Skip to main content

OBS Black/Frozen Screen Issue

Recently I went back to streaming and tried to improve my setup and use Streamlabs OBS (SLOBS), a variant of the popular Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) which includes a really nice app for iOS and Android which lets you control you broadcast.

My only issue about SLOBS (and/or OBS) in general is when you stream some games, its a hit or miss experience. Most of the reported issues include a black screen (but with audio) or in my experience, frozen frames as I transition from one part of a game to another.

I had the time to do some trial and error testing yesterday and listed below is the pre-requisites and some quick summary of my setup. Take note of the terminologies used throughout this post.

Terminologies
  • SLOBS/OBS - Streaming software, liberally used interchangeably in this post. 
  • Source - This is where an input of OBS is coming from. This can be a webcam, computer screen, full screen application, a webpage, an image, etc.
  • Display Capture - Captures your whole screen regardless of what application you are running
  • Game Capture - Captures several types of game windows, any full screen application, target app, etc.
  • Overlay - Any software that puts information on top of a window (ie. stats, readings, quick controls, etc)
  • Anti-cheat hook - An option in SLOBS/OBS where the window listener will mimic user behaviour to avoid triggering anti-cheat applications
  • Blizzard games - Anything launched within the Battle.net launcher. This includes Diablo 3, Overwatch, Starcraft, World of Warcaft, etc.
  • Other games - Any other game outside of Battle.net titles.
Pre-requisites
  1. Run as Administrator - Run SLOBS as Administrator
  2. New game, new stream - If you are changing a game, it is advisable to stop the stream, close the game, start the new game and start a new stream. I had issues where OBS failed to capture the new full screen application after relaunching, at times even the display capture fails to stream it properly.
  3. Disable overlays you don't use - The only overlay I want is the MSI Afterburner so that I can track my CPU/GPU usage and temp when I'm watching my recording. The NVidia game stream overlay and the Windows 10 Game Mode should be disabled since OBS tends to panic with so much overlays.
  4. Disable anti-cheat hook - Disable the anti-cheat hook for game capture. This is one of the recommendations found from scouring the forums about black screen issues. 
Setup your SLOBS/OBS

Below is my SLOBS/OBS desktop app setup which has 4 scenes:

  • Stand By - For the standby image, the source is just an image
  • Blizz (Game; No Overlay) - Which includes a Game Capture source with overlay unchecked, anti-cheat hook unchecked
  • Other Games (Disp Cap) - For all other games with a Display Capture source
  • Other Games (Game Cap) - For all other games with a Game Capture source with overlay checked and anti-cheat hook unchecked
In my SLOBS app, I start with the Stand By scene and just toggle to the other scenes as needed. 


Final Notes

Please keep in mind that the tests performed here is not a complete and exhaustive test on what works for what games all the time. It is always better to preview your OBS using a second monitor or hope that the SLOBS mobile app would include a feature to preview your stream before hitting that "Go Live" button. 

The combination of SLOBS desktop and mobile app completely removes the need for an expensive device like an Elgato Stream Deck. While it is lacking in some of the aspects like: Why cant it properly handle overlays? Why does it panic if you have too many of the same sources in too many scenes? For a free application, I'm not one to complain. I do feel that at times it is disappointing to go back to my stream and see that nothing was captured. 

Here are Some of my TLDRs;
  • Blizzard games doesnt like overlay (and display capture)
  • Other games is ok with overlay using Display Capture
  • PUBG doesnt like Game Capture (with or w/o overlay)
  • Use Display Capture as much as possible

Comments

  1. Bet Online Casino | Bookmakers, Slots, Poker, Roulette,
    Join the online ミスティーノ casino, bookmakers and enjoy the best games. Play online or download the app for 퍼스트카지노 iOS and Android. 카지노 Live Dealer Casino.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Self Signed SSL Certificates

Ever wondered how to enable SSL or HTTPS on your site? If you dont want to pay for commercial SSL certificates, you could create self signed certificates for your site by following the instructions here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-create-a-ssl-certificate-on-apache-for-ubuntu-12-04 The instructions in the site above will make your default site HTTPS enabled. If you prefer having a commercial SSL, save your certificate files and key files in your server and edit the location on the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default to point to the directory where you stored those files.

Moving to a New Linux Web Based Torrent Client

For years, I have been using TorrentFlux (url here) as my primary torrent client situated in my Ubuntu download server. But as time went on, the developers completely abandoned the development of TorrentFlux which led to several forks which I think is still insufficient for my needs. Main GUI of TorrentFlux Ive checked several options which runs on a GUI-less environment. Since my Ubuntu server is just running on command line to save precious memory, I needed something bare, simple and is packed with features. Installing uTorrent Server is pretty straight forward. Download. Uncompress. Run. This is better than the approach of TorrentFlux which you need to setup LAMP server and create a database. More often than not, it happens to me that some of the data in the DB gets corrupted. I normally just reinstall the whole thing again. Main GUI of uTorrent Server To further elaborate on the setup process, I've gotten an excerpt from this thread which, quite simply discusses ho

iPhone 4 Carrier Unlock Finally Here

The wonderful people of iPhone-dev Team (or I think they're called just DevTeam now) has realeased their iPhone 4 carrier unlock. What this means is you can unlock the iPhone 4 s you've purchased from any locked countries like the U.S.(with baseband 1.59 ).  iPhone 3G and 3Gs also benefits from this release which unlocks phones with basebands 04.26.08 , 05.11.07 , 05.12.01 and 05.13.04 As an excerpt from their blog post : Version 1.0-1 of ultrasn0w works for: iPhone4 baseband 01.59 3G/3GS basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04 (If ultrasn0w doesn’t show when you search Cydia, add the repo:  repo666.ultrasn0w.com) Quickest solution to unlock your phones is to visit www.jailbreakme.com which uses an exploit to jailbreak your device, and once you get the Cydia app, download (or add the repository if you havent) ultrasn0w. Restart and enjoy carrier freedom. Perhaps another implication of this with the iPhone 4 market now is that those people selling iPhone 4