is a second streaming pc necessary for streaming

[Zeketo]

I have a i7 6700k and gtx1070, and I feel I am struggling streaming in almost every game.

I am able to hit that 60fps mark when I am not streaming, but it goes to 40-50fps when I am streaming.

How big is the improvement from 6700k to 8700k?

will that 10-15% improvement eliminate problems like this?

I really prefer to stick with a single pc.

It's hard to find any videos online since all cpus can handle games individually.

However, when it comes to streaming and gaming, it's a completely different story and there aren't many videos out there showing the benchmarks?

 

If anyone has i9 7900x and if you stream, can you tell me something about the performance both in game and streaming

[Zeketo]

It kinda makes sense getting a second pc.

I mean i5 itself probably can handle all the streaming, but I really prefer everything to be in the same gear

[Vandorlot]

More cpu cores means it would be easier to stream and the stream would be less laggy. Theres a pretty big diffrence between 6700 and 8700. You could also make a virtual machine and give it extra cores and it function as a second pc.

[Vandorlot]

 

 

[Glennieboyyy007]

what games do you play? and at what settings, also stream settings? also resolution and streaming resolution + fps

[Spotty]

I stream with a 6700k on Twitch and in the past Youtube without any dramas (1080p@60fps).
What stream settings are you using and what software are you using to stream?

[Zeketo]

1 minute ago, Glennieboyyy007 said:

what games do you play? and at what settings? also resolution and streaming resolution + fps

I streamed a bit ff15, far cry, csgo, and fortnite a few days ago.

ff15, I was able to hit 60fps off stream everything on ultra or very high with 2 of the 4 extra features turned on.

        If i want to get 50-60 fps on stream, I have to turn down the settings to low and most of the extra features off.

 

The main issue I have is with fortnite, I have to turn down everything except the view distance(high) to low to get 144fps

all on 1080p

[Zeketo]

Just now, Spotty said:

I stream with a 6700k on Twitch and in the past Youtube without any dramas (1080p@60fps).
What stream settings are you using and what software are you using to stream?

obs studio, stream at 720p@30fps. Do you notice any lag issues in game when you have a few things open like your browser or other little thingies.

I think I am mostly fine if I restart my pc before each stream and no browsers open.

 

[Glennieboyyy007]

1 minute ago, Zeketo said:

I streamed a bit ff15, far cry, csgo, and fortnite a few days ago.

ff15, I was able to hit 60fps off stream everything on ultra or very high with 2 of the 4 extra features turned on.

        If i want to get 50-60 fps on stream, I have to turn down the settings to low and most of the extra features off.

 

The main issue I have is with fortnite, I have to turn down everything except the view distance(high) to low to get 144fps

all on 1080p

do you have dynamic resolution enabled? i streamed a bit of far cry 5 myself. i had everything on ultra and streamed at 720p 60fps pretty easily

[DocSwag]

An 8700k would help a lot for streaming. However, before you upgrade, have your tried using NVENC for encoding instead? It off loads the encoding to the gpu, which might be better for you.

[Zeketo]

1 minute ago, Glennieboyyy007 said:

do you have dynamic resolution enabled? i streamed a bit of far cry 5 myself. i had everything on ultra and streamed at 720p 60fps pretty easily

I only stream like 30minutes of that game, and I haven't messed up much with the settings yet.

I should probably restart my pc before the stream and tes itt out again

I just recalled that I often let my pc sleep instead of let it shut down or restart.

That may cause the lag

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Zeketo said:

obs studio, stream at 720p@30fps. Do you notice any lag issues in game when you have a few things open like your browser or other little thingies.

I think I am mostly fine if I restart my pc before each stream and no browsers open.

I usually have Chrome open with a couple of Twitch tabs including twitch chat, and my Streamlabs/Nightbot open as well to adjust things on the fly on a 2nd monitor. I'll have discord in background along with stuff like RealTemp and sometimes MSI afterburner.
Don't notice any lag or any issues at all, but I also play at 60hz/75hz and not 144hz.
I don't play much Fortnite (think I've played only ever 3 games?). Trying to think what games I've streamed lately, most demanding would be PUBG & GTA V.

Do you record your streams at the same time or just stream?

[Zeketo]

6 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

An 8700k would help a lot for streaming. However, before you upgrade, have your tried using NVENC for encoding instead? It off loads the encoding to the gpu, which might be better for you.

yah I should try that definitely, but honestly I don't think it would eliminate the fps lag if I let my gpc do the encoding.

I really do think even with a i7 7700k, it probably will be just enough to solve the issue.

[DocSwag]

2 minutes ago, Zeketo said:

yah I should try that definitely, but honestly I don't think it would eliminate the fps lag if I let my gpc do the encoding.

I really do think even with a i7 7700k, it probably will be just enough to solve the issue.

I think your problem right now is the cpu is bottlenecking due to streaming using up too much of the cpu. So offloading the work to the gpu might help.

[Zeketo]

4 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I usually have Chrome open with a couple of Twitch tabs including twitch chat, and my Streamlabs/Nightbot open as well to adjust things on the fly on a 2nd monitor. I'll have discord in background along with stuff like RealTemp and sometimes MSI afterburner.
Don't notice any lag or any issues at all, but I also play at 60hz/75hz and not 144hz.
I don't play much Fortnite (think I've played only ever 3 games?). Trying to think what games I've streamed lately, most demanding would be PUBG & GTA V.

Do you record your streams at the same time or just stream?

I never tried pubg tho. I mean I play it, but honestly I am just too scared to stream it.

I always have my shadowplay on and that's it.

Yah if I have my chrome open, I pause my stream every time just to help release some stress.

Do you have your second monitor hooked up to the same gpu?

If so, how do you do that?

Most of the videos I found are dual monitors set up which are stretching the resolution.

I wish I could get 2 displays connected to my single gpu and one for games, one for desktop

[Zeketo]

4 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

I think your problem right now is the cpu is bottlenecking due to streaming using up too much of the cpu. So offloading the work to the gpu might help.

yah I'll give it a shot later today

[Zeketo]

wait. I have an old msi gs60 pro.

i7 4700hq.

 

 

It overheats tho

[Spotty]

9 minutes ago, Zeketo said:

I always have my shadowplay on and that's it.

Yah if I have my chrome open, I pause my stream every time just to help release some stress.

Do you have your second monitor hooked up to the same gpu?

If so, how do you do that?

Most of the videos I found are dual monitors set up which are stretching the resolution.

I wish I could get 2 displays connected to my single gpu and one for games, one for desktop

I leave stream running in the background (audio muted) at a low resolution if possible (360p) just so I can keep an eye on how the stream is showing to people watching - making sure overlays are showing up etc. I know OBS preview does this, but I like to make sure it's showing up properly in Twitch as well, and it also helps me keep an eye on the stream delay.

2nd monitor is hooked up to the same GPU. Just open your display settings in windows (right click desktop) and find the option for "Multiple Display Options" and select "Extend these displays"
That will put your desktop across 2 screens. Set your main monitor as Primary Monitor by selecting it and checking the box that says "Make this my main display" if it is not already marked as your primary. When you launch games they will go in full screen mode but only on your primary screen. This will leave your desktop and other apps open and visible on your second monitor. You will need to alt+tab to switch from the game to the desktop to type in your twitch chat or change settings.

[Zeketo]

4 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I leave stream running in the background (audio muted) at a low resolution if possible (360p) just so I can keep an eye on how the stream is showing to people watching - making sure overlays are showing up etc. I know OBS preview does this, but I like to make sure it's showing up properly in Twitch as well, and it also helps me keep an eye on the stream delay.

2nd monitor is hooked up to the same GPU. Just open your display settings in windows (right click desktop) and find the option for "Multiple Display Options" and select "Extend these displays"
That will put your desktop across 2 screens. Set your main monitor as Primary Monitor. When you launch games they will go in full screen mode but only on your primary screen. This will leave your desktop and other apps open and visible on your second monitor. You will need to alt+tab to switch from the game to the desktop to type in your twitch chat or change settings.

Got it

Thanks for the help, much appreciated

[Spotty]

41 minutes ago, Zeketo said:

Got it

Thanks for the help, much appreciated

No worries.
While, depending on your hardware and other settings, a second PC may not be needed for streaming - It's almost impossible to have a decent stream without a second monitor. Let's you keep one eye on the game and the other eye on your twitch chat to answer questions and talk with your viewers, tweak settings on the fly, keep an eye on how your stream is running (frame drops, stream quality, etc), and so on.

If you get that second stream monitor up and running, might be worthwhile running MSI Afterburner in the background while you stream and you can keep an eye on the CPU usage while you're playing/streaming and find if that is bottlenecking the rest of your system or not. OBS also shows how much CPU resources it is using in its bottom bar so it might help watching that to see how much it's using. Failing that just run Task Manager.

[LogicalDrm]

Getting dedicated streaming PC is bit overdoing unless you are hc streamer. First you need capture card, just $100-250 investment by itself to even use 2nd PC. Then you need PC itself. Ofc if you already own laptop or something like that, getting $100 capture card might be cheaper investment than getting another CPU for $200+.

[Zeketo]

58 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Getting dedicated streaming PC is bit overdoing unless you are hc streamer. First you need capture card, just $100-250 investment by itself to even use 2nd PC. Then you need PC itself. Ofc if you already own laptop or something like that, getting $100 capture card might be cheaper investment than getting another CPU for $200+.

yah I got a capture card for my ps4 1 year ago. The only thing that worries me is if my laptop can handle the stress in long hours

[Misanthrope]

Second PC might be more cost effective. If you want to get by with a single PC solution, you're probably looking at HEDT. If you're ok with 60 FPS maybe Threadripper but if you would at all consider higher framerates then it's the more expensive x299 options from intel.

 

Whereas something far more modest like even an itx rig with an 8100 will probably handle streaming duties fine I believe since it's dedicated to just that.

[LogicalDrm]

30 minutes ago, Zeketo said:

yah I got a capture card for my ps4 1 year ago. The only thing that worries me is if my laptop can handle the stress in long hours

Capture card should take most of rendering stress off machine. So it would be just running software. You could just try and see how it goes. I haven't personally used capture cards, so I don't have first hand experience on how much streaming/recording stressed system itself with capture card running encoding side.

[Zeketo]

Just now, LoGiCalDrm said:

Capture card should take most of rendering stress off machine. So it would be just running software. You could just try and see how it goes. I haven't personally used capture cards, so I don't have first hand experience on how much streaming/recording stressed system itself with capture card running encoding side.

yah, thanks man. your help is greatly appreciated