VCam AI lag
in progress
Eli Kupetz
On my M1 Macbook Pro, VCam AI has an unusable amount of lag in Photo Booth and QuickTime. Trying to record into either of those results in a 1 FPS slideshow. I don't know what's going on, even with all other programs closed it's still unusable. I spent $30 on this license and it doesn't even work. I want a refund.
Tony Baker
Jon Young - I have had the same experience with my M1 Macbook Pro, a 16" with M1 Max and 64GB of RAM. When checking the system resources, the VCam software is completely crippling the machine's processor at an average of 120% resource usage and has clearly not been optimised or ready for production. I am using an external camera with an Elgato 4K CamLink.
I went from the XSplit VCam software, which no longer works on MacBooks, to the new VCam software, which does not seem to be ready from what I have experienced so far.
Jon Young
in progress
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Damian Eastwood
Jon Young Hello Jon. I was using VCAM this morning with a ZOOM call. It was working fine for the first 30 minutes then I noticed it was starting to lag as described. Unfortunately I didn't check if this was a system resource issue. I closed all other programs at the end of the call and the lag was still visible in the VCAM app. I restarted the app and the lag disappeared. I am using the Windows 10 desktop app on a high spec gamining desktop so there shouldn't be any reason for resource issues. I will keep an eye on it and see if it happens again :)
Jon Young
Damian Eastwood: Thanks Damian! If you click the user avatar in the top right corner and then select "About" from the dropdown menu, what version number do you see?
Jon Young
Hi Eli, I'm sorry to hear you're having issues. This is certainly the first case relating to performance and one we've not seen internally across our various machines. I assume this is just using the integrated FaceTime camera as your camera device too?
If you could reach out to https://help.vcam.ai, John and the team there can further assist you in helping to diagnose the problem, or a refund if you'd prefer. It'll be much easier to assist you over the private live chat there than it will be here. Thanks.
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Ralf Engelschall
Jon Young I'm experiencing the same problem even on a macBook Pro with M2 chips under macOS 14.4.1 and with VCam 2.0.102. With the previous version 2.0.19 I had installed, this nasty performance problem did not exist. The effect is repeatable: start VCam 2.0.102 from scratch and everything works smoothly. After about at least 1 hour of usage, the video gets stuck for about 500ms every about 3s. Please at least make older versions still available for Download, so one can more easy downgrade (I luckily had 2.0,.19 still in my Download folder). The AI lag comes from a high CPU utilization of the VCam renderer process: 2.0.19 has about 35% of my M2 while 2.0.102 has about 120%.
Jon Young
Ralf Engelschall: Hi Ralf, we're actively investigating this. It's likely we won't have a target fix for this in our upcoming release today, but we are prioritising this above all else at the moment.
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Ralf Engelschall
Jon Young With 2.0.133 under macOS this issue seems to be gone. I've to observe it for some more time, but I think you solved it now. Thanks.
Jon Young
Ralf Engelschall Very interesting, and big thanks for getting back to us and letting us know!
Just out of interest, how long do you actively use VCam for at a time? Do you typically have 30 minute meetings / sessions, 60 minutes, 2 hours?
I only ask because 2.0.133 introduced what we call "power saving mode". When VCam is minimized to tray, we stop all processing and release the camera. With this in play, and if you always have <1 hour sessions, I wonder if this is why you see an improvement?
To that note, I would be intrigued to learn what your experience is like if you let VCam actively run with the camera on and in active use for 1+ hour again, if you can.
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Ralf Engelschall
Jon Young My macBook actually runs 24 hours and I'm using VCam in front of a 24h/day running OBS Studio (for switching between webcam via VCam and Tablet capture card, etc) and as a consequence VCam is actually also running 24h/day. So, VCam's "power saving mode" should never happen in my case, I think. Because it is always open and sends the video stream to OBS Studio and this happens 24h/day. The only interrupts happen when I suspend/resume the macBook during location change (office vs. home-office).
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Ralf Engelschall
But a side-note: the particular version 2.0.133 I've just installed yesterday. So, although I'm using VCam now since about a year, I've still no great experience with the stability and performance of this particular latest version. I've just recognized that the problem with 2.0.102 seems to be gone. But in a few days I can also report you what the result is after many more days of continued use...
Jon Young
Ralf Engelschall That'd be great. We still have some work to do as far as general performance is concerned, and it is certainly high up on our current to-do list.
What's your specific use case with running VCam through OBS 24/7, just out of interest? If you'd rather not disclose here, you can always email me at joyo [at] splitmedialabs [dot] com.
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Ralf Engelschall
Jon Young As mentioned, I'm running VCam in front of OBS Studio because in OBS Studio I switch between multiple scenes (which are streamed via OBS Studio VIrtual Camera to Teams, etc): (1) VCam-based WebCam view (I use a green background in VCam and apply a chroma-key in OBS Studio) in front of a background and with an overlay (even if this could be already done within VCam, too), (2) VCam-based WebCam view overlayed over my desktop screen, and (3) VCam-based WebCam view overlayed over my tablet (via capture card). This switching between completely different scenes I cannot do in VCam, so I've to use OBS Studio. Only scence (1) would be possible already within VCam, but (2) and (3) and the switching between them is not possible within VCam.