NUMA awareness causing hitching?

All Ryzen 3000 series (Zen2) CPUs use UMA, so it's highly unlikely that has anything to do with it. If you want to test NUMA you will need dual socket Xeon systems or 1st gen Threadrippers.

[Zakkaruu]

We've had a slow boil of people come into #windows-support on Discord with this issue, frequently on rather beefy hardware, e.g. Ryzen 3950X + GTX 2080 Ti, and no notable CPU and/or GPU load outside of OBS. If anything, higher-end hardware up in HEDT/workstation territory seems to experience the periodic jitter issue more frequently.

This is pretty much what I have experienced to a T.

One system that does not have any stutter is a system from 2013/2014 that I gave to my wife. It runs an i7-3770K with a GTX1080.

However, newer systems that I've built within the last year run a Ryzen 7 2700X with a GTX1080 and an i9-10900KF with a 2080TI. There are a couple more systems I've tested with in the OP, all with the CPUs all being newer than the 3770k. All of these systems display the behavior.

[Xaymar]

All Ryzen 3000 series (Zen2) CPUs use UMA, so it's highly unlikely that has anything to do with it. If you want to test NUMA you will need dual socket Xeon systems or 1st gen Threadrippers.

They still have access latency when you transfer data across CCDs and CCXs. On pre-Zen3, you might even get L1 conflicts, which take a significant chunk of CPU cycles to resolve, in which all cores are "idle" but can't perform any work.

[mufunyo]

And yet nobody with an AMD GPU has been able to reproduce this problem.

[Adega-Studio]

Window Capture regularly stutters every 6 minutes for 20 seconds. Why is this happening? Game capture is supported even more often. Here is a test video recorded in obs through window capturing • Timecode of start and end of stuttering: from 3:05 to 3:25 and so regularly (. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i7cR6pfiww&feature=emb_logo The recording mode is video card or processor, the result is the same. Site for test and verification. https://www.testufo.com/stutter#demo=smooth&foreground=ffffff&background=000000&pps=720

[Xaymar]

And yet nobody with an AMD GPU has been able to reproduce this problem.

This issue is universal and unrelated to the GPU used. I've personally reproduced the problem on every GPU, even Intel iGPUs. Unfortunately all leads that I thought I had ended up leading to nothing, The biggest change I've found was to disable "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling", which breaks if a single app is flushing the GPU commands excessively. Additionally enabling the "Variable refresh rate" option also affects OBS in unusual ways.

[Adega-Studio]

I really want a temporary solution to the problem, until they fix it forever.

[skeletonbow]

Has anyone tried forcing OBS to run on a single CCX via CPU affinity? I'm curious if that has any effect. For those who aren't sure how to test this, it would be by setting CPU affinity to logical cores 0-7 on a Rzyen 3000 series which would be the first 4 cores with hyperthreads, or cores 0-15 on a 5000 series chip.

[fatmatrow]

Yes, I've tried this a multitude of different ways. It's not a ccx latency issue, or I would have had it since 2017 when I got my 1700x system, and everyone with a ryzen 7 and above would have it

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 3:34 PM skeletonbow @.***> wrote:

Has anyone tried forcing OBS to run on a single CCX via CPU affinity? I'm curious if that has any effect. For those who aren't sure how to test this, it would be by setting CPU affinity to logical cores 0-7 on a Rzyen 3000 series which would be the first 4 cores with hyperthreads, or cores 0-15 on a 5000 series chip.

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[defari]

"Obs its receiving 60fps and outputting 60fps but between that something is messing up." <- I second this, i have the same issue too. While in-game like CSGO my fps not even dropping (maintain at 600fps and above - using 5950x cpu and rtx2070 gpu) , obs status also not showing any dropping frame and my bitrate for uploading 6000 Kbps. But 10 minutes after it's start stuttering/lag on preview and the lag appeared on twitch/fb too. it's like fps dropping on obs ;)

[tjcougar]

Ok so I have been having the issue as described with the stuttering issue, the pc that I am using to stream is a dedicated streaming pc so I don't play games on it. the pc its self has a i7-8700k @4.7 with a gtx 745 and then I am using the avermedia live duo capture card to capture my gaming pc. I have tried numerous presets with cpu and nvenc ranging from fast and medium on cpu and different quality settings with nvenc, cpu and gpu usage never go above 70%. Something else I should add is the stuttering also happens with the output that goes to stream or recording. here is the latest log from my obs while using nvenc: https://obsproject.com/logs/7c_Z7J8nEf37aWVO

[Adega-Studio]

A lot of time has passed, but a solution to the problem has not been found (. And in general, there have been no updates for a long time ( Does the developer see the post at all?

[Xaymar]

Please note how there's more than 300 open issues waiting for a fix, and 100 PRs waiting to be merged. The developers are very busy.