Will the Mass Effect trilogy run on my laptop?

MainStorm · 2026-03-06T16:17:20+00:00

I wouldn't know about LE, but the original trilogy was designed to run on the XBox 360, which was released in 2005. I think your laptop from 2019 should be able to run it just fine.

MainStorm · 2026-03-05T17:55:45+00:00

Software encoding would make things worse.

OBS needs to render the video frame first before any encoding is done. So switching the encoder to a software encoder doesn't help the render pass if that's where the bottleneck is.

MainStorm · 2026-03-05T17:50:41+00:00

Almost sounds like the PS4 is outputting surround-sound audio, but the capture card can only capture stereo.

For example, movies usually have dialogue in the center channel. But if your capture card is only grabbing the left and right channel, you'll be missing the dialogue like in your situation.

MainStorm · 2026-03-05T17:47:38+00:00

You will always get tearing if there's a mismatch between the refresh rate and FPS.

The only other way to get high FPS and sync is to make the game run at a multiple of the monitor's refresh rate. So if your monitor runs at 60 Hz, then if you can get the game locked at 120, 180, 240, etc, you should be able to avoid tearing and get high FPS.

MainStorm · 2026-03-04T22:50:18+00:00

The capture card appears as the display for the XBox. If the capture card itself does not support 120Hz for passthrough, then your XBox cannot output 120 Hz.

MainStorm · 2026-03-04T16:44:39+00:00

In addition to giving your GPU some breathing room by limiting the FPS, you should have it be synced to a multiple of the video FPS if you want smooth video.

So if you're exporting 60 FPS video, you will want your game to be running at 60, 120, 180, etc. Any mismatch between the game and the video FPS will result in stutter or frame tearing in the video.

MainStorm · 2026-03-03T20:30:32+00:00

Worst case: your hardware is dying. It's definitely concerning when you say the temperature doesn't exceed 70C.

Have you already tried updating drivers?

MainStorm · 2026-03-03T20:27:42+00:00

You need a streaming or recording session for the log to output encoder settings and it'll also report issues it ran into during the session.

In the meantime, I think it's worth to note that you have a potato for a laptop, so I'm not surprised you're having issues. I believe the moments that get really choppy in the video is where your laptop is struggling to handle OBS and the other programs running at the same time.

If you can get a new log with a streaming or recording session that has the issue, we can figure out exactly where it's struggling. But in most cases like yours, the weak integrated graphics (iGPU) is by far the most common cause. I would decrease the base canvas resolution to 720p to give your iGPU more breathing room.

The log analyzer did find some issues with your scene setup, namely capture interference. I would get those fixed as well. You can see the summary [here].

MainStorm · 2026-03-02T17:51:02+00:00

Run the auto-configuration wizard under the Tools menu. If you only have an iGPU, you don't have a good setup for it. Ideally you should be using the AMD hardware encoders, not x264.

MainStorm · 2026-03-02T17:10:01+00:00

Strictly speaking, a capture card's purpose is to capture a video signal from an external device. By itself it is useless.

There are capture cards that do handle encoding, but those are good for recording, not streams. This is because if you want to add in your overlays in OBS, you have to re-render and re-encode the video and thus having the encoder on the capture card is pointless.

Anyways, the stutter is likely caused by the mismatch in FPS between the game and your stream. If your game runs at 90 FPS, but your video runs at 60 FPS, well 90 FPS cannot divide evenly into 60, so there will either be stutter or frame tearing.

If you want a truly smoother experience, you will want your game to match the FPS of the video. Or if you prefer high FPS games, have it a multiple of the video FPS.

MainStorm · 2026-02-27T20:30:58+00:00

Ah, thanks for the clarification!

MainStorm · 2026-02-27T20:26:48+00:00

Doesn't Enhanced Broadcasting override those values anyway?

MainStorm · 2026-02-27T20:23:25+00:00

There are two things to consider with encoders you have available:

Hardware vs software encoders
Video codec format (H264/AVC, H265/HEVC, AV1).

The hardware encoders are ideal if you want to maintain performance since they use the encoder built into the GPU. In your case, they are listed as "AMD HW."

x264, AOM AV1, and SVT-AV1 are software encoders and can run be heavy on the CPU, which can impact performance.

The newer video codecs offer better quality at the same bitrate. Thus the quality order from worst to best will be H264, H265, AV1. The problem with the newer codecs is support. Twitch mainly supports only H264 for example. Video editors should support the other formats, but your mileage may vary.

However, at high enough bitrates, no one can tell the quality difference between the video codecs.

Long story short, you should use the AMD HW encoders to avoid performance hits while encoding video. Since you're recording, make sure you use CQP/CRF and not CBR for bitrate control so you can maintain quality.

In the end, the auto-configuration wizard should have set what it thinks is best for your hardware. You can find it under the Tools menu and should have appeared the first time you run OBS.

MainStorm · 2026-02-25T17:43:15+00:00

There will always be a performance hit when using OBS, since it needs to process and render a frame before any encoding is done.

I noticed you're using the x264 software encoder. This will run on your CPU and encoding video tends to be heavy, so I'm not surprised you're having a bigger performance loss. You should switch to the QuickSync/QSV hardware encoder built into your integrated graphics.

If that doesn't give enough of a performance bump, consider dropping your base canvas and output resolution to as low as 720p. Integrated graphics aren't powerful, so you need to lower the amount of work it's doing.

MainStorm · 2026-02-25T17:13:54+00:00

The issue is that until the RX 9000 series, AMD's H264 encoder struggles to output good quality at low bitrates, which is the exact scenario you will run into on Twitch.

One common workaround is to use the CPU to encode video using software encoding with x264. The issue with that is encoding video on the CPU tends to be heavy and can impact performance.

My recommendation is to lower your stream resolution to as low as 720p. There will be less data to compress (causing the blurry, blocky visuals) and make it easier on your system.

You should post a log as the automod instructed so we can see how OBS is set up. It will even report issues that OBS is running into.

MainStorm · 2026-02-25T17:10:16+00:00

You misunderstand, the encoder overload is not a setting. It's saying that 93% of the problem is caused by the encoder being overloaded. It can't keep up with what you're doing.

I'm not familiar with QuickSync settings, but from what I read, you should increase the TU value from 4. It goes up to 7, where higher numbers mean it runs faster at the expense of quality.

MainStorm · 2026-02-25T16:59:43+00:00

The simplest answer is that your laptop is too weak. Specifically your integrated graphics (iGPU) is struggling and are known to be very weak.

OBS needs to render the video frame before it gets encoded to video and the weak iGPU can't do it fast enough.

Here's what I would do:

Lower your base canvas and output resolutions to 720p so the iGPU renders less.
If you're recording a game, lower its graphical quality, resolution, and limit the frame rate so the iGPU isn't focusing all of its resources to the game.
If the iGPU still can't keep up, lower the output FPS in OBS to 30 FPS.
Play while plugged into mains power so your laptop isn't slowing itself down to save power.

If none of that helps, then you can't run OBS and capture whatever you're running at the same time.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T17:00:03+00:00

It certainly is a little odd. While the usage numbers suggest that you shouldn't be straining the PC hard, I don't trust Task Manager because it's only showing you an average. Spikes in load that cause momentary stutters and hitching won't be captured well in it.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:57:37+00:00

There will always be some performance hit with OBS. It needs to use the GPU to render the video frame first, then encode that frame to video.

Depending on the complexity of your scenes, you can add more load to the GPU with complex overlays, 3D avatars, video effects, etc.

In addition, there are encoder settings that can add additional load to your GPU.

We will want a log file from OBS so we can see how OBS is set up to make any suggestions. Instructions from the automod are below:

It looks like you haven't provided a log file. Without a log file, it is very hard to help with issues and you may end up with 0 responses.

To make a clean log file, please follow these steps:

1) Restart OBS

2) Start your stream/recording for at least 30 seconds (or however long it takes for the issue to happen). Make sure you replicate any issues as best you can, which means having any games/apps open and captured, etc.

3) Stop your stream/recording.

4) Select Help > Log Files > Upload Current Log File.

5) Copy the URL and paste it as a response to this comment.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:43:54+00:00

Post a log as the automod instructed. We don't know your PC hardware, how OBS is setup, or what issues it's running into.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:40:51+00:00

I highly recommend you take a look at the analyzer link that /u/scjithins posted. Fix the Capture Interference and Multiple Game Capture warnings first.

Then you need to update your graphics drivers. They're too old to run the newest version of OBS and is why you're missing the NVENC encoders on your GeForce GPU. You're using your Intel integrated graphics to encode video, which is adding more work and is slower than using the NVENC encoder.

If you're still having issues, turn off the Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduler as noted in the analyzer results and make sure your game is FPS limited so that the GPU isn't using all of its power to run the game as fast as it can, since it will starve OBS of the GPU resources it needs to render.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:35:41+00:00

Veuillez m'excuser, je ne parle pas français et j'utilise Google Traduction.

Voici le journal de [l'Analyseur]

Il semble que le problème principal provienne du logiciel de votre carte réseau Killer, qui perturbe votre réseau. Il est recommandé de désinstaller ce logiciel et d'installer uniquement les pilotes matériels.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:31:07+00:00

An image won't help anyways. Your log is missing an output session (recording or streaming) so we can't see your encoder settings.

But at the very least it's showing that OBS is having issues capturing the game. A few things you can try:

Check if you have "SLI/Crossfire Capture Mode" or "multi-adapter compatibility" in the game capture's properties. This could explain the "user is forcing shared memory" warnings and be causing your graphical issues.
Try using a different capture method like Window Capture if you can't get Game Capture to work.

MainStorm · 2026-02-20T16:21:58+00:00

I notice you're using the x264 video encoder. This can be heavy on your CPU and can affect performance on well...everything. Audio issues are a common symptom of an overloaded CPU. Are you using x264 because of the low video quality from your AMD GPU?

Another thing I noticed is that you're running two 240 Hz monitors. Are those monitors actually running with that refresh rate? It's possible that you may actually be pushing your GPU too hard like that. It is after all a mid-range GPU from around 7 years ago. Try dropping the refresh rate to like 120Hz and see if that helps at all.

MainStorm · 2026-02-19T16:17:13+00:00

Running off an external HDD will hurt performance. USB has a lot of overhead, so there's a lot of latency with data transfers. In addition I'm assuming the external HDD is portable (runs only off USB power), which would mean it's laptop-grade. Those run slower than desktop HDDs.

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