Watching streams/video while gaming without performance issue?

[thomm_py]

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice.

I currently have a PC with a Ryzen 7 5800X and an RTX 3060. When I play games on my main monitor and try to watch a Twitch stream on my second monitor at the same time, I experience dropped frames and stuttering on the stream. I assume this is because Windows gives priority to the foreground game, which is fine, but I’d like to find a way to watch streams smoothly while gaming. And upgrading for a faster processor wouldn't solve the problem because the game will use all the available system resources, but, what if I’m considering upgrading to a newer platform with a CPU that has integrated graphics, so I can plug my second monitor into the iGPU and offload video decoding to it, leaving the dedicated GPU fully focused on the game, could it work?

 

 

Of course If I disable the browser hw acceleration, the stream is clean and fine but when I did this I lost too much fps on the game..so I must keep this on, hoping that leaning on a second "GPU" would fix the issue

 

I know that a second PC would be better, but I'd prefer to keep everything within one machine rather than setting up a second PC just for watching videos/stream while playing. Has anyone tried a setup like this? Would using the iGPU for Twitch (or YouTube, etc.) playback actually solve the issue in practice?

 

Thanks in advance!

Thomas

[AndrewAsd]

This shouldn't happen, Windows should be able to handle the resources appropriately without stuttering, and it does on my 5600X/5700XT system. You could try putting an FPS cap on the game. You can use rivatuner to do that.  Alternatively you can also try setting the browser to a higher priority in task manager than the game you're running and see if that helps.

[Aleph256]

23 minutes ago, thomm_py said:

what if I’m considering upgrading to a newer platform with a CPU that has integrated graphics, so I can plug my second monitor into the iGPU and offload video decoding to it, leaving the dedicated GPU fully focused on the game, could it work?

Assuming you're using Windows 10 or 11, there should be an option in the settings (System -> Screen -> Graphics) to select which app uses which GPU. It will allow yout to offload your browser to the iGPU while still having it plugged to the GPU.

[thomm_py]

54 minutes ago, AndrewAsd said:

This shouldn't happen, Windows should be able to handle the resources appropriately without stuttering, and it does on my 5600X/5700XT system. You could try putting an FPS cap on the game. You can use rivatuner to do that.  Alternatively you can also try setting the browser to a higher priority in task manager than the game you're running and see if that helps.

no actually not, if you try put on the stats for nerd mode on yt while gaming, you can see fps dropping on the video. i tested on multiple system

37 minutes ago, Aleph256 said:

Assuming you're using Windows 10 or 11, there should be an option in the settings (System -> Screen -> Graphics) to select which app uses which GPU. It will allow yout to offload your browser to the iGPU while still having it plugged to the GPU.

yep i'm counting on that, I wanted to know if someone with an iGPU did try this, I'm kinda satisfied with my system now besides the GPU, but one thing is upgrading just the GPU, other thing is updating the entire whole system 

[Aleph256]

11 minutes ago, thomm_py said:

but one thing is upgrading just the GPU, other thing is updating the entire whole system

How about upgrading in two steps then?
Grab a better GPU, see if the extra horsepower fixes the issue, and if not, then consider upgrading the rest of the system?

Could allow you to spread the strain on your budget.

 

Tip: if you grab the GPU of Amazon, and it doesn't fix the issue - just return it and get a refund, you have like 3 weeks to do that no questions asked iirc?

[igormp]

By any chance, do you have monitors with different refresh rates?

 

If so, that's a known Windows issue. You could try things like not playing at fullscreen, but rather borderless window (or vice-versa), not making your 2nd youtube window use the entire screen, or try to disable one specific feature within Windows, as per this post:

On 4/22/2024 at 8:55 AM, BetteBalterZen said:

I've experienced the exact same, when using my 5120x1440@240Hz (primary display) and 3840x2160@165Hz(secondary display) monitors. The cause was Multi-Plane Overlay (MPO), a power saving feature that is enabled by default on a Windows level. If you wanna give it a try, you can disable it via a regedit:

Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm", create DWORD called "OverlayTestMode" and give it value "00000005" - restart your system. (Windows update can revert this DWORD change I've read but never seen Update revert it on my system). 

 

[AndrewAsd]

13 minutes ago, thomm_py said:

no actually not, if you try put on the stats for nerd mode on yt while gaming, you can see fps dropping on the video. i tested on multiple system

Nope. Not on my system at least. I booted up forza horizon 4, high-ultra settings, whatever the game defaulted to pretty much. Played a little and got 0 dropped frames.

For something even more intensive I've also booted up Witcher 3 and put it on Ultra preset. Not the greatest performance and my GPU fans were very loud, but no dropped frames still. Also main monitor is 165hz 1080p 2nd is 60hz 1080p.

[cmndr]

3 hours ago, thomm_py said:

I know that a second PC would be better, but I'd prefer to keep everything within one machine rather than setting up a second PC just for watching videos/stream while playing. Has anyone tried a setup like this? Would using the iGPU for Twitch (or YouTube, etc.) playback actually solve the issue in practice?

Your CPU doesn't have an iGPU. It's not until the 7000 series that pretty much ALL of AMD's CPUs had iGPUs. 1000, 2000, 3000 and 5000 desktop chips, generally lack iGPUs (some SKUs have them, e.g. 5600g)

 

Even then your performance should be fine with the hardware you have. 

 

General tricks/tips

1. ensure GPU acceleration in general in your browser. Youtube shouldn't take much power

2. If it's still an issue, try a lower resolution. 1080p instead of 1440p can be viable

3. Reinstall windows. 

[TetraSky]

Decrease the resolution of the stream.

I have similar issues with my PC on a single screen if I play with PiP video in the corner and it's a 1080p60fps stream

The game is being rendered and the video is also being rendered at high res. Causing stress on the GPU. Oftentime I have to decrease to 480p to remove any negative impact from the stream playing (and since it's in a tiny PiP window in the corner, it really makes no difference for me)

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, thomm_py said:

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice.

I currently have a PC with a Ryzen 7 5800X and an RTX 3060. When I play games on my main monitor and try to watch a Twitch stream on my second monitor at the same time, I experience dropped frames and stuttering on the stream.

I do not have this problem, but I have an RTX 3090.

 

Some games, ONLY some games, cause the browser playing the twitch or youtube stream to stall while it loads. The way you generally prevent this from happening is by using "windowed full screen" rather than "full screen". When it's full screen (aka exclusive full screen) it treats all other windows as lower priority. When it's windowed, all windows not obstructed by another are treated the same. 

 

Generally the reason for the stall out on the stream is because the game is doing some cloud BS or invoking some anti-cheat, which causes all the windows to stall out as it hooks into processes.

 

[thomm_py]

16 hours ago, Aleph256 said:

How about upgrading in two steps then?
Grab a better GPU, see if the extra horsepower fixes the issue, and if not, then consider upgrading the rest of the system?

Could allow you to spread the strain on your budget.

 

Tip: if you grab the GPU of Amazon, and it doesn't fix the issue - just return it and get a refund, you have like 3 weeks to do that no questions asked iirc?

do you wanna laugh? I bought a 5080 on amazon it with a problem on a fan, requested a refund at 10th of April, still waiting for the refund because they said first I have to wait 30 days, and then until 60 days..I already called like 12 times but no luck for now, I gotta wait until the 9th of June, but that's OT...
let's see

15 hours ago, igormp said:

By any chance, do you have monitors with different refresh rates?

 

If so, that's a known Windows issue. You could try things like not playing at fullscreen, but rather borderless window (or vice-versa), not making your 2nd youtube window use the entire screen, or try to disable one specific feature within Windows, as per this post:

 

Yes my main monitor is 165hz 2k and my second is 75hz 2k
I tried putting on this registry key but the problem seems the same

15 hours ago, AndrewAsd said:

Nope. Not on my system at least. I booted up forza horizon 4, high-ultra settings, whatever the game defaulted to pretty much. Played a little and got 0 dropped frames.

For something even more intensive I've also booted up Witcher 3 and put it on Ultra preset. Not the greatest performance and my GPU fans were very loud, but no dropped frames still. Also main monitor is 165hz 1080p 2nd is 60hz 1080p.

first of all, thanks for doing these test!

I dig into it and I discovered that I lost fps on the video JUST when the game is focused

I tried with Furmark, I launch it on window mode 1080p, so I can click directly on the windows to make it focused, and when I click on it, the video stream starts to lose some fps

 

The benchmark when its focused has like 140fps, when it doesn't it loses like 5 fps, but when its focused the video stream will lose a lot of FPS making impossible to watch at 1080p

now I'll look online if that's a common problem when the game it's focused to lose fps on the video..

 

14 hours ago, cmndr said:

Your CPU doesn't have an iGPU. It's not until the 7000 series that pretty much ALL of AMD's CPUs had iGPUs. 1000, 2000, 3000 and 5000 desktop chips, generally lack iGPUs (some SKUs have them, e.g. 5600g)

 

Even then your performance should be fine with the hardware you have. 

 

General tricks/tips

1. ensure GPU acceleration in general in your browser. Youtube shouldn't take much power

2. If it's still an issue, try a lower resolution. 1080p instead of 1440p can be viable

3. Reinstall windows. 

Yes I know that my CPU doesn't have an iGpu, otherwise I have already tried hooking into it  I was thinking if, an iGPU, switching the CPU and architecture, would solve my issue 

when I set the video on 480p it works, but it's a little bit blurry ofc, I was thinking if there's some better solution 

11 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Decrease the resolution of the stream.

I have similar issues with my PC on a single screen if I play with PiP video in the corner and it's a 1080p60fps stream

The game is being rendered and the video is also being rendered at high res. Causing stress on the GPU. Oftentime I have to decrease to 480p to remove any negative impact from the stream playing (and since it's in a tiny PiP window in the corner, it really makes no difference for me)

Yes 480p worked, but on the second monitor (27 2k 75hz) it's a little bit blurry,  I was thinking if there's some better solution 

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

I do not have this problem, but I have an RTX 3090.

 

Some games, ONLY some games, cause the browser playing the twitch or youtube stream to stall while it loads. The way you generally prevent this from happening is by using "windowed full screen" rather than "full screen". When it's full screen (aka exclusive full screen) it treats all other windows as lower priority. When it's windowed, all windows not obstructed by another are treated the same. 

 

Generally the reason for the stall out on the stream is because the game is doing some cloud BS or invoking some anti-cheat, which causes all the windows to stall out as it hooks into processes.

 

I'm planning to change the GPU when I can and I will try with a new one

Thanks guys for trying to help!

[TetraSky]

1 hour ago, thomm_py said:

Yes 480p worked, but on the second monitor (27 2k 75hz) it's a little bit blurry,  I was thinking if there's some better solution 

Another solution would be to use your phone to output the video stream. Or a laptop. Or whatever else that is not physically part of your main PC. That way you wouldn't have any loss of FPS.

[Doobeedoo]

It's Windows headache things. Aside from iGPU which helped some, yes different res and Hz is a pain and also type of fullscreen between games. So yeah matching Hz, changing type of fullscreen per game, unmaximize browser window may help.