One of the most common issue which users face is where they see the message ‘Encoding Overloaded’ when they are streaming their screens/games. This issue primarily occurs when your computer is unable to process both the game and the streaming properly, hence falling short of the CPU power. It means that your computer can’t encode your video fast enough to maintain the settings you have set, which will cause the video to freeze after a few seconds, or cause periodic stuttering. The full error message is as follows: In this article, we will go through all the possible causes as to why this issue might occur on your computer and also the methods which you can use to circumvent the issue. Make sure that you start with the first solution and work your way down accordingly. The solutions are listed according to the efficiency and easiness of the user.
What causes Encoding to Overload in OBS?
After analyzing all the user cases and computers which faced similar issues, we came to the conclusion that this issue usually occurred due to several different reasons. Even though the error message signifies that the issue is primarily because of fewer CPU resources, the causes also include other elements. Some of them are listed below: Before we move on to the solutions, make sure that you are logged in as an administrator on your computer and have saved all the OBS recordings to an accessible location.
Solution 1: Changing Priority of the Process
The most popular fix in solving ‘Encoding Overloaded’ error is changing the priority of the OBS process from your task manager. Your processor works on the principle of priorities; processes with high priorities will be processed first as compared to other processes. In the case of OBS, the software needs to keep up with your gaming screen/streaming window in a 1:1 ratio. The rate of playing should match the rate at which the game is being broadcasted. When this is not true, you will experience the error message. In this solution, we will launch both the game and OBS software and then change the priority using the task manager by alt-tabbing. There are two ways through which we change the priority i.e. lower the priority of the game or increase the priority of OBS.
Solution 2: Reducing Output Resolution
Whenever you are streaming a game, the screen gets encoded in real-time and this is probably the most CPU extensive task that goes on. For example, in the case of 1080p encoding, the process takes twice as many pixels which are created for each frame in 720p. The workaround to reduce the CPU strain is to tell OBS to downscale your output resolution. If you reduce the output resolution, the software automatically reduces shrinks the frames before passing them on to the encoder.
Solution 3: Lowering Frame Rate
Frame rate corresponds to the number of frames which are being captured from the video. If you are a gamer, you would understand that frame rates are the main benchmarks for gaming engines and other graphical processing elements. If you are capturing the game in high frame rates, chances are that you will experience several problems and a laggy computer. In this solution, we will navigate to your OBS settings and lower the frame rate accordingly.
Solution 4: Changing x264 Preset
The video encoder used by default is x264. It has a number of different presets involved in its operation which finds the balance between the quality of the video and the load on the CPU. By default, the preset ‘very fast’ is used. This is the perfect balance (according to OBS) between the video quality and the CPU speed. The methodology in presets is that faster presets indicate how ‘fast’ an encoder will run. When you select faster presets, the CPU will be used very less but the quality of the video will not be up to the mark. Here ‘fast’ means that the video will be encoded very quickly without performing many calculations. You can try changing the presets and see if any faster preset solves the issue for you. You can always experiment with different preset settings according to your own requirements.
Solution 5: Using Hardware Encoding
If all the above methods don’t work out, we can consider using hardware encoding. The hardware encoders namely AMF, Quicksync, and NVENC are mostly supported in Intel stock GPU’s and in newer AMD/NVIDIA GPU’s as well. Every user has the option to direct some of the encoding load to the hardware encoders with a slight cost of decreased quality. To sum up, the GPU encoders don’t provide that much quality as of default x264 but they help a lot if you have limited CPU resources. First, we will check whether the option of hardware encoding is already enabled in your OBS software. If it isn’t, we will go through additional steps and attempt to solve the problem. If you do not see the option of AMF, Quicksync, etc. you can attempt at enabling the option using the steps down below. If it is present as in the example above, simply enable it, save changes and restart your computer. If you cannot see Quick sync in your encoding options, it probably means that your Integrated Graphics are not activated in your BIOS. Every Intel motherboard has integrated graphics and they are mostly enabled by default. You can navigate to your BIOS settings and check if the option of integrated graphics is enabled or not. Each BIOS will be different because of the change of manufacturer so you would have to look around a little. After enabling your Dedicated graphics, restart your computer and check if the issue is resolved.
Solution 6: Freeing Space in Drive
The most important reason why OBS generates error messages like these is problems with your local storage on your computer. Like mentioned before, OBS requires some space on its hard drive to keep its video streaming going. If you do not have any extra space, it will not stream any kind of video. In addition to cleaning freeable space on your drive, you can also perform disk cleanup. After cleaning your disk, restart your computer and try launching the platform again.
Solution 7: Checking for Similar Recording Software
Like mentioned earlier in the causes, OBS studio seems to conflict with other recording software running on your computer. This includes NVIDIA Overlay, Discord, Windows game bar, etc. Here the only workaround is to disable the software from running on your computer or uninstall it completely. In this solution, we will navigate to the application manager and uninstall the software from your computer.
Solution 8: Closing Additional Programs in the Background
This solution is common sense but many users fail to notice this scenario. Whenever you are streaming using OBS Studio and playing a game side by side, it is important that all the extra applications running the background are closed so your CPU can solely focus on the two processes. You should also take into account the background processes running which might not be noticeable in the foreground.
Solution 9: Using Third-party Alternatives (BandiCam)
If all the above methods don’t work, you can try several different alternatives. The one which we saw resembled OBS Studio the most was BandiCam. It has several different features and allowed customization of the quality of streaming a lot more as compared to other conventional applications such as Screenshare/Discord etc. You can navigate to the official website of BandiCam and download the free version to an accessible location. After downloading, right-click on it and select Run as administrator. Note: You should also consider reinstalling the OBS display capture on your computer from scratch after deleting all the temporary files as well. Make sure that you download the latest version from the official website and delete the entries of OBS from the installation locations.
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