Question / Help Encoding overloaded while CPU and GPU are both below 60% usage

[Kirschi]

G'day dear people,
as you may have read, I've got a problem. OBS Studio is telling me the encoding is overloaded, although both CPU and GPU are below 60% usage. I'm using "NVIDIA NVENC H.264 (new)", CBR 17 kbit/s, "quality" and profile "high" atm, but it just doesn't look too good. 20 kbit/s are causing stutters in the video though because of the overload of the encoding. I've tried VBR 100 kbit/s with a max of 200 kbit/s too, but while it looks better in bright environments, it looks a lot worse when it's dark. I'm trying to find a way for the games I'm recording to look good and I'd greatly appreciate any help you might be able to provide me.

My PC has the following specs (if you need more info, just holla at me):
i7 4770k 3,5 GHz (4 cores, 8 logic processors)
GeForce GTX 1080 ti
32 GB DDR3 RAM

I'm recording onto an external HDD drive atm, if that's important. I got an internal HDD too which I could use, also an internal SSD.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Harold]

Have you tried CQP 16 with psycho visual tuning OFF?

 

[Kirschi]

Have you tried CQP 16 with psycho visual tuning OFF?

Not yet, if it could help I'll try it today though.

And because I forgot I'll add a log in this comment, in case that might help too

 

[Kirschi]

Have you tried CQP 16 with psycho visual tuning OFF?

I tried that now and unfortunately the codec is equally or even more overloaded than with CBR 20 kbit/s, the video was pretty much a laggy mess. I attached the logfile for that session

 

[Narcogen]

Actually that logfile shows marginally less encoding lag at CQP 16 than at 15.

With CQP 15 and psycho_aq on:

18:06:28.279: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 268/1248 (21.5%)

CQP 16 and psycho_aq on:

18:08:16.060: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 202/1037 (19.5%)

CQP 16 and psycho_aq off:

18:11:19.828: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 152/861 (17.7%)

Moving in the right direction, anyway.


That said, your original log with CBR:

01:41:58.048: Video stopped, number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 128/3315 (3.9%)

It might help to start at CQP 23 and move down until encoding lag starts and see what that video looks like.

Also one of your media sources seems to be having a problem?

17:19:32.441: adding 21 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 64 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)
17:30:59.409: adding 21 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 85 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)
18:04:46.723: adding 213 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 298 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)

 

[Harold]

Turn SLI capture mode OFF in your game capture source.

 

[Kirschi]

Also one of your media sources seems to be having a problem?

17:19:32.441: adding 21 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 64 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)
17:30:59.409: adding 21 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 85 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)
18:04:46.723: adding 213 milliseconds of audio buffering, total audio buffering is now 298 milliseconds (source: LoadingBG)

Yeah, I've read that too, don't know why it has that error, but it only refers to "LoadingBG", so there should only be audio lag on this source, right? Because if that's the case, it's fortunately no problem, as "LoadingBG" is a video file that is being played back, but has no actual audio

Turn SLI capture mode OFF in your game capture source.

I've made test-recordings with games where I had SLI turned off and I still had the problem unfortunately


Thanks to all the people here trying to help me! It seems I've found the problem now. It was just the recording onto the external hard drive. I did some test-recording onto my SSD and the encoding problems seem to be 100% gone now, even when recording with 100 kbit/s in CBR.
Thanks again for your help!