Question / Help Recording lag for Rise of the Tomb Raider

[naftali_dg]

I am currently playing and recording this game and the recording lags so bad. I was also using StreamLabs OBS and that is also lagging, at streamlabs though it shows an error message "Skipped Frames" and that is because of the encoder (as per their forums). I am using AMD as the encoder because if I use the x264 just at the main menu it's already lagging.

I have Rise of the Tomb Raider set to High settings, as for other games I have Overwatch at Ultra settings, Dark Souls 3 at High settings, Dying Light at High settings and the Tomb Raider reboot also at high settings and none of them lagged.

I built this comp last year, the only old part is my monitor, a Samsung SyncMaster SB19B300 (7 yrs old) and I don't know if this is the cause of the issue or is the FPS dropping.

Below are the specs of my comp from DxDiag:
Motherboard: H170-Gaming 3
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
RAM: RipJaws GSkill 16GB DDR4
GPU: Sapphire RX 570 8GB VRam

Screenshot of my settings for OBS

 

[MCBYT]

It's definitely the game. I would guess that it's an issue with the CPU. My solution to problems like these is to limit the in-game FPS (to 30fps, 45fps, 60fps, whatever you'd like, but don't go over the monitor refresh rate. Also, try changing your encoder speed for x264 to ultrafast (if it's on anything different, the difference between veryfast and ultrafast is immense)

 

[Narcogen]

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

 

[naftali_dg]

Just an update to those who might encounter the same problem as me since I haven't seen anything specific as a fix specially to those who use AMD GPUs. I was able to get the recording stable without skipping frames in OBS (as for streamlabs OBS I am not sure if this will work and this is for skipping frames, not dropping frames).

I did the following and I got it from other tutorials. Take note I am not an expert, this is what I have from playing the game over and over since the lag starts at the first Soviet area.

From the first screen that shows when you open the game.
1) At the Dislplay Tab turn off Vsync and set the Anti-aliasing to SMAA
2) Graphics tab I have the Present to high, below should be the settings you have:
-Texture quality: High
-Anisotrophic Filter: Anisotrophic 4X
-Shadow Quality: High
-Sun soft shadows: ON
-Depth of Field: ON
-Level of detail: High
-Dynamic Foilage: Medium
-Ambient Occlusion: On
-PureHair: ON
-Specular Reflection Quality: Normal

3) all the check boxes are checked
4) Open Steam, go to the Library, right-click Rise of the tomb raider, click properties, uncheck Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game.

5) For AMD GPU (Radeon software version 18.8.1)
-go to gaming
-select the game
-change the Frame rate control (I changed mine multiple times and I got it to work at 30 FPS)
6) also adjust the FPS at OBS
-go to File, Setting, Video then change the common FPS Values
7) in OBS set the Encoder to AMD then the file to MP4

**This is optional but it does work for me.
1) In OBS (version 21.1.2) go to File, Setting, Advanced, Set Process Priority to High
2) Run the game then go to the task manager
-Windows 7 go to the Processes tab
-Windows 10 (click more details if needed) go to Details tab
3) Right-click the exe of the game then set to Above normal
4) Before you start recording always check the task manager first

The Shadow quality in this games seems to be one of the reason for the lag, if it's set to Very high even if all the settings mention above are set it can cause the frames to skip. And if recording in OBS using MKV it still skips frames but it is very minimal.

My first thought about this issue was to drop the settings to medium and I did, it did not solve the problem. I would like to thank MCBYT for his suggestion to make changes to the FPS, that got everything smooth.

I just hope someone using an NVDIA card can try to see if it will work. Also any thoughts and feed back will be highly appreciated.