Can she do this alone?

[Jon939]

Budget (including currency): $800 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Playing Destiny 2, Warzone, Dark Souls, Battlefield... and recording/ streaming...

Other details: Current setup

CPU: I7 8086K @ 5.0ghz on 360mm AIO
Mobo: Asus Strix Z-390-H
RAM: 32Gb GSkill Trident Z@3200mhz
GPU: Asus Strix 2070 OC

Storage: 256Gb 970 Evo Plus

256Gb 860 Evo

... and a couple random hard drives from various sources
PS: Tt 750w 80+Bronze

 

Sorry guys... I want to play games and record for making content on YouTube. I would also like to stream on YouTube. Can this setup pull it off by any means or would having a 2 pc setup be the only way? I know it would be better... but can my computer do it by itself? It seems no matter what I try I can't get recordings to be smooth. Gaming is amazing. I just get the feeling this thing doesn't want to do both. 

 

Please lmk any other details you might need. Thank you for your time! 

 

[IkeaGnome]

What's your CPU usage when you try to game and record at the same time? The 6 core might be your limiting factor on doing both.

[Slottr]

-Merged-

 

No need for a double post

[Jon939]

2 minutes ago, Slottr said:

-Merged-

 

No need for a double post

So sorry. I have no idea how to delete a post. 

[Slottr]

Just now, Jon939 said:

So sorry. I have no idea how to delete a post. 

No worries. If you need a post removed feel free to report it 

[Jon939]

4 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

What's your CPU usage when you try to game and record at the same time? The 6 core might be your limiting factor on doing both.

I have it maxed unfortunately. Could lowering some settings or capping frames at 60fps or anything help? 

[IkeaGnome]

8 minutes ago, Jon939 said:

I have it maxed unfortunately. Could lowering some settings or capping frames at 60fps or anything help? 

Capping frames will be your biggest boost with this CPU. Cap frames to 60 FPS, the GPU will be using less of the CPU to get it's information. 

Try that and see how much it helps.

[Jon939]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

Capping frames will be your biggest boost with this CPU. Cap frames to 60 FPS, the GPU will be using less of the CPU to get it's information. 

Try that and see how much it helps.

Ok prefect. I will give that a try. Is there any benefit, considering this setup, to allocating cores? Someone said you can chop up CPU usage to 2 cores for games and 4 cores for everything else. Idk how to do that but if it could help... I'll try anything. Saving the extra money for a streaming pc would be ideal. 

[Jurrunio]

Use NVENC for encoding?

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, Jon939 said:

Is there any benefit, considering this setup, to allocating cores?

I would think there might be. If you're playing at 1080 or 1440 you're probably CPU bound in games as it is. Allocating 4 for games and 2 for streaming/recording might be better. 

The other thing I'd do is force your streaming or recording software to 30FPS. Any little bit you can do to alleviate the CPU usage here and there will help and could add up in the long run. 

As for dual vs single system streaming and recording, that's not something I've played with. If the CPU doesn't want to cooperate, we know where to go unfortunately. It'd be nice to get it running the way you want with what you have though.

[Jon939]

14 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

I would think there might be. If you're playing at 1080 or 1440 you're probably CPU bound in games as it is. Allocating 4 for games and 2 for streaming/recording might be better. 

The other thing I'd do is force your streaming or recording software to 30FPS. Any little bit you can do to alleviate the CPU usage here and there will help and could add up in the long run. 

As for dual vs single system streaming and recording, that's not something I've played with. If the CPU doesn't want to cooperate, we know where to go unfortunately. It'd be nice to get it running the way you want with what you have though.

Agreed. I really appreciate the input. I will try a few things on the single setup. If not I'm headed to Micro Center... I've just been told by too many people for far too long that I should stream. Finally wanna start doing what I love... and maybe get somewhere with it... thank you so far. Any other input is welcome but I have somewhere to start. 

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, Jon939 said:

Agreed. I really appreciate the input. I will try a few things on the single setup. If not I'm headed to Micro Center... I've just been told by too many people for far too long that I should stream. Finally wanna start doing what I love... and maybe get somewhere with it... thank you so far. Any other input is welcome but I have somewhere to start. 

Are you encoding with Nvenc or the CPU? 

[Jon939]

18 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Use NVENC for encoding?

I have tried but it makes no difference. I don't really know how to set this jazz up maybe? I mean obs has the encoder drop down... it says CPU something and NVENC... and how many times have we heard this jazz about NVENC everywhere? So I tried to no avail. Any tips on settings considering the setup? 

[Jon939]

2 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Are you encoding with Nvenc or the CPU? 

Yes I responded to Jurrunio first but the only thing I've ever seen was that drop down in obs. If there's another location I should be changing settings lmk. I would like to ensure the feature is being utilized properly. 

[Jurrunio]

On 12/19/2021 at 12:15 PM, Jon939 said:

I have tried but it makes no difference. I don't really know how to set this jazz up maybe? I mean obs has the encoder drop down... it says CPU something and NVENC... and how many times have we heard this jazz about NVENC everywhere? So I tried to no avail. Any tips on settings considering the setup? 

x264 is CPU software encoding, brute force way that increases CPU usage significantly. Nvidia NVENC H.264 is GPU hardware encoding using dedicated circuits, it has no effect on GPU performance as long as it doesnt hit the power limit. Only drawback is its quality to bitrate ratio isnt as good as more x264 very high or above (which was the point of a dedicated capture PC)

 

About smoothness, you sure it's not because of low frame rate settings (default for OBS is I think 23.97fps, awful if you're used to 144Hz displays)? Also with NVENC, use "max quality" or "low latency quality" preset instead of the performance ones, those worsen the image pretty noticeably.