[SOLVED] FPS Spikes/Freezing While Streaming

[CelticDemon]

Hey Lads/Lassies, So I've been experiencing a lot of "FPS Spikes" Whilst streaming Overwatch. I have a friend with the Exact same Hardware as me and he hasn't been experiencing any such issues whilst Streaming. The only difference between us is that my friend has a 1060 GPU.

My PC Specs are as follows:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Memory: 8GB DDR4
MOBO: AB350M-Gaming 3
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 (FTW Edition)
Storage: (x2) 2TB HDD

The streaming app that I use to Stream is called: StreamLabsOBS (I stream to Twitch)

One thing I've noticed is that my RAM usage is particularity high whilst streaming and playing Overwatch, 80-90 % So as an experiment while building a PC for a fiend of mine I added the DDR4 Ram I was using for his System into mine (8GB) and that seemed to get rid of the FPS Spikes I was having almost completely it seemed for the short time it was in there.

So I'm wondering on how I can fix this issue can it be resolved without buying more system memory or will I have to invest in more?

As for the "FPS Spikes" if your not sure what I'm talking about, While I'm playing Overwatch and streaming at the same time my screen will Freeze for half a second or so or 1 or 2 seconds sometimes. the times that it happens appears to be random.

Anyone have any idea's on what I should do? And if you need more information please let me know thanks alot.

 

[Doctor Rob]

I would start by getting 16GB of ram (3000Mhz+) it matters

Newegg has a nice sale on some decent ram right now.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=PPSSFEOQVUKLUC&cm_sp=11/01-11/05-_-GSkill-_-18-3214-_-Sponsor?

I have G.SKILL Flare X Series 16GB and its great.. but over $200 right now.. but they have some little slower stuff (CL16) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232751&ignorebbr=1&cm_re=PPSSFEOQVUKLUC-_-20-232-751-_-Product

That I would recommend as it should work nice too.

Also (not sure if it would do anything for streaming).. but you should really have a SSD as your main drive (you didn't say if you had one or not) just a suggestion.

 

[Karadjgne]

Check your Virtual Ram settings. If system ram usage is too high, windows will shunt ram usage to a temporary folder on the hdd, resulting in seriously crappy streaming, freezes, stutters, spikes etc.

Also make sure the pagefile hdd is well optimised/defragged if this is happening as windows will be using the next available spot for each game file, and if the hdd has stuff parked all over the place, the hdd will spend a lot of time searching, bouncing back and forth looking for the files, slowing things down further.

 

[CelticDemon]

Check your Virtual Ram settings. If system ram usage is too high, windows will shunt ram usage to a temporary folder on the hdd, resulting in seriously crappy streaming, freezes, stutters, spikes etc.

Also make sure the pagefile hdd is well optimised/defragged if this is happening as windows will be using the next available spot for each game file, and if the hdd has stuff parked all over the place, the hdd will spend a lot of time searching, bouncing back and forth looking for the files, slowing things down further.

Okay. I'll try to check on these and get back to you thanks for the reply.

Edit
These are my Virtual memory Settings, Does everything seem alright?
https://imgur.com/8rulfX1

 

[CelticDemon]

I would start by getting 16GB of ram (3000Mhz+) it matters

Newegg has a nice sale on some decent ram right now.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=PPSSFEOQVUKLUC&cm_sp=11/01-11/05-_-GSkill-_-18-3214-_-Sponsor?

I have G.SKILL Flare X Series 16GB and its great.. but over $200 right now.. but they have some little slower stuff (CL16) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232751&ignorebbr=1&cm_re=PPSSFEOQVUKLUC-_-20-232-751-_-Product

That I would recommend as it should work nice too.

Also (not sure if it would do anything for streaming).. but you should really have a SSD as your main drive (you didn't say if you had one or not) just a suggestion.

Thanks for the reply, I'm aware that buying more RAM will most likely fix the issue but im trying to understand why im having these problems and my friend isn't, As he has the same amount of RAM as myself and he streams the same game as myself with no issues.

 

[Karadjgne]

That's quite a large pagefile, see how it does when you let the system do it automatically.

Is the streaming set to go through the cpu or gpu? You'll be at a disadvantage there if using via gpu as you only have matching vram for 3.5Gb vrs buddies 6Gb, the remaining 0.5Gb on the 970 runs at a significantly slower pace. If you are running into that last half gig, it might be a reason for any hitching.

 

[CelticDemon]

That's quite a large pagefile, see how it does when you let the system do it automatically.

Is the streaming set to go through the cpu or gpu? You'll be at a disadvantage there if using via gpu as you only have matching vram for 3.5Gb vrs buddies 6Gb, the remaining 0.5Gb on the 970 runs at a significantly slower pace. If you are running into that last half gig, it might be a reason for any hitching.

Hi again, I was using the Default windows settings for the Virtual Memory (Page File) up until now I just changed it to the photo I showed before and set a custom Page File. The stuttering is the same on the default settings. And I was using NVENC to encode my streams but I'm going to switch to x264 and see if that helps.

**Update**
Alright so I since posting this thread I changed my VM Settings from Automatic to a Custom Page File
I also changed the StreamlabsOBS encoder from NVENC to x264 and switched from the "Simple" setup to the "Advanced" Setup, And put in the "Optimal" settings according to other streamers.
After all this is seems to have fixed the issues I had, I've been streaming for about 3 hours now with no issues.

 

[Karadjgne]

Awesome!