Question / Help Avermedia Live Gamer HD help with performance at all?

[rob444]

Hello!

First of all, I just want to say that I have searched but I've not found anything relevant, it's quite possible I've missed a thread or two and if so, I do apologize.

I am well aware that OBS don't use the hardware encoder on the Avermedia Live Gamer HD capture card but people claim that the card will still help if you add it as a capture source.
I am curious how this can be since all the card does as a capture source is to relay the video signals, this must mean it's not helping with anything other than providing those said signals, correct? How can this minimize stress on the system that is broadcasting exactly?
Windows API for capturing screen region is probably a bit slow, that I can understand but what about "game capture" (what that exactly is I don't know, DirectX hooking?)? Are there any statistics somewhere that compares for example, "game capture" vs Avermedia capture source? It would be interesting to see the results. I'd do a comparison myself but my system is pretty crap at the moment and having a billion services (acts as both a workstation and server) does not help.

Feel free to enlighten me on this subject and thanks in advance :).

 

[Krazy]

On a single PC setup, capture cards provide very little, if any benefit. They are better suited for 2PC setups and capturing consoles. Window Capture with Aero enabled and Game Capture are the fastest capture methods available, because of how they work vs what a capture card has to do.

Capture cards used to be pretty necessary on single PC setups when XSplit was older and much more inefficient than it is now.

 

[paibox]

What Krazy said, and as far as comparing an AverMedia capture card source to a Game Capture source:

There's really no comparison you can make. Game Capture is almost entirely on the GPU (video card), any CPU usage when using Game Capture is miniscule, but it does involve some amount of GPU work, which is why Game Capture sometimes doesn't work well for people, they prefer to run their games at 500 frames per second, or at some settings that hardly leave anything for OBS itself. (And OBS does all the scene compositing on the GPU.)

The driver of a capture card is all about work on the CPU, grabbing the image from a different output and then presenting it to the computer in a format that can be used on a computer, and this data then has to be converted to YUV444 and uploaded to the GPU for scene compositing, which can be a less expensive process (for the GPU) than Game Capture.

But like I said, depending on your setup, a capture card can work better. Using a capture card instead of game capture basically just means that you are traing a bit of GPU usage for some CPU usage. You can't do a comparison of GPU VS. GPU or CPU VS. CPU for the two.

 

[rob444]

On a single PC setup, capture cards provide very little, if any benefit. They are better suited for 2PC setups and capturing consoles. Window Capture with Aero enabled and Game Capture are the fastest capture methods available, because of how they work vs what a capture card has to do.

Capture cards used to be pretty necessary on single PC setups when XSplit was older and much more inefficient than it is now.

Thanks! I was a bit skeptical when I asked a pretty well known streamer about it and he claimed just adding it as capture source would give less stress to my system (not using hardware encoder).
Yeah, it's definitely better to use a capture card on a dual-PC setup :).

What Krazy said, and as far as comparing an AverMedia capture card source to a Game Capture source:

There's really no comparison you can make. Game Capture is almost entirely on the GPU (video card), any CPU usage when using Game Capture is miniscule, but it does involve some amount of GPU work, which is why Game Capture sometimes doesn't work well for people, they prefer to run their games at 500 frames per second, or at some settings that hardly leave anything for OBS itself. (And OBS does all the scene compositing on the GPU.)

The driver of a capture card is all about work on the CPU, grabbing the image from a different output and then presenting it to the computer in a format that can be used on a computer, and this data then has to be converted to YUV444 and uploaded to the GPU for scene compositing, which can be a less expensive process (for the GPU) than Game Capture.

But like I said, depending on your setup, a capture card can work better. Using a capture card instead of game capture basically just means that you are traing a bit of GPU usage for some CPU usage. You can't do a comparison of GPU VS. GPU or CPU VS. CPU for the two.

Ah, thanks for the information. I was thinking the other day "I wonder if OBS utilizes the GPU for encoding" and if I have not misinterpreted what you said, it does - that's good news!

Thank you all for the clarifications :).

 

[Kharay]

Ah, thanks for the information. I was thinking the other day "I wonder if OBS utilizes the GPU for encoding" and if I have not misinterpreted what you said, it does - that's good news!

You can even extend upon that a bit further by enabling OpenCL in OBS. Go into Settings -> Advanced -> Custom x264 Settings -> opencl=true, assuming you have some % left on your GPU to work with. Obviously it does put an additional load on the GPU so only consider it if the GPU has no trouble at all as it is.

 

[rob444]

Ah, thanks for the information. I was thinking the other day "I wonder if OBS utilizes the GPU for encoding" and if I have not misinterpreted what you said, it does - that's good news!

You can even extend upon that a bit further by enabling OpenCL in OBS. Go into Settings -> Advanced -> Custom x264 Settings -> opencl=true, assuming you have some % left on your GPU to work with. Obviously it does put an additional load on the GPU so only consider it if the GPU has no trouble at all as it is.

Thanks! Good to know for my future rig, I doubt my current GTX 560 Ti should use this options in heavier games such as Battlefield 3 etc. ;).

 

[Kharay]

Well, it has a better 3DMark GPU Score than mine (HD 6870) and mine has little issue handling OpenCL. Obviously I do have to tweak certain settings in the game a bit but I have to do that either way, my PC is not exactly the fastest around. But, I have little issue streaming semi-modern to modern titles in 720p@60 FPS, using OpenCL.

So, give it a try. Just remember to tone down a bit on the most cycle heavy settings (Real Time Shadows, Physics, Indirect Lighting, stuff like that). Things that don't come across in their full glory on-stream anyhow. Texture, Resolution and Framerate are what make a stream attractive to watch, you can get away with toning down a bit on the rest. So... again, give it a swirl.

 

[rob444]

Well, it has a better 3DMark GPU Score than mine (HD 6870) and mine has little issue handling OpenCL. Obviously I do have to tweak certain settings in the game a bit but I have to do that either way, my PC is not exactly the fastest around. But, I have little issue streaming semi-modern to modern titles in 720p@60 FPS, using OpenCL.

So, give it a try. Just remember to tone down a bit on the most cycle heavy settings (Real Time Shadows, Physics, Indirect Lighting, stuff like that). Things that don't come across in their full glory on-stream anyhow. Texture, Resolution and Framerate are what make a stream attractive to watch, you can get away with toning down a bit on the rest. So... again, give it a swirl.

Thanks!

Yeah you are right, I can definitely tone things down a bit, I usually don't care much about the shadows in multiplayer games, as long as there is a blob under players.
I'll play around a bit with game capture with and without OpenCL :).