Fix overlay delay

Is it the overlay, the stream or the controller?

Watch a recording and compare three things. If the game reacts at once but the overlay follows a beat later, the cause is in the Browser Source or the GPU, and the sections below fix it. If the whole scene stutters, game included, OBS itself is short of power: the encoder, the network or the rendering, which the Stats dock tells apart, as explained in OBS settings. If the game itself feels late, the delay starts in the controller or its connection, and the latency test measures it.

Controller-side delay is small next to what a viewer can see. In the robot measurements quoted on the latency test page, most pads take 3 to 12 milliseconds from press to PC, less than one frame of a 60 FPS stream, which lasts 16.7 milliseconds. Even the slowest, the Switch Pro Controller, stays near one frame. An overlay that lags by a visible amount points to software.

Is the Browser Source frame rate too low?

Most common

With Use custom frame rate unchecked, which is the default, OBS draws the page in step with your canvas. Once the box is checked, the page is drawn at the rate in the FPS field, which starts at 30, as the Browser Source code shows (read in October 2026). A source checked at 30 in a 60 FPS scene updates every other frame, so the overlay looks late and choppy next to the gameplay, even though your inputs are read in time.

Fix Open the Browser Source properties and uncheck Use custom frame rate. If you prefer to keep it checked, set the FPS field to your canvas frame rate, usually 60.

Is hardware acceleration off?

OBS and Streamlabs draw Browser Sources with a built-in Chromium engine. With hardware acceleration on, the page is drawn on the GPU and handed to OBS as a shared texture; with it off, the CPU draws every frame and copies it, which lags under load. The option is on by default, but some users turn it off to fix a blank Browser Source and never turn it back on.

Fix In OBS, go to Settings, Advanced, Sources, check Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration, then restart OBS.

Is the page throttled in the background?

Browsers slow down pages you cannot see. In Chrome, a hidden tab stops drawing animation frames entirely until it is shown again, and its timers run at most once per second, according to Chrome's documentation. An overlay tested in a regular tab behind your game therefore freezes or jumps, while the same link runs smoothly in a Browser Source, which OBS keeps drawing.

Fix Judge responsiveness from the OBS or Streamlabs preview, or from a recording.

Why does capping my game frame rate help?

OBS draws your scenes, the overlay included, on the same GPU as the game. When the game uses 100% of the GPU, OBS waits for its turn, and frames arrive late or are skipped, which shows in the Stats dock as frames missed due to rendering lag. Capping the game a little below what it could reach, for example at 144 FPS on a 165 Hz monitor, or with the frame limiter of your graphics driver, leaves OBS the few percent it needs. This fix is often missed because the game itself still feels smooth.

Anything specific to gaming laptops?

• Plug the laptop in: on battery, the GPU runs at reduced power and OBS suffers first.
• Set both the game and OBS to the high-performance GPU, as described in OBS settings.
• Close the browser tabs you do not need, since they compete with the Browser Source for the same CPU and GPU time.

How do I measure the delay myself, and what is normal?

1. Set your phone to slow motion, 240 frames per second if it can.
2. Film your hands and your monitor together, with the OBS preview on screen next to the game.
3. Tap a button a few times, then step through the video frame by frame.
4. Count the frames between the game reacting and the overlay reacting. At 240 frames per second, one frame is about 4 milliseconds.

Your monitor adds the same delay to the game and to the overlay, so compare the two on the same footage rather than trusting an absolute number. An overlay that reacts within one or two stream frames of the game, 17 to 33 milliseconds at 60 FPS, is working as intended.

FAQ