Can't seem to record games smoothly on my PC

[Myth]

I've been trying to record some games lately on my PC, mostly PUBG and the CoD WW2 Open Beta and I've noticed the recordings look horrible and my game is choppy. Sometimes my game is fine, runs smooth when recording, other times it lags balls and drops my frames by at least 20 FPS, versus a normaly 5-10 difference. I've tried turning some settings down in games, but even that doesn't seem to fix it. I've tried recording CS: GO at 1920x1080 60fps and I get over 200 fps on max settings and when I record with OBS it looks choppy as hell. I'm not sure what's wrong as I used to be able to record just fine. I hate not being able to record my games because if someone awesome happens I'd like to have some highlights to put on youtube.

Been trying to record with OBS, and I assumed I was using settings that just weren't working, but I tried using AMD ReLive and Mirillis Action, both giving similar issues. The game runs fine whenn recording, about half the time, but the recordings look choppy all the time making me waste time trying to fix it only to not fix it. I tried asking for help on OBS forums, but haven't gotten any luck yet. Thought I'd post here. I haven't overclocked anything or changed anything recently on my PC.

Specs on my profile. Post if you have any ideas on what might be wrong, some ways on troubleshooting, or if you want to help, but need more info because of my lack of info and surplus of text that probably doesn't matter that much.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

AMD GPU, well there's a big problem.
Also recording to SSD would help.

[Myth]

Originally posted by Bad_Motha:

AMD GPU, well there's a big problem.
Also recording to SSD would help.

Something wrong with my GPU?

[RGX12]

There's likely nothing wrong with your GPU, and turning down the game's settings isn't much going to help. You have to turn down the RECORD settings in OBS. And the fact that you didn't post them indicates to me that you possibly aren't aware of them, because it's those settings which dictate ultimate performance.

Use the mp4 container if you aren't already, and incrementally turn down the video resolution and the bit rate of the recording.

Experiment step by step with those settings until you can record without lag. There is info on the OBS website if you need further details.

Also, for extra performance, make sure you turn OFF the live monitoring in OBS (the preview box should be black).

[MaddDoktor [Linux]]

Doing video compression on the fly (especially 1080p 60 fps) uses CPU time and there may also be lag writing to disk, since disk writing can only be delayed so long. With my old i7 870 and 16 GB DDR3 RAM (a bit slower than newer i5 with faster RAM) I have not found settings to do an acceptable job recording 1080p @ 30 fps with OBS (in Linux). Although, there is another Linux program called Simple Screen Recorder that can record 1080p @ 30 fps with some compression, but not minimal file size.

So far I have only done that with DiRT Rally playbacks, which were reduced to 720p 30 fps (actually 29.97 for some reason) MP4 before uploaded to YouTube. So they are not real sharp at 1080p. I have not tried recording during gameplay yet, which I could try with TF2 since that is a fairly light Source game.

I don't have PUBG, but I hear that can be fairly demanding on hardware.

There are external HDMI recording devices available (like on Amazon), but you have to review details. Some can record directly to SD card or USB memory or drive, but some require a 2nd computer or laptop to handle video compression and storage.

[Myth]

Originally posted by RGX12:

There's likely nothing wrong with your GPU, and turning down the game's settings isn't much going to help. You have to turn down the RECORD settings in OBS. And the fact that you didn't post them indicates to me that you possibly aren't aware of them, because it's those settings which dictate ultimate performance.

Use the mp4 container if you aren't already, and incrementally turn down the video resolution and the bit rate of the recording.

Experiment step by step with those settings until you can record without lag. There is info on the OBS website if you need further details.

I'm running indistinguishable, with balanced preset (tried both speed and quality and both don't make a difference) at 1080p 60fps bicubic filter. I'm using the mp4 containter and h265/HEVC encoder (using either AMD encoder to relieve stress off my CPU), recording to two audio tracks, one mic and one my headset. Keyframe interval is at 2. I know what the settings are, it was just late last night and I didn't want to type it all out as I was borderline falling asleep when I made this.

I'm playing games on my SSD and recording to my HDD. I don't have enough space to record to my SSD and I'd rather not buy an SSD to record to when I got a 2TB HDD for $40 where as a 500gb SSD is $150+.

[RGX12]

I don't have OBS on the machine I'm on now, so I can't go through the settings step by step, but you'd be practically guaranteed to have problems with those settings. You can try leaving the resolution alone for the moment, but everything else must change:

1) Forget about 60 FPS (this needs to go down, most likely by half)
2) Forget about bicubic filter (try lanczos or bilinear)
3) FORGET about h.265...not gonna happen (the implementation for this is experimental, and VERY slow--and AVC is plenty efficient)

My advice: first change #3 to h.264. If that's not enough, gradually decrement settings in the other 2 categories (starting with the resize filter, then framerate) until video quality improves. If THAT is not enough, then start lowering your resolution.

I can tell you that your HDD is almost certainly NOT the bottleneck--the amount of high quality screen recordings I've done to mechanical HD's number well into the hundreds. The problem is that your quality settings are way too high and you'd need an insane rig to achieve them (and even then it may not be possible, especially with h.265). You'll need to be realistic and make some sacrifices. Like I've already said, go down incrementally in each category until your videos are no longer stuttering.

[Myth]

Originally posted by RGX12:

I don't have OBS on the machine I'm on now, so I can't go through the settings step by step, but you'd be practically guaranteed to have problems with those settings. You can try leaving the resolution alone for the moment, but everything else must change:

1) Forget about 60 FPS (this needs to go down, most likely by half)
2) Forget about bicubic filter (try lanczos or bilinear)
3) FORGET about h.265...not gonna happen (the implementation for this is experimental, and VERY slow--and AVC is plenty efficient)

My advice: first change #3 to h.264. If that's not enough, gradually decrement settings in the other 2 categories (starting with the resize filter, then framerate) until video quality improves. If THAT is not enough, then start lowering your resolution.

I can tell you that your HDD is almost certainly NOT the bottleneck--the amount of high quality screen recordings I've done to mechanical HD's number well into the hundreds. The problem is that your quality settings are way too high and you'd need an insane rig to achieve them (and even then it may not be possible, especially with h.265). You'll need to be realistic and make some sacrifices. Like I've already said, go down incrementally in each category until your videos are no longer stuttering.

I'm not going lower than 60fps for recording, not going to happen. I've tried both h265 and h2674 and it doesn't make a difference. I've used bicubic and lanczos, no difference. I've recorded with the same settings just fine in the past which is what I'm confused about right now so telling me I can't handle it doesn't make sense.

People suggesting going lower resolution or fps make no sense because my PC can handle it just fine.

EDIT: here's an example: https://youtu.be/X3T49d5mQGg?t=578 This is one of my videos. I was gettign over 100fps on high settings black ops 3 just a few months ago without any problems what so ever.

[appleseedcarrot]

Use amd relive. If i record csgo, i lose 1 frames, dont use obs if you have a dedicated gpu

also whats your record settings

[RGX12]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. But every game uses a different amount of resources, and uses them differently. Obviously clock cycles are shared between the game and OBS, the more resources taken by a particular game, the less left for OBS.
As far as the settings, I'm just telling you what I know from experience. And for example, my advice about h.265 I didn't just pull out of thin air--you can find on the OBS website yourself that it's inefficient and not recommended for most cases at this point.

Some other things you could try would be increasing the record buffer, or actually raising the system priority of the OBS process (to 'above normal', or even 'high').

Other than that I don't know what to tell you. Keep trying the OBS forums, or try a different recording program.

[appleseedcarrot]

have u tried other recording softwares? If other recording softwares do the same thing, its probably a pc issue

[appleseedcarrot]

if it works fine on others, then its probably something you did on the settings.

[appleseedcarrot]

also have you checked ur fps while recording? if ur recording while havjng low fps the output is NOT gonna magically have a clean smooth 60fps video

[Myth]

Originally posted by aDumbnamedUser:

also have you checked ur fps while recording? if ur recording while havjng low fps the output is NOT gonna magically have a clean smooth 60fps video

You can edit your recent posts instead of spamming more. My FPS is above 100 99% of the time in any game I play.

[appleseedcarrot]

Originally posted by Mythical Beast:

Originally posted by aDumbnamedUser:

also have you checked ur fps while recording? if ur recording while havjng low fps the output is NOT gonna magically have a clean smooth 60fps video

You can edit your recent posts instead of spamming more. My FPS is above 100 99% of the time in any game I play.

Im trying to help you but you want me to stop "spamming". Fine, good luck on your problem

[furak151]

Hey, If you have any problems with Mirillis Action!, contact their support https://mirillis.com/en/company/contact.html
They update the software almost every week, so they might fix the issue, or let you know it it's something wrong with the settings.