IMAC M1 Chip Help

[txnshie]

Hello OBS forum,

I have recently ran into some trouble trying to record videos with OBS on my 2015 MacBook Pro, I was trying to record Audio, screen and 2 video captures to make video commentary style videos. I played around with the settings but nothing was reducing the dropped frames unfortunately. Today I will be buying a 2021 iMac with the M1 chip, what are some of your experiences with this or what surrounds your knowledge about this subject. Let me know!

 

[shiggitay]

While it'll run a bit better than your 2015 MacBook Pro (I'm guessing I had the same one or something similar) it'll be running under Apple's Intel translation layer called Rosetta 2. I got a very nicely equipped M1 Mac mini (as a replacement for my planned to be docked 15" 2015 MBP) for my streaming/capturing/recording/digitizing needs and even though OBS Studio does not run natively on the M1 chips just yet (it's coming) it runs quite well for what it is. It doesn't feel any different from when you use it on an Intel Mac at all... It's super seamless.

I guess I could have got by with my 2015 15" if I wasn't trying to have it docked with it trying to drive 2 24" displays as well as having it stress with communicating with my capture cards etc. It'd work fine when recording, but then when I'd go to stream I'd get like 50 fps (when I'd have it set to 60 fps) and it'd render the system 100% useless until I'd stop the stream. The M1 Mac mini doesn't have that problem. It's an excellent piece of kit, and the M1 iMac you're going to get/you got already will be a good performer as well. I hope some or any of this helped.

 

[archimac]

Could you update us with how the release version of OBS now works with you Mac mini M1? I am torn between replacing a 2015 Macbook Pro with either a 2020 27" iMac from OWC with dedicated AMD graphics or an M1 Mac mini or M1 iMac. It would all come down to which one would give the most quality for HD streaming to Youtube.