Guidelines for a Streaming PC?

[kriptcs]

Greetings.I currently have a gaming pc and I would like to stream.I know that a good solution is buying a second pc,but I wonder what should I put in it? No need to link or be concrete,just general tips.Thank you!

[KuJoe]

Some advice from my experiences building multiple streaming PCs over the past 6 months:

1. The more cores the better.
2. Avoid AMD FX CPUs, they don't even compete with 2nd gen mobile i7s in terms of x264 encoding.
3. Research your capture card A LOT before buying one and make sure it's compatible with your motherboard (I found out the hard way that my AVerMedia LGX doesn't support AMD's USB 3.0 controller and my Elgato HD60 Pro doesn't work in an AM4 motherboard).
4. RAM and GPU do not matter. My 8GB of DDR4 RAM is overkill and my GT 730 video card is plenty for 1080p 60FPS streaming with OBS and NVENC (1080p 60FPS at 20Mbps) recording.
5. SSDs don't help at all, you'd be fine with an HDD if you don't care about boot times (but I recommend at least a 1TB HDD if you want to do local recording + streaming).
6. Audio setup is a PAIN! If you're not going to use an external mixer (I don't) then you will spend a lot of time setting up your audio via trial and error before you find something that works perfect. Depending on the capture card, you might be able to get by with HDMI audio but some will have better quality with a line out to line in setup.
7. If you plan on using Teamspeak, Discord, etc... and want to use push to talk then get a second mic and run Discord on the gaming PC.
8. If you use the PCs for anything else besides gaming/streaming then always test the stream before you start gaming since you most likely changed your audio since your last stream (i.e. watching movies/videos or listening to music). I always plug in some headphones into my phone and watch the stream to test the audio and look for lag or stutters so I can tweak the audio and video before viewers start arriving (create a second streaming account for testing if you don't want to bother your viewers each stream).
9. Don't attempt to use WiFi, it just never works out and results in a bad experience for viewers even with a "stable" connection.
10. I avoid overclocking any hardware in my streaming PC since having a second PC running means more heat and noise which are bad during a 6+ hour streaming session. I opted for a Ryzen 1700 (65W TDP) and an A320 motherboard for my streaming PC, low noise and heat with the stock cooler at an amazing price.

[another random person]

13 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

Greetings.I currently have a gaming pc and I would like to stream.I know that a good solution is buying a second pc,but I wonder what should I put in it? No need to link or be concrete,just general tips.Thank you!

It depends, if you have any more than a 4 core machine you can pretty much run the streaming software on your gaming rig without the need of an extra streaming PC.

 

However if you only have a Quad core CPU then I found this section of text online 

Quote

PC #2: Dedicated Streaming PC

Because this PC’s job is to encode and stream your video feed, it is going to be much different from your average gaming PC. This is where you have the opportunity to make use of the higher quality software encoding by dedicating an entire CPU to the streaming process.

There are three things to highlight about this PC:

• No Graphics Card: This PC does not need a lot of graphical power. As a matter of fact, you could easily get by without a graphics card and simply choose a CPU with an integrated graphics processor. As long as you don’t plan to use this as a secondary gaming rig, you just need graphical power to output to a monitor.
• Less Power: Compared to your gaming PC, your streaming PC does not need to be very powerful. You can get away with 4GB of RAM, a mechanical hard drive, and a low-end motherboard. There’s no need to go crazy with this PC. The rough requirement for streaming at 60fps 4500kbp/s (Twitch’s current maximum settings) will require an AMD FX-4300 or better. However, we will be recommending a low-end i5 to absolutely guarantee a smooth experience.
• Capture Card: You will need a way to record information from your gaming PC. For the most part, motherboards do not have video input devices on them. To solve this, you will need a capture card, preferably with HDMI and HD support. We have a few recommendations below.

You will also need a monitor for your streaming PC. Again you can compromise on quality here, as it doesn’t need to be an incredibly responsive monitor or one with superb contrast.

 

Source: http://www.logicalincrements.com/articles/streaming

[kriptcs]

2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Some advice from my experiences building multiple streaming PCs over the past 6 months:

1. The more cores the better.
2. Avoid AMD FX CPUs, they don't even compete with 2nd gen i7s in terms of x264 encoding.
3. Research your capture card A LOT before buying one and make sure it's compatible with your motherboard (I found out the hard way that my AVerMedia LGX doesn't support AMD's USB 3.0 controller and my Elgato HD60 Pro doesn't work in an AM4 motherboard).
4. RAM and GPU do not matter. My 8GB of DDR4 RAM is overkill and my GT 730 video card is plenty for 1080p 60FPS streaming with OBS and NVENC 20Mbps recording.
5. SSDs don't help at all, you'd be fine with an HDD if you don't care about boot times (but I recommend at least a 1TB HDD if you want to do local recording + streaming).
6. Audio setup is a PAIN! If you're not going to use an external mixer (I don't) then you will spend a lot of time setting up your audio via trial and error before you find something that works perfect. Depending on the capture card, you might be able to get by with HDMI audio but some will have better quality with a line out to line in setup.
7. If you plan on using Teamspeak, Discord, etc... and want to use push to talk then get a second mic and run Discord on the gaming PC.
8. If you use the PCs for anything else besides gaming/streaming then always test the stream before you start gaming since you most likely changed your audio since your last stream (i.e. watching movies/videos or listening to music). I always plug in some headphones into my phone and watch the stream to test the audio and look for lag or stutters so I can tweak the audio and video before viewers start arriving (create a second streaming account for testing if you don't want to bother your viewers each stream).
9. Don't attempt to use WiFi, it just never works out and results in a bad experience for viewers even with a "stable" connection.
10. I avoid overclocking any hardware in my streaming PC since having a second PC running means more heat and noise which are bad during a 6+ hour streaming session. I opted for a Ryzen 1700 (65W TDP) and an A320 motherboard for my streaming PC, low noise and heat with the stock cooler at an amazing price.

Ohh..I also need a capture card..Is it worth getting an i7 6700 or should I go for the new ryzen cpus? Nonetheless,great tips,thank you!

[kriptcs]

3 minutes ago, another random person said:

It depends, if you have any more than a 4 core machine you can pretty much run the streaming software on your gaming rig without the need of an extra streaming PC.

 

However if you only have a Quad core CPU then I found this section of text online 

Source: http://www.logicalincrements.com/articles/streaming

About the second monitor thing,I can open chat and all that on there,right? So I can only have 2 monitors

[KuJoe]

3 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

Ohh..I also need a capture card..Is it worth getting an i7 6700 or should I go for the new ryzen cpus? Nonetheless,great tips,thank you!

For the price, I would get a Ryzen CPU.

2 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

About the second monitor thing,I can open chat and all that on there,right? So I can only have 2 monitors

Yup, I only stream with 2 monitors now (I'll be adding a third soon, but that's mainly for organization and not needed).

[manikyath]

if you're really "going at it" with a streaming rig.. here's some of the things my experimentation, lookign around, and picking up details have taught me:

- x264 cpu encoding is where the money is at. as long as you arent thinking in the range of more than 8 cores, all that matters is the total raw CPU horsepower in this case, wether that comes from single core perf or number of cores. in this current cpu market i'd say go ryzen.

- you want *a* dedicated GPU, a lot of bigtime streamers actually just have some old relic in there to offload the gpu tasks from the cpu package. in this regard being able to do local recordings (at higher bitrate) with GPU encoding isnt bad either. if you have something on the shelf collecting dust, you now have a place for it.

- i love 4K panels, if you can find one cheap/afford one, its amazing to have stream preview and scene switching preview at full res with display realestate to spare. but if you cant spare the dough, literally any display will do for the stream rig.

- CAPTURE CARDS, LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. make sure you get a board that allows for LOTS of expansion cards, if it isnt pcie capture cards, its to have extra usb 3.0 connectivity for external ones. if you dont need 4+ hdmi inputs now, you might next year

- dont toss too much money at your boot drive, if you toss money at storage, it's for local recordings.

- get an external mixer, an entry level one costs less than a fancy second sound card, and it frees up space in the system for toys that actually need the bandwidth.

- RAM isnt overly important but dont cheap out. its mostly a matter of how bloated your scenes are.

- synergy is great, dont use it. get a second mouse and keyboard. this is what my setup used to look like even with synergy available on all the systems. i've since slimmed down to "only" two keyboards

- wired networking. stay the flip away from killer branded networking as well, appareantly their drivers are a potato.

[kriptcs]

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

if you're really "going at it" with a streaming rig.. here's some of the things my experimentation, lookign around, and picking up details have taught me:

- x264 cpu encoding is where the money is at. as long as you arent thinking in the range of more than 8 cores, all that matters is the total raw CPU horsepower in this case, wether that comes from single core perf or number of cores. in this current cpu market i'd say go ryzen.

- you want *a* dedicated GPU, a lot of bigtime streamers actually just have some old relic in there to offload the gpu tasks from the cpu package. in this regard being able to do local recordings (at higher bitrate) with GPU encoding isnt bad either. if you have something on the shelf collecting dust, you now have a place for it.

- i love 4K panels, if you can find one cheap/afford one, its amazing to have stream preview and scene switching preview at full res with display realestate to spare. but if you cant spare the dough, literally any display will do for the stream rig.

- CAPTURE CARDS, LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. make sure you get a board that allows for LOTS of expansion cards, if it isnt pcie capture cards, its to have extra usb 3.0 connectivity for external ones. if you dont need 4+ hdmi inputs now, you might next year

- dont toss too much money at your boot drive, if you toss money at storage, it's for local recordings.

- get an external mixer, an entry level one costs less than a fancy second sound card, and it frees up space in the system for toys that actually need the bandwidth.

- RAM isnt overly important but dont cheap out. its mostly a matter of how bloated your scenes are.

- synergy is great, dont use it. get a second mouse and keyboard. this is what my setup used to look like even with synergy available on all the systems. i've since slimmed down to "only" two keyboards

- wired networking. stay the flip away from killer branded networking as well, appareantly their drivers are a potato.

Lol Linus won't like what you said about synergy.Anyway,the best cpu I could go for is a ryzen 5 1600x,that means in need a AM4 Motherboard,which does not support elgato cards (literally the only capture cards that I know are quality) so then I am confused twice.Because you recommend a MB with 4 HDMI ports (literally never seen one) and I also need a good capture card.Could you recommend me something?

[kriptcs]

23 hours ago, KuJoe said:

 

1. Research your capture card A LOT before buying one and make sure it's compatible with your motherboard (I found out the hard way that my AVerMedia LGX doesn't support AMD's USB 3.0 controller and my Elgato HD60 Pro doesn't work in an AM4 motherboard).

What capture card did you get then?

[KuJoe]

Just now, JasonHS said:

What capture card did you get then?

I'm using an Elgato HD60 S. The HD60 Pro and LGX are great choices though depending on your build (if I had an Intel build I would stick with the AVerMedia and if I had bought the HD60 Pro new I would have contacted Elgato and swapped it out with one with a newer firmware that works with Ryzen).

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

Lol Linus won't like what you said about synergy.

no, dont get me wrong here, synergy is an amazing piece of software.. it's just NOT a good idea when one of the systems runs applications that may "capture" your mouse (like an FPS).

 

for more office related tasks.. synergy all day, we need more synergy in the office

--

as for capture cards, there's magewell, epiphan, and probably heaps more. i cant give you any "goods or bads" on that topic tho, other than that appareantly epiphan was deemed good enough to be shot up to the ISS

[kriptcs]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

I'm using an Elgato HD60 S. The HD60 Pro and LGX are great choices though depending on your build (if I had an Intel build I would stick with the AVerMedia and if I had bought the HD60 Pro new I would have contacted Elgato and swapped it out with one with a newer firmware that works with Ryzen).

Which elgato cards work with AM4? Also,if they could be relatively cheap because I don't have the biggest budget

[kriptcs]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

no, dont get me wrong here, synergy is an amazing piece of software.. it's just NOT a good idea when one of the systems runs applications that may "capture" your mouse (like an FPS).

 

for more office related tasks.. synergy all day, we need more synergy in the office

--

as for capture cards, there's magewell, epiphan, and probably heaps more. i cant give you any "goods or bads" on that topic tho, other than that appareantly epiphan was deemed good enough to be shot up to the ISS

Those prices..

[KuJoe]

Just now, JasonHS said:

Which elgato cards work with AM4? Also,if they could be relatively cheap because I don't have the biggest budget

The HD60 S will work with AM4 out of the box 100%, you can pick one up for around $130-$140 for a used/refurb on eBay or Amazon (I got mine for $139 shipped from Amazon, I don't trust resellers anymore).

 

The HD60 Pro will only work with AM4 if it's got the latest firmware (if it doesn't work, you'll need to contact Elgato and they will swap it out with an HD60 Pro that works with AM4), you can pick one of these up for roughly the same price on eBay.

 

If you're going to get a capture card, get one that does 1080p at 60FPS even if you don't plan on streaming at that resolution. There's no point spending money now for a 1080p 30FPS card and then upgrading down the road since it's only about $50 difference.

[kriptcs]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

The HD60 S will work with AM4 out of the box 100%, you can pick one up for around $130-$140 for a used/refurb on eBay or Amazon (I got mine for $139 shipped from Amazon, I don't trust resellers anymore).

 

The HD60 Pro will only work with AM4 if it's got the latest firmware (if it doesn't work, you'll need to contact Elgato and they will swap it out with an HD60 Pro that works with AM4), you can pick one of these up for roughly the same price on eBay.

 

If you're going to get a capture card, get one that does 1080p at 60FPS even if you don't plan on streaming at that resolution. There's no point spending money now for a 1080p 30FPS card and then upgrading down the road since it's only about $50 difference.

is there any advantage in getting an hdmi capture card over the pci e version? the pci e one seems a little better than having a random little box connected to my pc

[KuJoe]

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

- i love 4K panels, if you can find one cheap/afford one, its amazing to have stream preview and scene switching preview at full res with display realestate to spare. but if you cant spare the dough, literally any display will do for the stream rig.

Keep in mind that you can run a 1080p monitor at 4K resolution and it works nice for non-gaming related tasks, it can save you quite a bit of cash also. Just make sure your video card supports it (I forget what NVIDIA calls it, but AMD calls it "Virtual Super Resolution").

 

1 minute ago, JasonHS said:

is there any advantage in getting an hdmi capture card over the pci e version? the pci e one seems a little better than having a random little box connected to my pc

Not really, I would rather have the PCIe capture card over the USB 3.0 but I was tired of compatibility issues so I went with the HD60 S (this was before I realized Elgato had a firmware fix for AM4). The HD60 Pro does have a built in h265 hardware encoder also which is a plus under certain circumstances (which they don't describe but there must be one). Having a USB 3.0 capture card is nice if you want mobility and have a laptop that can stream as well (like if you want to stream while in your living room on a console without having to move around a big desktop). You can't go wrong with either so find one that's on sale and get it.  My HD60 S sits on top of my streaming PC under the desk so I never see it.

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Keep in mind that you can run a 1080p monitor at 4K resolution and it works nice for non-gaming related tasks, it can save you quite a bit of cash also. Just make sure your video card supports it (I forget what NVIDIA calls it, but AMD calls it "Virtual Super Resolution").

but that wouldnt improve the quality of the preview windows, it'd just add more strain on the system and make any UI elements unreadable.

[kriptcs]

5 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Keep in mind that you can run a 1080p monitor at 4K resolution and it works nice for non-gaming related tasks, it can save you quite a bit of cash also. Just make sure your video card supports it (I forget what NVIDIA calls it, but AMD calls it "Virtual Super Resolution").

 

Not really, I would rather have the PCIe capture card over the USB 3.0 but I was tired of compatibility issues so I went with the HD60 S (this was before I realized Elgato had a firmware fix for AM4). The HD60 Pro does have a built in h265 hardware encoder also which is a plus under certain circumstances (which they don't describe but there must be one). Having a USB 3.0 capture card is nice if you want mobility and have a laptop that can stream as well (like if you want to stream while in your living room on a console without having to move around a big desktop). You can't go wrong with either so find one that's on sale and get it.  My HD60 S sits on top of my streaming PC under the desk so I never see it.

I am looking to get a used hd60 pro,since a new one is a little too much to ask from me.Is there any way I can check if it will be compatible with AM4? Also,if I will get an HD60S instead,is there anything to worry about when buying it used?

[manikyath]

20 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

Those prices..

good hardware requires you to pay good money, unfortunately.

[kriptcs]

Just now, manikyath said:

good hardware requires you to pay good money, unfortunately.

True,but an elgato is half the price

[KuJoe]

4 minutes ago, JasonHS said:

I am looking to get a used hd60 pro,since a new one is a little too much to ask from me.Is there any way I can check if it will be compatible with AM4? Also,if I will get an HD60S instead,is there anything to worry about when buying it used?

There's no way to tell if the HD60 Pro has the firmware fix or not, you'll need to buy it to find out. The cheapest I could find the HD60 S for was $135 on eBay, for $139 you can get it from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Elgato-Game-Capture-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B072MSJP82

 

I trust Amazon more than eBay after my last eBay purchase.

 

[KuJoe]

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

but that wouldnt improve the quality of the preview windows, it'd just add more strain on the system and make any UI elements unreadable.

It depends on the GPU, I'm able to watch a stream in full resolution with no issues at 4K on my 1080p monitor. The chat is a bit small, but I can pop it out and make it bigger.

[manikyath]

9 hours ago, KuJoe said:

It depends on the GPU, I'm able to watch a stream in full resolution with no issues at 4K on my 1080p monitor. The chat is a bit small, but I can pop it out and make it bigger.

i suggest you re-read the string of quotes, and reconsider what you just told me.

[TekkShell]

Here's a list of parts that pretty similar to what we use for streaming. There's subtle differences, we got refurbished drives, bought a capture card second hand, repurposed a case we had lying around. But this works great for what you need it for, I'm sure you can build something different, but this works for 1080P/30/60 just fine, and you can record your game footage and save it on the HDDs as well. The SSD is strictly for your OS and OBS.

 

I'm sure if you check EBay, Craigslist, or Let Go you can find some of this used and save much more money.

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KpNQHN
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KpNQHN/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - A10-7860k 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($88.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - FM2A88M PRO3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($65.38 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($53.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Patriot - Torch LE 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($51.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($61.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Western Digital - Red 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($61.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Silverstone - PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: EVGA - 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Other: Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro, stream and record in 1080p60, superior low latency technology, H.264 hardware encoding, PCIe  ($185.99 @ Best Buy) 
Total: $637.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-31 15:44 EDT-0400

[KuJoe]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

i suggest you re-read the string of quotes, and reconsider what you just told me.

I've re-read them and still stand by my post, running 4K on a 1080p monitor is still an affordable method of achieving what you suggested.