Laptop Spec

AlexMay

New Member
I know similar questions have been asked, but the devil is in the detail. Also, the answer to this question will get out of date quickly and I don't think it has been answered recently. I know there is guidance for OBS, but I'm interested in a combination of applications.
I am having problems with laptop performance trying to use OBS to zoom and green screen my webcam feed to a virtual webcam input for Microsoft Teams. It works, but is very laggy and trying to open a Word document and share it takes forever. It used to work ok, but I think a series of software updates have gradually got past the laptop performance.
I think I need a new, more powerful laptop. I know the better the spec, the better the performance, but I don't want to waste my money on something over specified.
Can someone suggest the minimum spec required to make this work?
 

AlexMay

New Member
You should be fine with a laptop that has modern Nvidia graphics because you will get a really good video encoder
My current laptop has NVIDIA GeForce MX350 and it really does not appear to be cutting it. What do you mean by a "modern Nvidia graphics"? I am surprised to hear that you think that the make of the graphics card alone would be enough. Surely the core processor and memory would be relevant too, wouldn't they?
 

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Most livestreaming requires H.264, and AMD intentionally under-developed its GPUS/codec/software.... hence NVidia and NVENC is well known for doing much better. In the future with AV1, we'll see... too soon to know if AMD and/or Intel will provide consistent, comparable competition to nVidia when it comes to real-time video encoding. which also means, it depends.. are you livestreaming or just Recording (as that can change the answer)

A quick google check shows the MX350 being similar, but lower-end than the GTX 1050... which should be OK, DEPENDING on other workloads
I had a upper-end professional workstation that suffered, but it was due to overly restrictive and aggressive corporate security software and settings. And you need enough RAM for your other workloads, and then OBS Studio on top of that.
And then your OBS Studio settings need to be appropriate for your computer.
 

AlexMay

New Member
Most livestreaming requires H.264, and AMD intentionally under-developed its GPUS/codec/software.... hence NVidia and NVENC is well known for doing much better. In the future with AV1, we'll see... too soon to know if AMD and/or Intel will provide consistent, comparable competition to nVidia when it comes to real-time video encoding. which also means, it depends.. are you livestreaming or just Recording (as that can change the answer)

A quick google check shows the MX350 being similar, but lower-end than the GTX 1050... which should be OK, DEPENDING on other workloads
I had a upper-end professional workstation that suffered, but it was due to overly restrictive and aggressive corporate security software and settings. And you need enough RAM for your other workloads, and then OBS Studio on top of that.
And then your OBS Studio settings need to be appropriate for your computer.
This is vague and demonstrates that you didn't read the question which made the application very clear. Not helpful!
 

PaiSand

Active Member
He did read the question and answered the right way.
It all depends on the workload you have. Of course the best computer you can buy is better. What you have now is very limited. Actually notebooks and laptops are limited by design. A desktop computer is more flexible and allows you to do changes in a easy way in case you need to upgrade the hardware.

The problem here is how much workload add the other programs you plan to run at the same time?
Based on how bad are some of this programes you need at least 32Gb of RAM and the latest CPU GPU pair to avoid bottlenecks.
Video heavy resource consuming filters also need room to work as intended. Not to mention anything from microsoft which are a nightmare of resource consumption.

Finally, there's not a direct answer to this because there are multiple factors to take in consideration. For example, Intel's CPU from the 13 and 14 generation are bad, but Ryzen 5 or 7 with X3D technology from AMD are good. And in a few month you have a new release from Intel that may be better. Also in a few weeks we have the new AMD CPUs.

The thing is that what works great for one person not always will work great for other people. Too many variables involved which includes the components used and the origin of this components. So, for the same motherboard brand and family you can have one that works amazing and the other have multiple issues. Same with GPUs. Not to mention notebooks and laptops which are built for office work or on travel, it could be great or simple crap (I have an ASUS one for work, and is crap)

What you want from people here to answer is kind of imposible, because the answer is always the same, latest technology and depends.
 

AlexMay

New Member
He did read the question and answered the right way.
It all depends on the workload you have. Of course the best computer you can buy is better. What you have now is very limited. Actually notebooks and laptops are limited by design. A desktop computer is more flexible and allows you to do changes in a easy way in case you need to upgrade the hardware.

The problem here is how much workload add the other programs you plan to run at the same time?
Based on how bad are some of this programes you need at least 32Gb of RAM and the latest CPU GPU pair to avoid bottlenecks.
Video heavy resource consuming filters also need room to work as intended. Not to mention anything from microsoft which are a nightmare of resource consumption.

Finally, there's not a direct answer to this because there are multiple factors to take in consideration. For example, Intel's CPU from the 13 and 14 generation are bad, but Ryzen 5 or 7 with X3D technology from AMD are good. And in a few month you have a new release from Intel that may be better. Also in a few weeks we have the new AMD CPUs.

The thing is that what works great for one person not always will work great for other people. Too many variables involved which includes the components used and the origin of this components. So, for the same motherboard brand and family you can have one that works amazing and the other have multiple issues. Same with GPUs. Not to mention notebooks and laptops which are built for office work or on travel, it could be great or simple crap (I have an ASUS one for work, and is crap)

What you want from people here to answer is kind of imposible, because the answer is always the same, latest technology and depends.
If he had read the question, he would not have said the answer depended on whether I was trying to stream or record. Maybe you didn't read it either. I said that I was trying to use OBS to feed into Teams. Teams is effectively a streaming application. Also, I mentioned that I want to be able to open a Word document also. That's about it.
Your answer seems to be internally inconsistent. You say the answer is always the latest technology, but you say the Intel 14th generation, which appears to be the latest, is bad.
You seem to be suggesting that I should never buy a new computer to solve my problem because there will be a new and better computer a few weeks later. On that basis, I will never solve the problem. Again, not a helpful response.
 

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Alex - we read and understand ... that isn't the problem.
Can you get your current laptop to work, if properly configured? possibly. it depends
What level compute power (specs) is required to get it to work, when NOT properly optimized? no way to know your specifics (corporate security settings/software? expected background processes? etc).. ... so unanswerable question
 

AlexMay

New Member
Alex - we read and understand ... that isn't the problem.
Can you get your current laptop to work, if properly configured? possibly. it depends
What level compute power (specs) is required to get it to work, when NOT properly optimized? no way to know your specifics (corporate security settings/software? expected background processes? etc).. ... so unanswerable question
If you think it might be s configuration problem, perhaps you could suggest how that might be resolved. I don't know why you think this is a corporate laptop. It is not. Security is Windows inbuilt. Background is, as I said before, just Word. Still nothing helpful. If the question is unanswerable, please don't answer it.
 

koala

Active Member
@AlexMay You want Laptop specs, however it's really difficult to tell proper ones because of the large variety of Laptops. They range from 300 Euro to 3000 Euro (not literally, but you get the idea).

You say you have difficulties to open Word while you use OBS as virtual webcam for Teams, as well as starting screen sharing with Teams. However, you didn't write any specs of that laptop of yours, so we have no baseline of what you're talking about.

From what I see, it may be your laptop just has not enough RAM, because Word and Teams needs much memory. On the other hand, starting screen sharing within Teams uses some GPU resources, so your GPU may be not strong enough. But keep in mind this is on a laptop, and you're just using office apps, so any high performance GPU such an Nvidia Geforce/GTX/RTX isn't used in the first place but the iGPU instead. At least by the screen sharing module from Teams. OBS can be ordered to run on the high performance Nvidia GPU, but it isn't clear if this solves anything, because data transfer to and from that GPU might hit a bottleneck as well (data bus performance). This, as well as the iGPU, is a CPU/chipset thing, not a GPU thing.

So it might be possible to optimize your current laptop to make it work. May be it helps if you configure Windows to run OBS on the power saving GPU instead of the high performance GPU. Seems strange, but worth a try. But if you don't have enough RAM, that's probably all in vain. Since you didn't attach a OBS logfile, we cannot know what happens for you.

I just got a not expensive new Laptop for personal use, in case I go travelling. May be it could serve as an example. I bought it for Office use and small computer games. It has a Intel(R) Processor U300 1.20 GHz CPU (that's a 13th gen Intel CPU) and 16 GB RAM. No high performance GPU, just the iGPU. 17" display. Cost: 500 Euro.

Its weakest part is of course the CPU. However, it works quite well for Office use due to the good RAM. I started OBS, its virtual camera, Word, Onenote, Chrome, a screen sharing of Word. The GPU load was 40-80%, the CPU load was 30-70%. All was smooth. So I guess that laptop would be able to run your workload as well, and the laptop you have may have lower system specs.

During research, I found most laptops with either outdated CPU generations or extremely low performance or both. All low budget laptops look the same, but their performance varies greatly. I recommend to compare CPU performance by checking benchmark sites such as https://www.cpubenchmark.net/.
My U300 has a score of 9245 on that site, I would say one should not choose lower scores for workloads that include video processing such as OBS. Its upside is the reasonably powerful iGPU, so aim for current generation CPUs that come with more powerful iGPUs (AMD is no different here). If your current laptop is older, its bad graphics performance might result from an older iGPU.

Choosing laptops with "high performance GPU" is difficult, because some GPUs are just double the performance than the integrated ones - I would count these as snakeoil, because a really powerful GPU is 5-10 times the power of a iGPU, or even more. I count the Nvidia Geforce MX GPUs as such snake oil GPUs - they're not really making a difference. Either you're buying a office laptop (iGPU only) or a gaming laptop (really powerful GPU), but no chimera.
 
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AlexMay

New Member
@AlexMay You want Laptop specs, however it's really difficult to tell proper ones because of the large variety of Laptops. They range from 300 Euro to 3000 Euro (not literally, but you get the idea).

You say you have difficulties to open Word while you use OBS as virtual webcam for Teams, as well as starting screen sharing with Teams. However, you didn't write any specs of that laptop of yours, so we have no baseline of what you're talking about.

From what I see, it may be your laptop just has not enough RAM, because Word and Teams needs much memory. On the other hand, starting screen sharing within Teams uses some GPU resources, so your GPU may be not strong enough. But keep in mind this is on a laptop, and you're just using office apps, so any high performance GPU such an Nvidia Geforce/GTX/RTX isn't used in the first place but the iGPU instead. At least by the screen sharing module from Teams. OBS can be ordered to run on the high performance Nvidia GPU, but it isn't clear if this solves anything, because data transfer to and from that GPU might hit a bottleneck as well (data bus performance). This, as well as the iGPU, is a CPU/chipset thing, not a GPU thing.

So it might be possible to optimize your current laptop to make it work. May be it helps if you configure Windows to run OBS on the power saving GPU instead of the high performance GPU. Seems strange, but worth a try. But if you don't have enough RAM, that's probably all in vain. Since you didn't attach a OBS logfile, we cannot know what happens for you.

I just got a not expensive new Laptop for personal use, in case I go travelling. May be it could serve as an example. I bought it for Office use and small computer games. It has a Intel(R) Processor U300 1.20 GHz CPU (that's a 13th gen Intel CPU) and 16 GB RAM. No high performance GPU, just the iGPU. 17" display. Cost: 500 Euro.

Its weakest part is of course the CPU. However, it works quite well for Office use due to the good RAM. I started OBS, its virtual camera, Word, Onenote, Chrome, a screen sharing of Word. The GPU load was 40-80%, the CPU load was 30-70%. All was smooth. So I guess that laptop would be able to run your workload as well, and the laptop you have may have lower system specs.

During research, I found most laptops with either outdated CPU generations or extremely low performance or both. All low budget laptops look the same, but their performance varies greatly. I recommend to compare CPU performance by checking benchmark sites such as https://www.cpubenchmark.net/.
My U300 has a score of 9245 on that site, I would say one should not choose lower scores for workloads that include video processing such as OBS. Its upside is the reasonably powerful iGPU, so aim for current generation CPUs that come with more powerful iGPUs (AMD is no different here). If your current laptop is older, its bad graphics performance might result from an older iGPU.

Choosing laptops with "high performance GPU" is difficult, because some GPUs are just double the performance than the integrated ones - I would count these as snakeoil, because a really powerful GPU is 5-10 times the power of a iGPU, or even more. I count the Nvidia Geforce MX GPUs as such snake oil GPUs - they're not really making a difference. Either you're buying a office laptop (iGPU only) or a gaming laptop (really powerful GPU), but no chimera.

I find this post really helpful and interesting. Thank you.

I have to admit that my assumption was that my computer wasn't up to it and I just wanted to know what to buy, but the comparison is instructive. I think, overall, it suggests that relatively small differences could be effective.

I've compared, as best I could, the computer you say you have working and mine that is struggling. There are differences and I wonder whether you think the differences are the problem or whether you still think this might be some sort of configuration issue. I noticed that the parameters where my laptop was behind yours was the CPU Benchmark score, the number of cores and the cache sizes. Of course, the benchmark score might be partly because of the number of cores and cache sizes.

I also wonder whether the fact that I have a second display hooked up is likely to be relevant to the performance issues. I guess that requires a lot of additional CPU/GPU time. I will test this when I am back home. If that is important, I'd be very interested in any advice as to how much more computing power I should need to cope with that.

In each case below, I've listed what appears to be your spec and then compared it to mine afterwards.
CPU
U300 v i71050U
CPU Benchmark
9,245 v 6,592
Cores
5 v 4
Threads
6 v 8
Base Frequency
1.2GHz v 1.8GHz
Cache
L1: 464KB, L2: 3.3MB, L3: 8MB v L1: 256KB, L2: 1.0MB, L3: 8MB
GPU Base Frequency
0.2GHz v 0.3GHz
RAM
16GB v 16GB
Graphics Card
None v NVIDIA GeForce MX350
 

koala

Active Member
I'm sorry, but I'm unable to help any further. I really don't know how much computing power exactly your current laptop lacks.

The CPU in your laptop is from Q3 2019, the laptop is too slow for you, it's 5 years old, so it's eligible to be replaced by a newer one. You probably have a budget, you have pointers to a benchmark site, you have an old machine that can be compared to current ones, you have some use cases for your laptop, so start your research and find the best machine that fits your budget and best fits your use cases.

For the sake of that comparison, things that matter for performance for general office use:
- CPU benchmark rating (both overall and single thread)
- GPU benchmark rating (there's a sister website for the one I mentioned above)
- RAM size (prefer 16 GB. 8 is lacking, and more than 16 GB only if you have a specific reason)
- age of the CPU/GPU generation. Older generations generally have lower performance. Always choose hardware from the current hardware generation.

Things that doesn't matter:
- cache size, frequencies, cores, threads (these are all included and abstracted away in the benchmark rating)
- power supply, cooling, case, operating system (these just have to work properly but have no impact on performance)

tl;dr
make a list of eligible laptops. Eligible is what matches your budget and satisfies your minimum CPU performance requirement, ssd size, RAM size, screen size and connectivity demands (wifi, lan, bluetooth, usb ports, battery time). Choose the one with the highest CPU benchmark rating and GPU benchmark rating. Both ratings must be balanced - they are equally important, depending on your use case.

Beware of laptops that satisfy all your secondary requirements but deliver mediocre CPU performance. This is where you compare the CPU benchmark rating of the eligible laptops with the CPU performance of your old laptop and cut off everything that's not significantly higher than your old laptop. "Significantly higher" is difficult to say, I personally go buy a new desktop computer if current computers have double the rating than my previous one for the same price (including inflation). Laptops might have a slightly slower increase.
 

AlexMay

New Member
I'm sorry, but I'm unable to help any further. I really don't know how much computing power exactly your current laptop lacks.

The CPU in your laptop is from Q3 2019, the laptop is too slow for you, it's 5 years old, so it's eligible to be replaced by a newer one. You probably have a budget, you have pointers to a benchmark site, you have an old machine that can be compared to current ones, you have some use cases for your laptop, so start your research and find the best machine that fits your budget and best fits your use cases.

For the sake of that comparison, things that matter for performance for general office use:
- CPU benchmark rating (both overall and single thread)
- GPU benchmark rating (there's a sister website for the one I mentioned above)
- RAM size (prefer 16 GB. 8 is lacking, and more than 16 GB only if you have a specific reason)
- age of the CPU/GPU generation. Older generations generally have lower performance. Always choose hardware from the current hardware generation.

Things that doesn't matter:
- cache size, frequencies, cores, threads (these are all included and abstracted away in the benchmark rating)
- power supply, cooling, case, operating system (these just have to work properly but have no impact on performance)

tl;dr
make a list of eligible laptops. Eligible is what matches your budget and satisfies your minimum CPU performance requirement, ssd size, RAM size, screen size and connectivity demands (wifi, lan, bluetooth, usb ports, battery time). Choose the one with the highest CPU benchmark rating and GPU benchmark rating. Both ratings must be balanced - they are equally important, depending on your use case.

Beware of laptops that satisfy all your secondary requirements but deliver mediocre CPU performance. This is where you compare the CPU benchmark rating of the eligible laptops with the CPU performance of your old laptop and cut off everything that's not significantly higher than your old laptop. "Significantly higher" is difficult to say, I personally go buy a new desktop computer if current computers have double the rating than my previous one for the same price (including inflation). Laptops might have a slightly slower increase.
Thanks, your input is much appreciated.
 

AlexMay

New Member
I would be interested to know if anyone has any idea as to the extent to which connecting a second screen (not duplicating, but expanding the display) would be expected to slow a computer streaming video through OBS and Teams and, more importantly, whether there are any aspects of the hardware spec that would be expected to resolve that.
 

AlexMay

New Member
A couple of people have suggested that my problem might be a misconfiguration of my laptop rather than a deficiency in its hardware. Noone has been specific as to where I should look for this misconfiguration / what configuration I should check / what configuration is required. Can anyone make any specific suggestions?
 

DayGeckoArt

Member
My current laptop has NVIDIA GeForce MX350 and it really does not appear to be cutting it. What do you mean by a "modern Nvidia graphics"? I am surprised to hear that you think that the make of the graphics card alone would be enough. Surely the core processor and memory would be relevant too, wouldn't they?
I forgot about the MX350. The MX graphics have no onboard encoder for some reason. You need an RTX series. Even an RTX 4050 would be great at encoding

Your current laptop might be OK if you switch to the Quicksync encoder and play with the settings to improve performance. These are my settings for Quicksync but with a more powerful desktop CPU
1723339895381.png
 

AlexMay

New Member
I forgot about the MX350. The MX graphics have no onboard encoder for some reason. You need an RTX series. Even an RTX 4050 would be great at encoding

Your current laptop might be OK if you switch to the Quicksync encoder and play with the settings to improve performance. These are my settings for Quicksync but with a more powerful desktop CPU
View attachment 106782
As far as I can see, encoding is only relevant to recording and I am NOT recording. As I said before, I am using OBS to stream to Teams
 
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