obsproject / obsproject/obs-studio

Black screen when capturing fullscreen gameplay of emulators like SNES9X, GBA-M, Project64

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C
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Description

Operating System Info

Windows 11

Other OS

No response

OBS Studio Version

31.0.2

OBS Studio Version (Other)

No response

OBS Studio Log URL

https://obsproject.com/logs/naHWmXcV8QWrKxqB

OBS Studio Crash Log URL

No response

Expected Behavior

Able to capture emulators and such in fullscreen

Current Behavior

OBS will only capture the last frame before you focus the emulator. Then that frame will be frozen. You can move the mouse above which is quite amusing... But I expect to be able to record gameplay from the emulator.

Steps to Reproduce
  1. Have latest Nvidia drivers, Windows 11 updates and latest OBS 31.0.2
  2. Have 2 identical displays (I am using Samsung displays) and a Nvidia RTX 3090.
  3. Start Snes9x via Steam (or not)
  4. Load up a game, like Zelda A Link To The Past (or any other game)
  5. ALT+ENTER to enter full screen mode (you can go fullscreen on either of your screens. make sure you have obs on other screen so you can see at the same time what it's trying to capture)
  6. Try to capture the gameplay footage in obs via Game Capture, Window source, Screen source... It only shows black.The same issue appears on Project 64 with Mario 64 (or any other game)
    GBA-M with Pokemon Yellow (or any other game)

All settings will not work.

Anything else we should know?

I tried many versions back and there is still the problem.

It stops working with OBS-Studio-25.0-rc1-Full-x64 and anything newer (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases/tag/25.0.0-rc1)

The oldest version I can find where it works is: OBS-Studio-24.0.3-Full-x64 (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases/tag/24.0.3)
*** Then it works with GAME CAPTURE**

  • It does not work with Window capture
  • It does not work with Screen capture

So whatever settings you removed from 24.0.3, please bring them back in latest OBS!

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the provided OBS log URL and reproducing the failure with Game Capture, Window capture, and Screen capture on the listed emulator examples. Compare behavior between OBS 24.0.3 and 25.0.0-rc1 or newer; done means fullscreen gameplay is captured rather than showing a frozen frame or black screen.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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