I am clueless about computers

[EllisPeters1]

I’m getting into streaming , I have my capture and my Xbox sorted

will the below specs be able to stream at 720p

2.6GHZ 4 GB RAM

I5 processor

its a Lenovo thinkpad 320GB

sorry if I sound dumb I’m literally new to the scene and just want to make decent content

 

[FerretBomb]

That is a fairly underpowered system. I would not recommend buying this one.

Would strongly advise a system with an nVidia GPU, at least a 900-series, and NOT a GTX 1030. This will allow you to use NVENC for encoding, freeing up your CPU for the game and other tasks.

 

[boyatcomputer]

GT 1030*

That is a fairly underpowered system. I would not recommend buying this one.

Would strongly advise a system with an nVidia GPU, at least a 900-series, and NOT a GTX 1030. This will allow you to use NVENC for encoding, freeing up your CPU for the game and other tasks.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

To provide some context
real-time video encoding is VERY computationally demanding. So demanding, that the latest video codec standards (AV1) aren't practical with vast majority on consumer computers. So recording/streaming is done using older, less demanding, compression techniques (H.265 and H.264)
Laptops, in general and especially lower end consumer-level, are optimized for battery life, not the computationally demanding task of real-time video encoding. Depending on your recording/streaming needs and expectations, a laptop can be fine. But for a given generation CPU and GPU, laptops are more thermally throttled, limiting their performance. just something to be aware of. In years prior, there was a price premium for shrinking a PC in laptop vs desktop/tower form factor. Now, with laptop volume so greatly exceeding desktops, that price premium has gone down (still there just not as noticeable).
The recommendations for using a nVidia GPU (graphics card) is to offload some (not all) of that computational requirement off the CPU (main processor)
Current nVidia GPU are Ampere based RTX30xx models. However, good NVENC performance is still available going back a couple of generations to the GTX 1650 Super (Turing based cards.. beware GTX 1650 cards that are prior chip, not Turing). Older nVidia cards NVENC based video encoding won't be as good of quality (depends on your expectations as to whether good enough or not, but probably fine). Then again, you get could a more powerful CPU and do the video encoding there... it is all a careful balancing act.

so, if form factor critical, then be careful in laptop selection, and probably best to avoid ultra-slim low wattage, long-battery life systems for OBS.

 

[B1ackt34]

Then again, you get could a more powerful CPU and do the video encoding there... it is all a careful balancing act.

Is it possible to use OBS Studio without a dedicated GPU? Let's say an APU 5700g (Vega 11)?

 

[dmemphis]

Possible but not recommended. Hardware encoding via nvidia is a good friend.
THere are low cost options - you can use some GT 710 cards, but GTX 750 is a safer bet. Read my recent posts here, search for 710. Gives example of the $40 card GT 710 card. Not all GT 710s have hardware encoding. I currently believe all GTX 750 cards do. I do well otherwise with 4 core mother boards running over 3ghz for budget PC builds. i7 is the safe bet, some i5s are nearly as good as their i7 counterpart.
The other suggestions here are good ones, you are getting some good attention.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Is it possible to use OBS Studio without a dedicated GPU? Let's say an APU 5700g (Vega 11)?

Yes, with limitations/caveats. Do those caveats apply to you? no way to know with what you posted.

Due to encoder offload improvements, you'll often see a recommendation for GPU encode offload to get an nVidia Turing-based NVENC equipped card (so GTX 1650 Super or higher/newer). A search on NVENC generational differences will indicate which may suit your needs/desire in terms of frame rate, quality encoding, etc. Historically, the GPU encoder offloading was cheaper than adding equivalent extra CPU power. Now, with much more powerful CPUs, and outrageous GPU pricing, it _may_ make sense depending on a person's exact circumstance, to get a lower GPU (or even APU) now, that suffices for the moment to use CPU video encoding, and wait a year or more to get a GPU (obviously this doesn't apply to laptops)

As for an APU, see the OBS requirements https://obsproject.com/wiki/System-Requirements
can you use an APU. Yes, with caveats. There are those streaming on almost 10yr old PCs (highly optimized OS and OBS settings). On the other hand, with demanding OBS settings and base compute workload (be that games or other workloads), you can cripple a US$5-10K workstation. So, it really does depend, anyone who tells you otherwise isn't worth listening to.

 

[B1ackt34]

@Lawrence_SoCal thank you so much for explanation. I may choose an APU based pc adding an Elgato HD60 ... maybe better solution. I say this cause in US online market there are plenty of pc (with GPU removed) for low cost.

 

[B1ackt34]

@dmemphis thank you for your info!

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Beware, the Elgato, from what I understand is a capture card (ie takes signal from a video device and concerts to something the PC can use. Your PC still has to render that video (video decode) to display in OBS Studio preview window, then later encode to stream and/or record.
The elgato enables input, it doesn't offload anything, that I'm aware of (but not something I use)

 

[B1ackt34]

Beware, the Elgato, from what I understand is a capture card (ie takes signal from a video device and concerts to something the PC can use. Your PC still has to render that video (video decode) to display in OBS Studio preview window, then later encode to stream and/or record.
The elgato enables input, it doesn't offload anything, that I'm aware of (but not something I use)

uhmmm ... i will check it, thank you

 

[dmemphis]

Historically, the GPU encoder offloading was cheaper than adding equivalent extra CPU power. Now, with much more powerful CPUs, and outrageous GPU pricing, it _may_ make sense depending on a person's exact circumstance, to get a lower GPU (or even APU) now, that suffices for the moment to use CPU video encoding, and wait a year or more to get a GPU (obviously this doesn't apply to laptops)

Good points on the tradeoff of CPU vs GPU. I've had 10yr old PCs handy or was able to upgrade
them to their best processors on the cheap. Adding the miserly NVENC supported cards has
worked out well. GT 710 cards (get the right ones!) are $50ish, GTX 750s $80ish.
I am not a gamer- it would be better to hear from a gamer using OBS on a separate PC just the back end of the operation. I'm using OBS as a production platform. Here's a performance data point which might help: I use a 3+ Ghz i7 with 16GB memory, system SSD and recording SSD, and 1050ti video card to do the following: ingest three 720p60 uncompressed camera feeds over blackmagic duo 2 into OBS and stream at about 2,000 kbps and record at about 20,000 kbps, hardware encoding. I simultaneously run youtube on firefox to monitor the stream result, run Zoom and capture the screen, use Voiceemeter to mix USB audio with the Zoom audio sent to OBS and provide the USB audio only to Zoom. My scenes are modest, lower thirds and picture in picture. This consumes about 70% of the CPU according to Task Manager. I think it would take way less of a machine to ingest from one game PC and simply stream and record.

 

[B1ackt34]

thank you @dmemphis for the appreciated info about your pc

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

ingest three 720p60 uncompressed camera feeds over blackmagic duo 2 into

So PC is only dealing with a single video input, right. You can't mix all 3 cameras view at once on the PC in OBS?
note this isn't a criticism. if I am guessing correctly, that makes a LOT of sense on an under-powered CPU to limit how much video the PC/OBS is having to process, so having a switcher in front is one way to accomplish that in a multi-camera scenario

To @B1ackt34 , for context, when I started streaming (using OBS) I used my work engineering class (ie beefy) workstation laptop. Due to security software running on it, my streams would get interrupted (I think it was the DLP, but not sure). I then tried to stream with a late 2015 gaming laptop with an Intel i5-6300HQ (2.3GHz 4c/4t), 8GB RAM, with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M and a SATA SSD (not HDD) Win 10 - fresh/clean install, and optimized [I know what I'm doing with Windows], and failed as the PC wasn't up to the task (no gaming, just alternating between USB webcam and simple pre-recorded videos (some were 4K), alongside a PPTx slide show window capture, streaming at 720p 30fps with no OBS effects/filters). I’ve learned a lot more about OBS since then, and I might be able to just squeak it out, but wasn’t worth it. I needed to focus on content and presentation, so I got a newer, much more powerful PC, which should last for many years.

My point is that if you go for something that just meets your requirements today, tomorrow you might go, 'Oh, I'll add X" and now you go beyond the system's capabilities. And then there are the impacts of Operating System, driver, etc updates. So I'd recommend having a healthy buffer between minimum specs and what you acquire so you don't end up needing/wanting to replace it soon [assuming you have the extra budget]

 

[dmemphis]

Hi- yes I'm bringing in 3 cameras. No, the PC IS processing all three cameras, not just one at a time. OBS can mix them at will, like picture in picture or tiled, overlapped etc. Yes putting a switcher in front of OBS is a way to handle multiple cameras and feed the mix to OBS so you can use a single input capture card rather than a multi input one like the BM Duo 2. And OBS only then has to process one input. But OBS has great compositing features, like picture in picture, lots of processing filters that can be applied differently on each camera input, etc. So bringing them into OBS is great if the cpu can handle it. This 10 yr old rig can. I don't think I see a difference in cpu usage when I have one camera or a picture in picture going on. So I think it is processing all the inputs all the time, having them ready to mix as scenes change.
>" if you go for something that just meets your requirements today, tomorrow you might go, 'Oh, I'll add X" and now you go beyond the system's capabilities "
Yes this is always a possibility.
One area where I have mostly had constraints is with PCIe slots.
I recommend working with a full size ATX motherboard, with a lot of PCIe slots.
This rig I use does.
This also gives you the freedom to use a double width video card if you have to and not worry about loosing a PCIe slot next to it.
I'm telling ya'll an example of what you can get with a budget PC, if that meets requirements great. If you have the budget to reach higher and plan for change/additions, great.
It is an example of what I think gamers would need at most to pull off using OBS as the streaming
back end processing the output of the gaming computer. Do with it as you will.

 

[dmemphis]

One area where this might come up short is in streaming the game at large image dimensions and high bit rates to support it. That's maybe where a higher end GPU might be necessary than what I use, as I'm only streaming meeting contents to youtube at 720p at not much more than 2000 kbps. There you go, maybe that's a fatal flaw... :)