External Encoder for Streaming on HP OMEN 17

[BabyCarlos]

Is there an external device that I can hook up to my HP Omen 17 and it can do the encoding for streaming and take the load off my CPU? It streams pretty well, but I would like to use OBS instead of Shadowplay, so I don't know if there is a device to do the encoding so there is little to no load on my CPU or just enough to make it easier and better.

 

[TJ Hooker]

That laptop has an Nvidia GPU right, can you select the NVENC encoder in OBS? Or is Intel Quicksync an option?

 

[BabyCarlos]

I can select NVENC encoder, but for some reason it still runs absolutely horrible. It's just OBS, OBS runs horrible no matter what I put the settings to. Nvidia shadowplay runs amazing.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Strange, by selecting NVENC your CPU shouldn't be doing the encoding. Don't know why OBS would still bog down your CPU.

If you want to offload it to an external device, I think you'd have to have an entire separate PC with a video capture card.

 

[BabyCarlos]

I just don't know if a dedicated encoder would relief some of the workload and make it easier to stream to twitch and better.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Like I said, if OBS is actually using NVENC then none of the encoding should be being performed by the CPU. If you look at CPU usage in task manager does it show OBS with high CPU usage even with NVENC selected?

 

[BabyCarlos]

I could look at that when I get back for lunch, but do you get what I'm saying. Like an external encoder that will do the encoding and stream it to twitch.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yeah, I get that, as I said above that would involve a separate PC with a video capture card.

 

[BabyCarlos]

So is there some type of tiny machine or PC that specializes in encoding for the PC or something?

 

[TJ Hooker]

Looks like there is, here's an example:
https://www.startech.com/ca/AV/Converters/Video/standalone-video-capture-device~USB2HDCAPS

 

[BabyCarlos]

So how does that work?

 

[TJ Hooker]

Did you read the product description?

 

[BabyCarlos]

Would something like AverMedia LIVE GAMER PORTABLE 2 PLUS work?

 

[TJ Hooker]

Probably, although it looks like it doesn't do the streaming, just the encoding. So it would seem you'd still have to run some streaming program on your PC.

 

[BabyCarlos]

Probably, although it looks like it doesn't do the streaming, just the encoding. So it would seem you'd still have to run some streaming program on your PC.

Thank you for your help, I am looking at Startech now, sorry for being a little annoying with the questions. I am very grateful for you time.

 

[TJ Hooker]

You're welcome!