Question / Help How much computer do I need?

aemathisphd

New Member
I apologize in advance if this is the wrong place to post this.

I lecture for a college class that runs 75 minutes. I use Power Point, a Web browser, and Microsoft Word. I’d like to begin recording these lectures using OBS. There is no need for me to stream — I’m recording only. Further, there’s no need to record my face — screen capture is all I need. What I’d like to know is the computer specs I’d need to meet to be able to do this, ie, RAM, CPU power, graphics card, etc.

I’ve seen some posts indicating that a laptop is suboptimal, but I do not have access to the space or security for anything else. I’d be using Windows 10. I’m amenable to using any browser and word processing software but will need to keep using Power Point. I can even record audio off the system if I need to. Finally, I have a Dell credit account so I’ll likely buy from them.

Let me know if you need any other info. Thanks in advance for your help.
 

koala

Active Member
The stuff you intend to record seems to be mostly static, at most some animations within the office applications. In this case, you are fine with about any machine that is able to start OBS without error message. Probably you already own some PC or laptop. Just download and install OBS and try it.
 

aemathisphd

New Member
The stuff you intend to record seems to be mostly static, at most some animations within the office applications. In this case, you are fine with about any machine that is able to start OBS without error message. Probably you already own some PC or laptop. Just download and install OBS and try it.

Yeah, I tried it on a Toshiba tablet a few months ago and it utterly failed. I know I need to buy a proper computer; my main concern, as I said, was that a few people on here have pooh-poohed the idea of using a laptop at all.
 

Sukiyucky

Member
For your use case, a mobile laptop to tote around would be ideal. Because you are capturing PowerPoint, you don't need a top of the line system to generate high frame rates like most of us do here with PC gaming.

Ideally, you would want to target your recordings to be 720p@ 30 frames per second. This, in case you post on school servers that offer no transcoding to lower resolutions. That would be a good sweet spot so that your students can view your recordings both on the desktop and in their mobile smartphone devices without hogging up school resources, let alone their own Internet bandwidth.

Its always better to go above what you think you need for computing resources when it comes to using OBS. With a laptop, since is a closed system, you cannot upgrade to improve performance. So best to shell out a little more to get better components.

Something like this would be good:

- Intel® Core™ i7-8750H 6C/12T at 4.1Ghz
- Nvidia GTX 1050Ti
- 16GB RAM
- 15.6" display
- 2TB SATA hard disk or 1TB SSD. Prefer SSD for faster recording to disk.
- VGA/HDMI port for connecting to another monitor
- Fast Gigabit Ethernet port for faster uploading to school servers
- At least two USB 2.0/3.0 ports (for mouse and an external USB 3.0 hub)

In addition to the laptop:
- 4 port USB 3.0 powered hub for adding additional USB devices
- 2TB portable external hard drive USB 3.0 for archiving old recordings

A Dell XPS 15 laptop would do with above specs. If you want a 17" display, a G3 17" gaming laptop with above specs would do also.
 

aemathisphd

New Member
For your use case, a mobile laptop to tote around would be ideal. Because you are capturing PowerPoint, you don't need a top of the line system to generate high frame rates like most of us do here with PC gaming.

Ideally, you would want to target your recordings to be 720p@ 30 frames per second. This, in case you post on school servers that offer no transcoding to lower resolutions. That would be a good sweet spot so that your students can view your recordings both on the desktop and in their mobile smartphone devices without hogging up school resources, let alone their own Internet bandwidth.

Its always better to go above what you think you need for computing resources when it comes to using OBS. With a laptop, since is a closed system, you cannot upgrade to improve performance. So best to shell out a little more to get better components.

Something like this would be good:

- Intel® Core™ i7-8750H 6C/12T at 4.1Ghz
- Nvidia GTX 1050Ti
- 16GB RAM
- 15.6" display
- 2TB SATA hard disk or 1TB SSD. Prefer SSD for faster recording to disk.
- VGA/HDMI port for connecting to another monitor
- Fast Gigabit Ethernet port for faster uploading to school servers
- At least two USB 2.0/3.0 ports (for mouse and an external USB 3.0 hub)

In addition to the laptop:
- 4 port USB 3.0 powered hub for adding additional USB devices
- 2TB portable external hard drive USB 3.0 for archiving old recordings

A Dell XPS 15 laptop would do with above specs. If you want a 17" display, a G3 17" gaming laptop with above specs would do also.

Extremely helpful. Thanks very much!!
 
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