OBS Studio in Linux captures pointer and audio, but nothing else (black screen)

[rollhax]

Hi there. I'm trying to get PZ working in OBS Studio and am running into an issue.

 

I've verified OBS Studio is working with other apps and games (e.g. works fine with DOTA2, can record, use replay buffer, and stream with minimal setup). With PZ all I get is a black screen; strangely enough, though, I can see my pointer and hear the game audio in the preview and in recording.

 

Has anybody encountered this and maybe has a fix for it?

 

Logs attached. System specs:

OS: Manjaro 21.2.6 Qonos
Kernel: x86_64 Linux 5.15.41-1-MANJARO
Packages: 1523
Shell: fish 3.4.1
Resolution: 3440x1440@144hz
DE: GNOME 42.1
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core @ 24x 3.7GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
RAM:[0m 11146MiB / 32084MiB
 

 

zomboid_obs_logs.txt

[Beard]

Are you on Wayland or on X11? And what kind of recording Scene are you using? Try switching between Game or Window recording for example instead.

[rollhax]

41 minutes ago, Beard said:

Are you on Wayland or on X11? And what kind of recording Scene are you using? Try switching between Game or Window recording for example instead.

Thanks for responding.

 

'm on X11, and the source is using Window capture. In OBS studio on Linux I don't have an option for Game capture (and I don't believe there is one; seems to be Windows only).

 

I did some more testing and discovered that it works if I use screen capture. That's not a source type I want to use for streaming/recording.

 

I also tried setting the game to Fullscreen and was able to get window capture working, but unfortunately this also isn't ideal since I alt-tab a lot, and alt-tab takes "long enough to be annoying" given how frequently I do it.

[rollhax]

Changing from `Fullscreen` back to `Borderless Windowed` with OBS running worked; i.e. I was able to see/record everything as I expected. Unfortunately when I restarted the game it went back to not working. This appears to be a bug with the game?

[Beard]

That would be unlikely, as recording the game itself works fine with multiple recording services on multiple platforms, tested it myself. It would have to do with your specific setup, tried using any of the other sources? On my Manjaro install using Fullscreen + Window capture seemed to work fine.

[rollhax]

Just now, Beard said:

That would be unlikely, as recording the game itself works fine with multiple recording services on multiple platforms, tested it myself. It would have to do with your specific setup, tried using any of the other sources? On my Manjaro install using Fullscreen + Window capture seemed to work fine.

Thanks again. Fullscreen does indeed work as I found out. But that is not an acceptable solution for me. I alt-tab too frequently to want to spend so much time waiting for the game/desktop to re-draw itself everytime.

 

PZ is the only game that OBS Studio doesn't seem to be able to capture in windowed/borderless windowed mode.

 

Do you have any thoughts/ideas for things I could check to determine what the issue is?

[Beard]

Nothing in particular I don't think, I would probably recommend playing in Windowed mode, as perhaps our Borderless mode is currently incompatible with how Linux renders things + OBS recording.
You can also try switching to Wayland and see if that records better? Though that might cause more issues than fix things.