Choopy Desktop Capture using Pipewire and OBS Studio 30.0.2 on Wayland

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hello there, when attempting to record your screen using OBS Studio 30.0.2 and Pipewire Desktop Capture results in an extremely choppy and laggy recording. The desktop it self is fine.

I attached a video recording a 3rd display using a capture card and pipewire to better visualize the issue.

Driver: 545.29.06
Desktop: Gnome 45.3 / Wayland
Kernel: 6.6.10
OS: openSUSE Aeon
OBS Studio: 30.0.2 (older versions had this issue as well, in fact I don’t know a version which worked)

nVidia Bug report:
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (909.0 KB)

2

Running driver 550.40.07 it gotten better but still it has a lot of frame drops in the capture. Desktop itself is fine.

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (1021.1 KB)

Gnome 45.3
Kernel 6.7.2-1-default
PipeWire: 1.0.2

3

Applications running in any form of fullscreen do not get updated in the capture at all:

My guess is it has something to do with Mutter redirecting fullscreen windows directly onto the screen instead of compositing them.

4

Yep, with the Gnome extention Disable unredirect fullscreen windows the capture does no longer skip fullscreen applications:

External Media
5

Driver: 550.54.14
OBS Studio: 30.0.2
PipeWire: 1.0.3

Desktop capture still choppy. In fact unchanged from what could be observed on 550.40.07. At least it didn’t got worse.

6

Probably a long shot, but if you specify the env variable export __GL_YIELD=USLEEP does it fix the issue ?
I have that specifically set for kwin(in /etc/profile.d/kwin.sh) and it has been working super good.

7

Thank you for the suggestion.
I added this to my .bashrc and rebooted but it did not helped.

1 Like
8

I have this same issue from months

1 Like
9

Same issue. The only way to bypass this issue is record with obs-vkcapture for me

10

I think it’s an OBS issue, because GPU-Screen-Recorder works perfectly without stutters, but sadly they dismantled my bug report and completely ignored it

11

Do any of you guys know if this issue can be related to Gnome MUTTER? or an issue with Pipewire directly?

This needs to be fixed, I still have this issue with drivers 565 and OBS 31-rc1

12

Hey guys I have an update.

I’ve finally discovered that this bug is releated to GNOME only, as I don’t get it on KDE Plasma and the recording is smooth there.

I’ve made a bug report 2 months ago to Gnome and recently a user replied to me and attached a screenshot of gnome shell giving some errors when recording with obs and proprietary nvidia drivers, so it’s confirmed that it’s a gnome issue only and it’s up to them to fix it

13

With recent versions of the nvidia driver this issue did not happened for me any longer. 570.86.16 as well as with 550.135 and 550.144.03. If anyone still experience this issue please reply. Otherwise I will close this thread.

14

yes I still have the issue even with the newest 570 driver

15

Hey, I’ve tested again with GNOME 48 and I don’t have the issue anymore, I don’t know if what fixed it was the GNOME 48 release, or a new NVIDIA driver, but it is fixed for me, now recording is smooth like on KDE

16

While generally I agree that it isnt as bad as I started reporting it I still feel like the recording still does not match the actual framerate of the capture. Like capturing on 60fps but the resulting video more looks like 30.

At least it is less fluent. Even if just moving windows. See video below (Set it to at least 720p@60 otherwise you wont see it) Also you may notice a delay of a few milliseconds between the capture card and the PipeWIre capture. Which makes me assume it may be linked to the same issue.

  • Gnome 48
  • Driver: 570.133.07
  • OBS Studio: 31.0.2
  • PipeWire 1.4.1
  • Kernel: 6.13.7-1-default (openSUSE default Kernel)
  • GPU: RTX 3080
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

On the contrary with an VERY low end AMD Laptop (AMD Radeon 610M with only 2 compute units, this things is not even half as fast as a Steam Deck) it is buttery smooth. Even thought the signal processing here with the capture cards takes significant longer. But still both outputs, even if delayed are smooth.

  • Gnome 48
  • Mesa: 25.0.2
  • OBS Studio: 31.0.2
  • PipeWire 1.4.1
  • Kernel: 6.13.7-1-default (openSUSE default Kernel)
  • GPU AMD iGPU Radeon 610M
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7520U

If you ask me it is hilarious that even a low end device like the 2nd one is better at this then a GPU which is about +2182% faster (according to synthetic benchmarks I found online)

17

I think it’s a mutter issue specifically with nvidia gpus

18

Since it works with AMD I do not expect the Gnome devs to explicitly fix it for nVidia. Also it seems to be possible to achieve this without Gnome changes. Therefore on any occasion nVidia are the best to fix it.

19

if it was a nvidia issue it would be present in other desktop envirorments too like kde plasma, but it’s not

20

I never tried. Never saw a proof of it confirming or denying it. I am not willing to install KDE, re-test this to eventually just find out it may or may not have a similar issue. In the end it does not solve the issue it is broken with Gnome / Mutter with proprietary nvidia drivers.