Question / Help Capture Cards: Single PC vs Dual PC!

[Desync]

So I keep seeing so many mixed reviews about capture cards and ussing 1 pc or 2 pcs to stream with.

I understsand u won't gain any performance if you use OBS with 1 pc and an Avermedia card.

To me, it seems a myth that nobody really knows the true answer.

Is there anyway possible to use an avermedia card with 1 pc and be able to stream good? Weather it be OBS, X-Split, ECT.

 

[R1CH]

There's no point using a capture card on a single PC. The only possible use is to capture the entire screen when circumstances don't allow otherwise (eg capturing a game which is highly incompatible with hooks)

Single PC with game capture:
GPU Output -> GPU -> GPU Render -> System Memory -> Encode -> Stream

Single PC with capture card:
GPU Output -> Capture Card -> PCI Bus -> System Memory -> GPU -> GPU Render -> System Memory -> Encode -> Stream

Dual PC with capture card:
PC1 (Gaming): GPU Output -> Capture Card
PC2 (Encoding): PCI Bus -> System Memory -> GPU -> GPU Render -> System Memory -> Encode -> Stream

As you can see, with the dual PC setup, you offload a lot of the work onto the 2nd PC, so it provides a large CPU reduction on the PC you're gaming on. This is the only situation in which a capture card makes sense for PC games.

 

[Desync]

Appreciate the reply. It's just that I've found so many mixed reviews and opinions when it comes to using a capture card.

It's all a bit confusing

 

[R1CH]

One of the AverMedia cards has a hardware encoder in addition to a capture feature. This lets the card do the encoding instead of your CPU, however the quality is quite bad and much worse than using your CPU. Additionally the encoder only works in xsplit.

This marketing may be why some people claim that a capture card in a single PC helps.

 

[Desync]

Yea that's what I've heard. That the capture card is suppose to do all the encoding for you so it takes the load off of your cpu and allows you to stream in 1080p @ 60FPS with no issues or lag

 

[Jack0r]

1080p30fps or 720p60fps if you talk about the live gamer hd, not sure exactly how the U3 works.