Windows’ “HAGS” (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) seems to have been behind audio dropout I’d been experiencing in recordings lately when both mic and game sounds tried to come through simultaneously in OBS.
Ran my OBS log through OBS’ log uploader/analyzer and it recommended disabling HAGS; did that and it seems (fingers crossed) to have solved the problem (which could be spotted visually as recurring phantom sound activity in the mic widget in OBS’ audio mixer).
Update:
The problem came back, with HAGS still off, so who knows if HAGS was actually behind it; seems to have been due to an interaction between high Gain filter, a Compressor filter with its own small Gain boost, and just fairly high amount of ambient mic static; removing the Compressor filter (and putting that Gain boost into the main Gain filter) seems to have resolved it for the most part; Compressor filter was dropping the overall mic sound quality anyway. 'p'
I am very happy to see some people have been downloading the free controllers overlays I made for using with OBS Studio! <3 I hope those will be useful for you guys and rest assured that there are more on the way soon! Happy gaming and happy streaming! :D
Grab yours for free at my KoFi shop! ---> https://ko-fi.com/mikedragon/shop
I kept hitting some weird issue where OBS recognized my capture card but it couldn't play video from it (Audio worked fine). If I unplugged my card and plugged it back in, video would work and audio wouldn't.
Only thing I could do to fix it was restart my computer.
Figured out what was going on. It was Discord. When Discord is open, it detects OBS and starts using the same video channel as OBS. Then when OBS is closed, Discord stays connected to it and then OBS can't reconnect because the channel is busy.
Solution was to completely close Discord before starting OBS.
A lot of us do want to use freeware and stuff but it’s always a major risk given how polluted the internet is with jerks who corrupt files/downloads and mess up our computers. Many of us don’t have the resources to mitigate every infection or loss :(
I think you're mixing up freeware and free and open source software. Freeware is monetarily free software, usually proprietary and closed source. Free and open source software (FOSS) is free (as in freedom from telemetry usually, but most of the time monetarily free too) is software that has published its code online for others to view, change, and make variations on. This causes it to be more secure since more eyes are on the code.
Always download from the original developers, which usually starts on GitHub. Here are a few links to the open source software I use every day.
OBS Studio - Good for recording and streaming footage, including screen recordings, includes plugin support, and people upload new plugins to their site constantly.
Ubuntu - I think I recommended Linux in the post you're coming from, and while switching from Windows or macOS is hard, one of the best introductions to Linux is Ubuntu or some Ubuntu based distribution, like Linux Mint.
Krita or GIMP - Part of what inspired me to make the initial post was the news about Clip Studio Paint fucking over the people who buy perpetual licenses. Krita and GIMP are FOSS and will always be free, I find that Krita is great for illustration whereas GIMP has a great background removal tool for manipulating photography.
Jellyfin - I initially recommended Plex as an alternative in the tags of the original post, I just realised that Plex is not actually open source. Jellyfin lets you store your own movies, TV shows, music, audiobooks and even playback live TV with a PC that can be as low power as a Raspberry Pi. This is to move away from streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max and Spotify that continually fuck over creators and consumers. There's even a demo of the Jellyfin UI on their website.
Firefox - This is one that probably doesn't need an introduction. The issue affecting web browsers right now is that all mainstream browsers, barring Firefox and Safari, run on Chromium, which means that Google has a massive say in how the internet is run, since developing websites for Chromium is the highest priority for a web developer. This problem has worsened with the looming Chromium update essentially disabling all adblock extensions, affecting all Chromium browsers. By using Firefox, not only do you retain adblock features, you also work against Chromium's steady march towards becoming a monopoly of the entire internet.
And finally, I want to address your claim that "many of us don't have the resources to mitigate every infection or loss". I am absolutely empathic to data loss thanks to malware, it almost happened to me a few days ago. The one thing I disagree with is the idea that unless you have a good computer, there is no way to prevent or fix data loss. If you choose to stay on Windows, be sure to frequently make system restore points in case your PC becomes unstable, and to avoid data loss, use virtual machines to test out software you don't trust before using it on your main PC. As general security advice on Windows, most antivirus is unnecessary. Windows Defender is quite good at catching malware and removing it, and installing third party antivirus more often than not just slows down your PC and tracks you.
I really hope this helps. There is a small amount of research to find good FOSS alternatives to your everyday software, and there is of course a learning curve to the more advanced software, but in general I would rate them as more secure to install than most closed source alternatives, and I believe it will benefit you and our general technology usage by a lot. If you want more open source alternatives to the software you use every day, I would recommend looking it up on alternativeto.net. I understand this was a long ass post but your concerns are frequent and valid and I wanted to just set the record straight. Ask again if you have any more questions.
