Question is my laptop spec sufficient - recording game play

[Adam99]

Hi,

I planned to set up a little youtube channel, recording some content on the game Marvel Snap (accessed via Steam).

I've downloaded and set up in OBS studio, got a nice overlay sorted, but when I have the game running, and my webcam on my lap seems to be really struggling, CPU seems to be in overdrive, the screen seems very laggy and not very responsive.. I don't know enough about laptops to know if it's up to scratch to allow it? It's not a particular heavy game I wouldn't have thought..

Laptop was about £800 about 6 years ago, so hoped it would have done the job, or is that something obvious i could upgrade that would make a big difference? Or would i need a new laptop / pc.

I've attached laptop spec, and also task manager of what it looks like when running obs and the game. It looks like it maxes out the graphics card. I'm a novice on specs so no idea on things!

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.60 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.86 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
GPU 1

AMD Radeon(TM) R5 M430

Driver version: 21.19.512.4
Driver date: 14/02/2017
DirectX version: 12 (FL 11.1)
Physical location: PCI bus 1, device 0, function 0

Utilisation 0%
Dedicated GPU memory 0.0/2.0 GB
Shared GPU memory 0.0/3.9 GB
GPU Memory 0.0/5.9 GB

GPU 1 (when the game and obs studio is running)

AMD Radeon(TM) R5 M430

Driver version: 21.19.512.4
Driver date: 14/02/2017
DirectX version: 12 (FL 11.1)
Physical location: PCI bus 1, device 0, function 0

Utilisation 100%
Dedicated GPU memory 0.8/2.0 GB
Shared GPU memory 0.1/3.9 GB
GPU Memory 0.9/5.9 GB

Thanks!

 

[Nighthawk117]

Your asking a lot for a dual core CPU. You can try using Quick Sync on the iGPU to record.

 

[Adam99]

Thanks, i'll research what hou mentioned as ive never heard of it.

Failing that, is there a basic tower pc build people seem to go for on here, or even refurbished? Options and specs seem endless, absolute minefield for a newbie!

Like min spec to aim for? I'll also have a look about searching on the forums.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Thanks, i'll research what hou mentioned as ive never heard of it.

Failing that, is there a basic tower pc build people seem to go for on here, or even refurbished? Options and specs seem endless, absolute minefield for a newbie!

Like min spec to aim for? I'll also have a look about searching on the forums.

On OBS Studio, go to Output>>>Recording and set the Encoder to QuickSync H.264. Quick Sync is a hardware based video encoder built into the Intel iGPU, it should help you reduce the load on your CPU.

In terms of a tower PC, are you asking for advice on a budget gaming PC? If so there is no specific model people go for. Most of the time on here people are asking for advice on building a custom PC.

It's difficult to recommend a minimum spec without knowing more about what you will use the PC for. Do you want to just play some older less demanding games, or play Hogwarts Legacy with ray tracing. The two would require systems of a very different calibre. We'd need an idea of budget and more info on what games you would like to play.

 

[Adam99]

Thank you! Turns out I already had it set to that, so no dice unfortunately

All I'd like to do is reliably record the marvel snap content and to be able to edit. I guess it might be nice to have a go at CS:Go or whatever it is called nowadays and not have to fret sbout going on absolute lowest quality settings and tweak every framerste detail etc. It would literally just be for that as I have my laptop for most other things I need. Happy to get a PC to do this as expect theyre more capable than the laptop

I'm sure if I end up pursuing more interests I could always buy a more expensive unit down the line to consider building up.

Thanks

 

[Nighthawk117]

Thank you! Turns out I already had it set to that, so no dice unfortunately

All I'd like to do is reliably record the marvel snap content and to be able to edit. I guess it might be nice to have a go at CS:Go or whatever it is called nowadays and not have to fret sbout going on absolute lowest quality settings and tweak every framerste detail etc. It would literally just be for that as I have my laptop for most other things I need. Happy to get a PC to do this as expect theyre more capable than the laptop

I'm sure if I end up pursuing more interests I could always buy a more expensive unit down the line to consider building up.

Thanks

Another 8GB of RAM may help you, particularly if your currently on a single stick as you will be running in single channel. I can't guarantee it will resolve your issue though. That's not a Lenovo laptop by any chance?

 

[Adam99]

Okey doke thanks, would that be very pricey to buy in to try? Yes! It's a lenovo yoga 510-14ISK model 80S7 - no idea how you managed to guess that!

 

[Nighthawk117]

Okey doke thanks, would that be very pricey to buy in to try? Yes! It's a lenovo yoga 510-14ISK model 80S7 - no idea how you managed to guess that!

I've never seen that config in anything but Lenovo, it's also quite common for Lenovo to drop in entry level dedicated GPU's in these types of machines. I picked the same laptop out for my mum about 7 years ago, still in service today. RAM isn't expensive these days no, but I didn't realise it's only got 1 slot so dual channel RAM is not an option. I'm not sure if 16GB RAM would be beneficial for your recording in itself, I would guess probably not given your current RAM use.

 

[Adam99]

I was experimenting a little this evening using screen mirror via douwan to see if it wouldn't choke up my laptop like running the game directly via steam on laptop does I.e. game processing on my phone, and therefore just obs on the laptop. It seemed to work. I've deleted that now as didn't trust the software, but it made me think would an hdmi game capture card (or elgato) do the job similarly if you have any idea?

I'm assuming I can grab parts of the screen and insert either the overlay in obs just like I did with the game directly on the laptop?

What a coincidence on your mums laptop!

Thank you for your help on this again