Did some further testing.
Doesn’t look like the new MacBook Air can handle just a simple stream, which to me doesn’t sound right. My older iMac (from late 2015) seems to handle the same requirements which also makes no sense to me. The specs to both follow.
MacBook Air (13” Retina, 2020)
Processor: 1.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4
Graphics : Intel Iris Plus Graphics 1536 MB
iMac (27’’ Retina 5K, Late 2015)
Processor: 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Memory : 16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics : AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB
So theoretically the MacBook Pro 2019 with an i9 chip and 8 GB video should be able to do what the iMac does and more, correct? Is there anyone out there with the latest MacBook Pro with an i9 that can share their experiences?? Does OBS Studio benefit from having more than 16 GB of RAM? Please, really need some feedback.
I tried streaming (with 25 Mbps upload speed) a test to a Facebook Page and had the exact same preferences in OBS for both of the computers.
Streaming settings: Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder, Enforce streaming service encoder settings, Bitrate 5000 Kbps, Profile none, Use B-Frames.
Recording settings: Format: mp4, Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder, Bitrate 8000 Kbps, Profile none, Use B-Frames.
RESULTS
Streaming only: Switching between 2 NDI camera shots and to prerecorded videos using the media source, source.
iMac: Got 30 fps on the stream.
MacBook Air: Started 30 fps and it quickly dwindled to 25 fps and then finally settled at 20 fps after 5-10 minutes.
Streaming AND recording: Switching between NDI camera shots and to prerecorded videos using the media source, source.
iMac: Got 30 fps on the stream with a decent recording for picture and sound saved to the HD.
MacBook Air: Started 30 fps on the stream and it quickly dwindled to 15-20 fps and eventually ended up near 10 fps and the recording was sputtering with video and sound.
