Question / Help OBS recording stutters in a pattern

[hitzz]

Hi I've been having an aggravating problem in OBS Studio and Streamlabs

Every recording I make, there is a constant stutter in what seems like a pattern. It happens every 8 seconds or so.
My GPU nor CPU ever get anywhere near 100%
My PC is an Alienware Aurora R8, this one specifically: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z69SH9S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I included 3 log files so someone can hopefully figure out what's wrong.
The log files are from OBS Studio, but Streamlabs OBS does the exact same thing (with same encoding settings).

If this helps at all, I record Fortnite at 1080p 60fps and I cap the game at 60fps too. I also use Nvidia fast v-sync. The stutters are not in-game, only recordings.

 

[carlmmii]

Stick with Nvenc, run OBS as administrator, and turn off Psychovisual tuning. That should minimize any encoding lag you have, and give the best quality output.

However, several of your test recordings do not show any type of lag present. What program are you using to play back your videos?

If you're already using VLC, do the stutters happen at the exact same place in the recording? When you notice the stutter, go back a few seconds and rewatch to see if it happens on the same frames. There is a very real possibility that VLC is not playing back smoothly.

 

[hitzz]

Alright so I did all those things, and it's still happening. And yeah I've checked it's definitely in the recording. Used VLC and i also imported the file into my editing program Vegas, watched keyframe by keyframe, and saw the lags there.
Here's a test video I just recorded: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1P2Ta6izwER3P3yi9x4Jn38O1XIV_1Rip
(Google drive will take some time I guess to process it to 60fps, but you can still see the lags)

And I attached the log file from that video.
In-game, there were no stutters at all, just smooth 60fps. So it's something with OBS definitely.

And I really appreciate you helping seriously

 

[carlmmii]

Ok, a few more things to try.

- Record to .mkv directly instead of .mp4. This should be done regardless, as .mp4 requires metadata to be written at the end of recording, meaning if anything happens to interrupt this (like a crash, or problem with storage), then the entire file will be corrupted. If you need .mp4 for editing, then manually remux it afterward via File->Remux, or have OBS do it automatically (enabled in advanced settings)

- Record to your C: drive instead of G:. Not sure what type of drive your G: drive is, but any bottleneck with being able to write data to disk shows up as frames lost to encoding lag.

 

[bobyto93]

hitzz I have the same problem as you, and discovered it yestarday, here is a recording of what is going on with me, it happens every 2 sec, it turns out that the keyframes are what cause it, if you set the keyframe interval to 30 it will happen every 30 sec. Strange this is that if I change from h264 to h265 it stops. Here is a video with my issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ZOGcresX0

 

[Mistiklese]

I am in the same boat, again. been dealing with this for the past few days.

 

[hitzz]

Ok, a few more things to try.

- Record to .mkv directly instead of .mp4. This should be done regardless, as .mp4 requires metadata to be written at the end of recording, meaning if anything happens to interrupt this (like a crash, or problem with storage), then the entire file will be corrupted. If you need .mp4 for editing, then manually remux it afterward via File->Remux, or have OBS do it automatically (enabled in advanced settings)

- Record to your C: drive instead of G:. Not sure what type of drive your G: drive is, but any bottleneck with being able to write data to disk shows up as frames lost to encoding lag.

Well it turns out it was the drive. My G: drive is a 5TB Seagate external USB drive. Switched the output to my D: drive (it has more space than my C:) and the lagging stopped. The Seagate drive a bit old, maybe that's why. Thanks for the help!

My game is also stored in that G: drive, should I move it too? Is there any conflict created when encoding a video and playing a game in the same drive?