Optimizing Facerig for OBS/Streaming

[Robmo]

Hey there!

Today i did a stream and it seemed my little facrig guy was choppy at times. I was curious if there any settings I could be using to make the most out of it and he can have a nice 30 fps on my stream. Obviously lowering the quality of the render will help (i think) but while you "broadcast" are there certain things that should be on? I have it set to 30 fps.

MY OBS was using about 80 percent of the CPU, which seemed high and I've fixed and are improving. Here are some specs

i7 930 @ 3.8 GHZ
16GB Ram DDr3
GTX 770 4GB

Any insight or advice would be lovely

[Gruntled Employee]

I started messing around with this too tonight with Kings and Heroes, the avatar was choppy as well, do you have yours set to animated or retargeted? I am not sure what's better.

I found a youtube video some guy did for OBS settings https://youtu.be/g2f1IrnNspo
He said he used 1024x576 for streaming and the quality didnt seem that bad on the YT video.
Though he has his set to lip sync and when I try to do it under settings > devices > audio recording devices it says No Device. But my mic USB headset is reccognized by windows and is working, not sure why FaceRig doesn't recognize it.

[Robmo]

Originally posted by Gruntled Employee:

Hey! Well my mic works fine and I have the lip syncing working fine, again my camera isnt great but im getting a better one in the future. I cant remember what I had my dude set up, but if hes gonna be small in the corner you dont need to be a super high resolution. I was just trying to figure out why he wasnt staying a constant 30 fps. Thats what i'm looking for.

For you however, can you use your mic in your stream or for recording in General?

[Gruntled Employee]

Originally posted by Robmomanjaro:

Yes I am using a PS3 Eye with the latest CL drivers now until I can get a better webcam. :)

What game and avatar were you using?

You can enable Simple Processing under graphics options, and performance toggle the low priority process. That might help

I actually didn't try streaming yet, I was just using the Start Recording feature in OBS Studio doing some tests, but yes I could hear my voice via the mic on the recording

[Robmo]

Originally posted by Gruntled Employee:

Originally posted by Robmomanjaro:

I figured that, but i assumed that using those settoings is what caused the slow down on the stream inself. When i looked at the actually Facerig window, it didnt seem to slow down, Just whart was broadcasting to OBS. But obviously I was mostly playing and kinda looking at my computer screen.

I was using the Dragon and playing Dragon Age Inquisition.

[76561198257355317]

Originally posted by Robmomanjaro:

Originally posted by Gruntled Employee:

I figured that, but i assumed that using those settoings is what caused the slow down on the stream inself. When i looked at the actually Facerig window, it didnt seem to slow down, Just whart was broadcasting to OBS. But obviously I was mostly playing and kinda looking at my computer screen.

I was using the Dragon and playing Dragon Age Inquisition.

The refresh rate of the application is set to 60 fps by default. Turning it down to 30, or even 20-25, could greatly help as it clears some CPU usage. Go to the Advanced UI (last option from left to right on the top bar), General Options dialog, Performance tab, and change Main App Frame Cap.
Make sure you are running FaceRig on DX11, it will clear some of the CPU usage, on some avatars the CPU usage is half of the DX9 version. Change this option from the Launcher, Render API.
Change some graphics options to clear some GPU *and* CPU resources utilization. Change the render resolution to 640x360 (try out different values to see what suits your needs) and the shadow map quality (go to Low) from General Options dialog, Graphics tab. You can also tweak the Fur Quality, Skin Shading Quality and Use Animated Normals, to balance performance and visual level to your needs.

[Robmo]

Originally posted by Mighty_Potato:

Originally posted by Robmomanjaro:

I figured that, but i assumed that using those settoings is what caused the slow down on the stream inself. When i looked at the actually Facerig window, it didnt seem to slow down, Just whart was broadcasting to OBS. But obviously I was mostly playing and kinda looking at my computer screen.

I was using the Dragon and playing Dragon Age Inquisition.

The refresh rate of the application is set to 60 fps by default. Turning it down to 30, or even 20-25, could greatly help as it clears some CPU usage. Go to the Advanced UI (last option from left to right on the top bar), General Options dialog, Performance tab, and change Main App Frame Cap.
Make sure you are running FaceRig on DX11, it will clear some of the CPU usage, on some avatars the CPU usage is half of the DX9 version. Change this option from the Launcher, Render API.
Change some graphics options to clear some GPU *and* CPU resources utilization. Change the render resolution to 640x360 (try out different values to see what suits your needs) and the shadow map quality (go to Low) from General Options dialog, Graphics tab. You can also tweak the Fur Quality, Skin Shading Quality and Use Animated Normals, to balance performance and visual level to your needs.

Thank you, I did see most of those settings. I assume using the Low cpu Prioritization will cause it to stutter on the OBS software. Because in the actual render window, it wasnt lagging or stuttering, just on the stream. Since its going to be small and in the corner, lowering his resolution would probably be the best bet anyways. Great work on the software right away. Very cool, cant wait to get a 720p 60fps camera for it =)