• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 07:03
CEST 13:03
KST 20:03
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins Maestros of the Game 238ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection7
Community News
BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion5BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion5Weekly Cups (June 29-July 5): Solar Doubles0MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon445.0.16 Hotfix (June 30) - Balance + Bug Fixes40
StarCraft 2
General
Most successful SC2 players of Q2 2026 Serral wins Maestros of the Game 2 MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon Is the larve respawn broken? 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)
Tourneys
GSL CK #5 Race War RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event HomeStory Cup 29 Vespene Cup #1 — $300+ USD, July 10 Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
Mutation # 533 Die Together The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family Mutation # 531 Experimental Artillery
Brood War
General
ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool ASL22 General Discussion BW General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion
Tourneys
[ASL22] Wildcard Qualifier [Megathread] Daily Proleagues IPSL Spring 2026 Top 4! CSLAN 4 is Coming!
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies
Other Games
General Games
Summer Games Done Quick 2026! General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Dawn of War IV
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance TL Mafia Community Thread TL Mafia Power Rank Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread UK Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently...
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Tennis[sport] Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop How to clean a TTe Thermaltake keyboard? Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Major Shifts in the Gaming I…
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 6759 users

OBS lowers encoded frames when I switch to SC2

Forum Index > Tech Support
Post a Reply
RyoNara
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany9 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-17 03:25:23
March 17 2014 03:23 GMT
#1
Hi,

I have recently upgraded my PC and finally have found some time to figure out
my stream settings. I have read on these and the OBS forums for guidance and
set up my stream accordingly - at least I believe so.

But I have a problem that is seemingly disconnected from bandwith and/or CPU usage.
If I am streaming (1600/900, 30fps) my stream looks fine, with minor stutters and/or
pixelation. Those I tribute to my amazing ~800kBit upload (thanks Germany!) and
are not the problem I want to solve here.

So stream is running fine as long as I do not have the game (SCII) in focus - as in I
have selected any other window (win7), OBS is claiming 0 dropped frames, 800kbit up
and 30 FPS. Great. CPU usage varies between 50% and 60% on the "veryfast" preset.
I can setup my windows so that I can see my, not yet focussed, SC2 fully and the OBS
FPS next to it. As soon as I click into the window - wich does not change my CPU usage
or my ingame FPS or anything that is displayed on my screen or on the resulting stream
- the FPS that OBS encodes drops to a whopping 8 FPS.

I have tried to change Bandwidth, Encoding preset, resolutions and FPS settings to all
possible extreme values - both high and low - and always hit the same result.
As soon as I switch to the game the encoded FPS drop drastically to around 8 FPS.

Now my only guess here was, that windows somehow throttles the process as soon
as it is considered in the background, but changing process priority or designating cores
does not have any significant impact too...

I am at a loss - can anyone help?

i5 4670k
8GB RAM
Windows 7

Thanks,
RyoNara
"I know you are out there. [...]" -Neo
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20341 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-17 08:54:02
March 17 2014 08:49 GMT
#2
Are you using Game Capture with nothing else in your sources?

CPU usage varies between 50% and 60% on the "veryfast" preset.


That's a lot, even for high resolutions

you should probably be using 2.0x resolution downscale with that limited bitrate (and ~medium preset, though you can adjust that after it works)
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
RyoNara
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany9 Posts
March 17 2014 18:57 GMT
#3
How is 50% a lot ?

Should I not aim to use way more than that while streaming and plaing? ~80% sounds like something i would aim for?

The OBS Forum is telling me, that my "terrible" graphics card is the issue - wich should not have anything to do with
the problem described. I tried XSplit today and had no such issues at all.
"I know you are out there. [...]" -Neo
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10342 Posts
March 17 2014 19:02 GMT
#4
On March 17 2014 17:49 Cyro wrote:
and ~medium preset, though you can adjust that after it works

Just... no.
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
TL+ Member
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20341 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-17 19:22:43
March 17 2014 19:09 GMT
#5
On March 18 2014 04:02 R1CH wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 17 2014 17:49 Cyro wrote:
and ~medium preset, though you can adjust that after it works

Just... no.


What's wrong with medium preset 800x450, 30fps on a 4670k? At least provide reasoning.

Can't really do it @1080 (5.76x the resolution) but it's pretty laughable on even a stock Haswell cpu at 720p~30fps and cutting preset from veryfast to medium actually makes significant differences to encoding quality (below that not so much, medium is the "default" of x264)

I see no problem at all with suggesting to use 800x450@30fps@veryfast and then adjusting to 800x450@30fps@medium if stuff works good. Do you see one that needs pointing out?

I know there at least used to be a lot of people wildly changing presets at inappropriate times. 1.5 or 2x downscale from 1600x900 (~17-31% of 1080p) at 30fps and medium preset should be child's play for even a stock 4670k though. I've played with Haswell a lot, they're encoding monsters.
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20341 Posts
March 17 2014 19:15 GMT
#6
How is 50% a lot ?

Should I not aim to use way more than that while streaming and plaing? ~80% sounds like something i would aim for?


It's just quite high. Spikes in CPU load are way higher than average, if it read 80% you'd often spike to 100 most likely with stuff like fast camera pans. It seemed like a bit of a weird number to me because it's way higher than what i get with higher resolutions and framerates
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
RyoNara
Profile Joined October 2011
Germany9 Posts
March 26 2014 02:09 GMT
#7
I just want to confirm that this is a OBS specific problem.

Since my post I have switched to Xsplit and do not have a comparable problem
- although I have others that I will now try to solve
"I know you are out there. [...]" -Neo
herbalshotz
Profile Joined December 2023
1 Post
December 03 2023 10:51 GMT
#8
--- Nuked ---
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Sparkling Tuna Cup
10:00
Weekly #137
SHIN vs ShamelessLIVE!
CranKy Ducklings66
CranKy Ducklings SOOP7
LiquipediaDiscussion
RSL Revival
09:00
Season 6 - Group B
Solar vs NightMareLIVE!
Maru vs TBD
Tasteless1267
Ryung 713
IntoTheiNu 359
TKL 228
IndyStarCraft 210
Rex125
3DClanTV 59
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Tasteless 1267
Ryung 713
TKL 228
IndyStarCraft 210
Rex 125
ProTech42
Livibee 22
MindelVK 0
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 25820
Calm 7721
Bisu 1408
Hyuk 599
Shuttle 469
Horang2 438
Jaedong 417
Soma 270
BeSt 256
Mini 165
[ Show more ]
Stork 160
Last 130
actioN 129
Soulkey 127
Mong 126
EffOrt 98
hero 78
Light 74
Larva 72
Sharp 37
ZerO 37
ToSsGirL 36
Mind 36
scan(afreeca) 32
soO 32
Aegong 29
sSak 27
Killer 27
sorry 22
yabsab 21
Free 21
HiyA 20
Hm[arnc] 18
Sacsri 14
JulyZerg 10
Noble 9
Purpose 8
ajuk12(nOOB) 7
Dota 2
Gorgc1814
League of Legends
Doublelift2506
JimRising 609
Counter-Strike
x6flipin335
Sick188
Other Games
FrodaN2042
DeMusliM235
crisheroes206
Pyrionflax157
B2W.Neo135
KnowMe59
RuFF_SC226
ZerO(Twitch)12
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 13
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 11 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos2797
Upcoming Events
IPSL
4h 58m
Bonyth vs Hawk
GSL
23h 58m
Replay Cast
1d 12h
WardiTV Weekly
1d 23h
The PondCast
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
CrankTV Team League
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
CrankTV Team League
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
5 days
Clem vs Lambo
Scarlett vs Cure
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Classic vs Trap
herO vs SHIN
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

ASL Season 22: Wild Card Qualifier
HSC XXIX
Eternal Conflict S2 E1

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
YSL S3
CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
SCTL 2026 Spring
Eternal Conflict S2 E2
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W3
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 1
Escore Tournament S3: W4
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 2
Escore Tournament S3: W5
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E3
Logitech G Connect 2026
StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.