Capture card for streaming?

Jh4nTy

Honorable
Mar 30, 2016
155
0
10,680
Hey guys, sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong section but I got this question to you.

I recently started to stream on Twitch but I'm having a hard time because if I set the bitrate too high I lag in game and the stream looks ok but when I set the bitrate down I play smoothly but the stream looks kind of awful. I stream at 30 fps at 720p.

My current build is:
• CPU: Intel Core i5 4690k @ 3.5GHz
• GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 750Ti 2GB
• RAM: 8GB
• Motherboard: ASUS H81-Gamer
• OS: Windows 8.1 Pro
• HDD: 1TB

I'm planning on getting a 6gb GTX 1060 early next year. Should I get a capture card so I don't have any problem streaming or not?
 
Solution
A capture card won't help unless you're using a 2nd system for streaming.

You may want to try using ProcessLasso to manually assign separate CPU cores to the streaming program and the game you're playing.
https://bitsum.com/
Right click the streaming program process, go to CPU affinity, and give the streaming program 1-2 dedicated cores, and the game different 1-3 dedicated cores.

Your GPU is very weak compared to your CPU kind of as well.

Streaming will be limited by your Upload speed: http://www.speedtest.net/

You can try OBS since it's free:
https://obsproject.com/
And here's how to set it up for local recordings, start at the recommended crf 15, and lower the number for higher quality and higher file size recordings, or raise it...
A capture card won't help unless you're using a 2nd system for streaming.

You may want to try using ProcessLasso to manually assign separate CPU cores to the streaming program and the game you're playing.
https://bitsum.com/
Right click the streaming program process, go to CPU affinity, and give the streaming program 1-2 dedicated cores, and the game different 1-3 dedicated cores.

Your GPU is very weak compared to your CPU kind of as well.

Streaming will be limited by your Upload speed: http://www.speedtest.net/

You can try OBS since it's free:
https://obsproject.com/
And here's how to set it up for local recordings, start at the recommended crf 15, and lower the number for higher quality and higher file size recordings, or raise it for slightly lower quality and smaller file sizes.
https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/
And to set it up for Twitch:
http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1262922-open-broadcaster-software
And to get it setup for Youtube streaming:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853700?hl=en&authuser=1&ref_topic=6136989
And optimizing it for Youtube:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853702?authuser=1

If you have an Nvidia GPU, you can use that to reduce the load on your CPU:
To set it up for recordings:
1. go to settings
2. go to encoding
3. click the Nvidia NVENC button
4. Make sure Use CBR is turned on
5. Make sure Enable CBR Padding is turned off
6. Set your Max Bitrate (Kb/s) to your upload max upload speed. You'll want like 8000 or more though, this affects the visual quality of the video partly. (1mbps = 1000 kbps, www.speedtest.net)
7. go to Video and set the FPS to 60
8. Go to Advanced
9. Turn Use Multithreaded Optimizations on
10. Set NVENC Preset to High Quality
11. Set Encoding Profile to Main
12. Turn Use CFR on.

To capture your game:
1. Right click in the white area of the Scenes: box and choose add scene, name it after the game you're gonna play.
2. Start the game you're gonna play.
3. right click in the Sources: box and choose Game Capture (for full screen games) or Window Capture (for windowed games whether borderless or not) or Monitor (to capture whatever is display one your monitor including your desktop/webbrowser/OBS)
4. Start recording.

To add a webcam:
1. Right click in the Sources: box and choose Video Capture Device.
2. Choose your webcam from the dropdown list at the top. Press Okay.
3. Click Preview Stream
4. Click the Video Capture in the sources list, go to Order and choose Move to Top.
5. Press the Edit Scene button
 
Solution

Jh4nTy

Honorable
Mar 30, 2016
155
0
10,680
I'm using OBS and I think I'm starting to get a hold of it. I dropped the bitrate and tweaked some other options and now I can play smoothly at the cost of lower quality in the stream. As far as the GPU goes I know it's not the best but like I said I'm planning on getting a 6gb GTX 1060 early next year. Thank you for your advice though, I really appreciate it ;)