MacBook Pro M3 Ultra Live Streaming

[CheeseFries]

Hey All, new here. I always get help reading your posts, thank you very much. I finally registered today as I wanted to share my experience with the MacBook in the subject line.
I've been running 3 separate live streams 24/7(backyard animals and birds, etc) to Youtube on a a MacBook Pro M1. 2 Streams at 4K and 1 Stream at 2K. Unable to run all 3 in 4K as I get an instant encoder overload error unless I turn down bitrate super low, which defeats the purpose of running 4K. I've tried every setting, every which way. Anyway, I decided to step up my game and got the new M3 Ultra 14" MacBook Pro. Specs below:
14.2 Inch MacBook Pro M3 Ultra
16 Core CPU
40 Core GPU
64GB Memory
1TB SSD
Total to my door $4300 and change.

It will NOT run 3 4K live streams at the same time. Absolutely was tearing up the CPU and within 10 minutes or so, encoder overloads on all three streams. I tried every setting combo possible, and again, I can get them to run at a low bitrate, but thats not ideal for the viewer.
So I ended up running 2 4K streams on the M3 and 1 4K stream in the M1.
Am I asking too much of these MacBooks?

So I ran that for a week and I was unhappy that I spent all this money on a new MacBook and I can't do what I need to do. So against my better judgement, I ordered an Alienware Gaming PC:
Model: R16
CPU: Intel 14900KF
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 16GB
RAM: 64GB
1 TB SSD
Total to my door: $3100 and change.


Within 2 hours of receiving it, I had all 3 Streams configured and running in 4K at 20000 bitrate.
They are running absolutely flawlessly! 4 days now, not even a tiny glitch. CPU Utilization from 3 instances of OBS is under 1%. GPU is 43%. So not only can I run these 3 streams, but there's room for 2-3 more.

I have put in for a return of the new MacBook, its packed up and ready go back. But before it does, I just figured I'd ask you all here if that's the case. Am I asking too much of these MacBooks? I don't want a Windows PC, I made the switch to MAC in 2006 and never looked back. I did order another MacBook M3 Pro for every day use, Final Cut, etc when I put in for the return, at a $1700 savings. I can't justify keeping the Ultra for some light Final Cut use here and there.
I do understand MacBooks are made for efficiency and this gaming computer is the opposite, but why can't the MacBook handle it? Has excellent benchmarks across the board.

So that's my story, my hope is that someone here may know something I could do to make that work the way I'd like and I can keep the M3 Ultra and send the pc back to Dell. Thank you in advance for any and all help.

Scott

 

[moogotgame]

Hey Scott, I am new to streaming and am finding from these forums that the OBS software for Mac seems to need a lot of work. If a developer wanted to make the efficiencies I'm sure they could.

I'd love to see fewer and super stable releases for Mac, maybe 1 per major release. I have a complex PC gaming to M1 Mac streaming machine setup going and the Mac M1 Max should easily handle 1 1080 stream and Recording, but it does not. I am having inconsistent audio problems that don't show up in other software on the Mac.

I am hoping the community can come together and support Mac(s), especially the newer powerful ones that I'm sure would be used for streaming by millions if it were optimized in OBS.

I will patiently wait until then! :)

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

The M series CPU are typical Apple approach - great within walled garden, not so much when you want to do, what you want to do...
The M-series CPUs are high-performance WITHIN a highly constrained power budget. That does NOT make them performance CPUs.
The benchmarks are selective... there are plenty of benchmarks that show the real limitations of the M-series CPUs. And an Intel 14900KF is top-end consumer CPU, way above any M-series CPU, by a LOT. they really aren't all that comparable for demanding workloads. apples and oranges. Apple's issue is that they don't have a performant/current CPU offering at the moment, despite any fanboy protestations to the contrary. The M-series CPUs are great for many uses cases, but NOT for streaming that many 4K streams simultaneously from 1 computer.
And MacOS is transitioning from Intel CPUs to in-house... which has a HUGE impact on s/w developers, especially 3rd party free, open-source s/w projects supporting multiple Operating Systems. And these are early (bleeding edge) CPUs, with significant changes likely to come quickly, meaning using limited volunteer time on a moving target is not always the best use of resources. just something to be aware of. I'm sure of the community contributed hundred of thousands of US$, that could make a difference to the OBS Studio project on M-series CPUs. In the mean time, don't blame developers

Could you optimize the Operating System and OBS... maybe, and NOT my area of expertise on M-series Mac, but 3x 4K streams on that M CPU is definitely pushing boundaries... and no surprise it didn't work.. so yea, asking WAY too much of such a power and thermally constrained system, with an encoder not heaving reason to be designed for that many separate 4K encoder streams. a M-series integrated CPU/GPU is not even close to the capability of even a 2 generation old mid/upper tier GPU

If you want to stay on MacOS, an earlier Intel CPU model with an appropriate GPU might suffice?? The issue is that Apple tended to use AMD GPUs, whose H.264 encoding SDK was crap. I'm not sure if Apple wrote their own, to overcome AMD s/w limitations, or if the issue is AMD firmware... AMD consciously chose to focus on H.265, which got mired in a licensing mess (so bad bet on AMD's part). The future will be AV1, but hardware encoding of AV1 takes latest gen GPUs, and not sure about compatibility of latest GPU on older Apple Intel motherboard

 

[CheeseFries]

Hey Scott, I am new to streaming and am finding from these forums that the OBS software for Mac seems to need a lot of work. If a developer wanted to make the efficiencies I'm sure they could.

I'd love to see fewer and super stable releases for Mac, maybe 1 per major release. I have a complex PC gaming to M1 Mac streaming machine setup going and the Mac M1 Max should easily handle 1 1080 stream and Recording, but it does not. I am having inconsistent audio problems that don't show up in other software on the Mac.

I am hoping the community can come together and support Mac(s), especially the newer powerful ones that I'm sure would be used for streaming by millions if it were optimized in OBS.

I will patiently wait until then! :)

Hey Moo,
Well, for the audio, make sure you have every other audio source disabled. Make sure that audio for that stream is only g

Hey Scott, I am new to streaming and am finding from these forums that the OBS software for Mac seems to need a lot of work. If a developer wanted to make the efficiencies I'm sure they could.

I'd love to see fewer and super stable releases for Mac, maybe 1 per major release. I have a complex PC gaming to M1 Mac streaming machine setup going and the Mac M1 Max should easily handle 1 1080 stream and Recording, but it does not. I am having inconsistent audio problems that don't show up in other software on the Mac.

I am hoping the community can come together and support Mac(s), especially the newer powerful ones that I'm sure would be used for streaming by millions if it were optimized in OBS.

I will patiently wait until then! :)

Hey Moo,
You should be able to stream with that MacBook without issue. I had 2 - 4K streams going on just an M1 with 16GB Ram. They ran nice. I could run up to 4 - 2K streams. So you should easily be able to do 1 - 1080 stream from that machine.
As for the audio, make sure you only have the one source enabled, such as the camera audio. Disable every other audio source in OBS Settings. Can also change frequency from 48 to 44. I used to stream 1080 at 6000-8000kbps, so try that for a bitrate and tweak until you like it. Another issue I have found is that if I have a stream running in OBS and I also have the camera software open to the same camera feed, it will cause the stream to "crackle" and doesn't go away unless I reset stream. It's almost as if the camera can't handle sending the audio to 2 different places....ie: OBS and the Cam Software.
As for video issues, make sure you have B Frames off. Try using Hardware Encoder if not already. Try checking the box in source properties for that cam "Use Hardware Acceleration When Possible". Your camera resolution should match OBS. In other words, your cam should be set to 1080p, and OBS should be set to 1080p in the video settings. If you don't match cam resolution in OBS, you are upscaling or downscaling and taxing the processor for no apparent reason. These are just some things I can remember that helped me when trying to get them going. Must also make sure your internet upload speed can handle the bandwidth you're trying to use.
Search around these forums, watch Youtube videos, there's a ton of help out there.
Oh, and do not stream wireless. It's is unreliable and you will hate your livestreams. Everything you use from camera back to the streaming computer and out to the internet should be hardwired.

 

[CheeseFries]

Hi Lawrence and thanks for that lengthy reply. I agree with everything you said. After posting here I did some more research and basically determined that the PC would be better for what I am trying to do. As for Macs, I just enjoy them because they work. Years and years of nothing but a pleasure to use and really no memorable issues that I can recall. With that said, here sits the Windows 11 Pro machine running 3 - 4K streams like its writing a letter in Notepad. Truly blows me away how smooth it's been thus far.
I returned that MacBook.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Right tool for the job.
glad you found a setup that works for you. each Operating System has its own quirks / Pro's & Con's... and then the various levels of hardware...etc.

 

[moogotgame]

Thank you for the detailed response. I have previously gone through all the recommendations you mentioned. (Learning from this forum and YouTube). My issue is that my cpu is reaching 291% with just 1 stream. I do need to have my cam software open for it to work unfortunately and I’m thinking that is what’s causing the issue. I also need to record the stream and I’m frustrated that all my resources are being Raheem by the 1080p 60fps stream at 6000 bitrate. I am using the apple hardware encoder as well.

Maybe apple has a bug and the cpu isn’t actually near 100% even though it says 291%. The GPU is roughly 35-40%.

I am linking audio with a rodecaster duo making this a rather complex stream setup. I just want something that works until I can. Afford a dual pc setup that I know will work well with OBS.

With saying that I’m hoping apple makes it easier for developers to take advantage of their new chips. A guy can hope!

Hey Moo,
Well, for the audio, make sure you have every other audio source disabled. Make sure that audio for that stream is only g

Hey Moo,
You should be able to stream with that MacBook without issue. I had 2 - 4K streams going on just an M1 with 16GB Ram. They ran nice. I could run up to 4 - 2K streams. So you should easily be able to do 1 - 1080 stream from that machine.
As for the audio, make sure you only have the one source enabled, such as the camera audio. Disable every other audio source in OBS Settings. Can also change frequency from 48 to 44. I used to stream 1080 at 6000-8000kbps, so try that for a bitrate and tweak until you like it. Another issue I have found is that if I have a stream running in OBS and I also have the camera software open to the same camera feed, it will cause the stream to "crackle" and doesn't go away unless I reset stream. It's almost as if the camera can't handle sending the audio to 2 different places....ie: OBS and the Cam Software.
As for video issues, make sure you have B Frames off. Try using Hardware Encoder if not already. Try checking the box in source properties for that cam "Use Hardware Acceleration When Possible". Your camera resolution should match OBS. In other words, your cam should be set to 1080p, and OBS should be set to 1080p in the video settings. If you don't match cam resolution in OBS, you are upscaling or downscaling and taxing the processor for no apparent reason. These are just some things I can remember that helped me when trying to get them going. Must also make sure your internet upload speed can handle the bandwidth you're trying to use.
Search around these forums, watch Youtube videos, there's a ton of help out there.
Oh, and do not stream wireless. It's is unreliable and you will hate your livestreams. Everything you use from camera back to the streaming computer and out to the internet should be hardwired.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

My issue is that my cpu is reaching 291% with just 1 stream.
---
Maybe apple has a bug and the cpu isn’t actually near 100% even though it says 291%. The GPU is roughly 35-40%.

Stupid Apple... not a bug a 'design feature'... I'll let you look into the history of that measurement (I suspect it goes back to single core CPU system, and never updated). just idiotic on Apple's part to intentionally leave reporting that way (for the More WiFi's, Faster GBs crowd)

Anyway /rant over

Of course a CPU can not exceed 100%, by definition (any other definition like the one Apple uses is misleading/pointless).
With that said, getting technical, what exactly is 100% can be changed, even for a given CPU (ie better cooling so CPU can run faster, etc)
So, yea, your system is busy .. your homework .. figure out how to convert that 291% into a meaningful value in regards to overall CPU capacity

Then, realizing you have a performance limited system, your next task is to learn about optimizing both the Operating System, and OBS. This starts with NOT having running applications/processes (ie in the background) that don't need to be.

 

[mr_roboto]

Stupid Apple... not a bug a 'design feature'... I'll let you look into the history of that measurement (I suspect it goes back to single core CPU system, and never updated). just idiotic on Apple's part to intentionally leave reporting that way (for the More WiFi's, Faster GBs crowd)

Anyway /rant over

Of course a CPU can not exceed 100%, by definition (any other definition like the one Apple uses is misleading/pointless).

This is just how Apple's Activity Monitor app tells you when a program is using more than 1 CPU core. In their accounting system, 100% is the same as all the resources of a single CPU core, so 291% simply means you're using about 2.91 cores worth of CPU cycles on that process.

It's not pointless, it's just different from what you're used to. But based on your posts about Apple products in this thread, you have a very irrationally hostile reaction to computers which are even a little bit different from what you're used to. You really should try to expand your horizons, otherwise you're going to provide the kind of awful "advice" (really more like clueless ranting) you've given in this thread.

One particularly harmful bit of that was when you claimed the OP should get an old Intel Mac if they wanted to stay on the Mac. Even if it were the CPU at fault (it's not), any Intel Mac would be a massive downgrade in CPU and GPU performance.

But more importantly, CPU and GPU don't really matter here. Streaming is about hardware video encoders, and proper software support for them (both driver and application level). That's where things could turn disastrous with an Intel Mac - I found this discussion which suggests that Apple never got around to making it possible to do hardware accelerated CBR encode on Intel Macs, but did do so for Apple Silicon Macs. CBR is important because many streaming platforms expect that rather than VBR (variable bitrate).

VideoToolbox h.264 Encoder: CBR Po… | Apple Developer Forums

developer.apple.com

@CheeseFries , I think your problem is simple. According to Apple's spec pages, M1/M2/M3 and M1/M2/M3 Pro chips have one video encode engine, while M1/M2/M3 Max chips have two. I believe this means they're limited to two simultaneous 4K hardware accelerated streams. That's why your first two 4K streams run great but your third can't run at 4K - it's falling back to software video encoding, and realtime 4K60 encoding in software is not the easiest thing in the world for any CPU.

The Nvidia GPU in your gaming PC seems to support three simultaneous accelerated encode streams, and is thus able to handle the job with essentially no CPU load.

But if I were you, and if it's still possible, I'd actually return that gaming PC. Unless you plan to do other things with it, it's massively overspecced and you can almost certainly save a lot of money. CPU, RAM, and SSD don't matter, the only thing which does is how many video streams the GPU can encode in hardware. Nvidia may do some market segmentation such that their low end consumer cards support fewer simultaneous streams, but I'd bet you can probably get three streams on a card cheaper than the 4080.

If you want to go back to doing this with Macs, and you are fine dedicating whole computers to it, I'd just buy a stack of base model M2 Mac Minis. I'd start with a single one to experiment with, then get either one or two more depending on whether each Mini can handle one or two 4K streams. If you buy from the Apple refurbished store, they're $509 each with a full 1yr warranty, same as new. You don't have to buy a separate monitor and keyboard for each Mini, you can just remote into them from your main Mac through Screen Sharing.

 

[CheeseFries]

Thank you for the detailed response. I have previously gone through all the recommendations you mentioned. (Learning from this forum and YouTube). My issue is that my cpu is reaching 291% with just 1 stream. I do need to have my cam software open for it to work unfortunately and I’m thinking that is what’s causing the issue. I also need to record the stream and I’m frustrated that all my resources are being Raheem by the 1080p 60fps stream at 6000 bitrate. I am using the apple hardware encoder as well.

Maybe apple has a bug and the cpu isn’t actually near 100% even though it says 291%. The GPU is roughly 35-40%.

I am linking audio with a rodecaster duo making this a rather complex stream setup. I just want something that works until I can. Afford a dual pc setup that I know will work well with OBS.

With saying that I’m hoping apple makes it easier for developers to take advantage of their new chips. A guy can hope!

Look at stats in OBS for actual CPU% usage. You can see it at the bottom of OBS window or View>Stats. That is also where you will find encoder overload issues if that's a an issue as well and dropped frames via network or encoder. I'm not familiar with Rodecaster.

 

[CheeseFries]

This is just how Apple's Activity Monitor app tells you when a program is using more than 1 CPU core. In their accounting system, 100% is the same as all the resources of a single CPU core, so 291% simply means you're using about 2.91 cores worth of CPU cycles on that process.

It's not pointless, it's just different from what you're used to. But based on your posts about Apple products in this thread, you have a very irrationally hostile reaction to computers which are even a little bit different from what you're used to. You really should try to expand your horizons, otherwise you're going to provide the kind of awful "advice" (really more like clueless ranting) you've given in this thread.

One particularly harmful bit of that was when you claimed the OP should get an old Intel Mac if they wanted to stay on the Mac. Even if it were the CPU at fault (it's not), any Intel Mac would be a massive downgrade in CPU and GPU performance.

But more importantly, CPU and GPU don't really matter here. Streaming is about hardware video encoders, and proper software support for them (both driver and application level). That's where things could turn disastrous with an Intel Mac - I found this discussion which suggests that Apple never got around to making it possible to do hardware accelerated CBR encode on Intel Macs, but did do so for Apple Silicon Macs. CBR is important because many streaming platforms expect that rather than VBR (variable bitrate).

VideoToolbox h.264 Encoder: CBR Po… | Apple Developer Forums

developer.apple.com

@CheeseFries , I think your problem is simple. According to Apple's spec pages, M1/M2/M3 and M1/M2/M3 Pro chips have one video encode engine, while M1/M2/M3 Max chips have two. I believe this means they're limited to two simultaneous 4K hardware accelerated streams. That's why your first two 4K streams run great but your third can't run at 4K - it's falling back to software video encoding, and realtime 4K60 encoding in software is not the easiest thing in the world for any CPU.

The Nvidia GPU in your gaming PC seems to support three simultaneous accelerated encode streams, and is thus able to handle the job with essentially no CPU load.

But if I were you, and if it's still possible, I'd actually return that gaming PC. Unless you plan to do other things with it, it's massively overspecced and you can almost certainly save a lot of money. CPU, RAM, and SSD don't matter, the only thing which does is how many video streams the GPU can encode in hardware. Nvidia may do some market segmentation such that their low end consumer cards support fewer simultaneous streams, but I'd bet you can probably get three streams on a card cheaper than the 4080.

If you want to go back to doing this with Macs, and you are fine dedicating whole computers to it, I'd just buy a stack of base model M2 Mac Minis. I'd start with a single one to experiment with, then get either one or two more depending on whether each Mini can handle one or two 4K streams. If you buy from the Apple refurbished store, they're $509 each with a full 1yr warranty, same as new. You don't have to buy a separate monitor and keyboard for each Mini, you can just remote into them from your main Mac through Screen Sharing.

Hey Mr Robotic, thank you for replying here. I appreciate everyone's input and I can never learn enough from you guys.
Yes, I am well aware the pc is way over-specced for what I need it for, but I have 2 main reasons for purchasing such a beast:
1. I wanted to be absolutely be sure I could stream these 3 cams at 4K@30FPS (not 60FPS) with no issues.
2. I plan to add more streams in the near future.
I will push this PC to its limit and see what it can handle, I will get my money's worth out of it. I'm glad to be saving about $1000 compared to the MacBook I returned.
I'm very happy with how it is currently running, not perfect as nothing is, but I am happy nonetheless.
As for the Mac Mini idea, I did give that some consideration when looking to upgrade this stuff, but I would rather not have multiple machines that require maintenance, updates, and so on. The more tech you have, the more likely it is something will go down or cause a problem.
I have set up the streams at 1440p on an extra M2 Pro MacBook I have as a backup if the Windows PC has any issues or goes down, which I expect it will at some point....after all, it IS Windows lol.
I have purchased quite a few machines from Apple Refurb Store, they have been perfect!
Using Anydesk for remote management.
If, moving forward, I need to add a machine for another stream or 2, I will surely consider the Mac Mini. I've had them in the past for other uses, always ran well.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

It's not pointless, it's just different from what you're used to.

As a matter of user interface, Apple's approach is wrong/confusing, mis-worded, etc.
I know it is % of core... but by not indicating something else, it is wrong by definition.
Notice OPs comment. I rest my case.

But based on your posts about Apple products in this thread, you have a very irrationally hostile reaction to computers which are even a little bit different from what you're used to. You really should try to expand your horizons, otherwise you're going to provide the kind of awful "advice" (really more like clueless ranting) you've given in this thread.

I've been around long enough to be annoyed by most vendors for some foolishness. I have a low (near non-existent) tolerance for fools.
And some of what Apple does is isn't acceptable to me. Same as there are things Microsoft does that aren't acceptable. And I'll call them out when appropriate.
Is Apple's walled garden appropriate for some? yes. absolutely. Do my compute uses case fit within that paradigm? no. Do clueless fanboys annoy me? yup.
So not irrational. My hostility towards Apple on the CPU metric is for an old and well-known idiocy. and that's it. I'm annoyed, not hostile.

I am hostile towards fanboys who mis-represent the actual relative performance capabilities of a product (the M Series CPUs in this case).

When you get to the point of having as many decades of Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Security experience as I do, I'll consider your input in regards to compute architectures and components. The issue is Apple advertised the CPU as advanced, and others take that as absolute performance... which it isn't. So not clueless. just using words appropriately/accurately.

One particularly harmful bit of that was when you claimed the OP should get an old Intel Mac if they wanted to stay on the Mac. Even if it were the CPU at fault (it's not), any Intel Mac would be a massive downgrade in CPU and GPU performance.

you are mis-representing what I wrote. I said 'might suffice?' 'I'm not sure' in regards to MacOS and older performant platforms.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Using Anydesk for remote management.

Just something to be aware of in the Windows OS realm... using RDP changes the graphic interface a session uses, and that has implications (problems) for OBS Studio and its requirements for hardware support. I don't recall the protocol/technique AnyDesk uses, so mentioning just in case you run across unexpected oddities. There are old discussions in the Windows forum on RDP implications, work-arounds, etc.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Look at stats in OBS for actual CPU% usage. You can see it at the bottom of OBS window or View>Stats. That is also where you will find encoder overload issues if that's a an issue as well and dropped frames via network or encoder. I'm not familiar with Rodecaster.

Having not used OBS Studio on a Mac, I can't say with certainty, but on Windows OS, the OBS Studio Stats window reports CPU usage for the OBS Studio process itself.. NOT overall system CPU utilization, which tends to be the MUCH more important metric to keep track of, assuming a typical other CPU demand workloads are variable (which most are). For an explanation... if OBS Studio CPU usage goes from 1-3% to 30%, is that a problem? it depends... if overall CPU utilization (of total capacity, not core) before the change in OBS Studio CPU load was near 70%, then of course that would be a problem. But if overall system CPU utilization was 20%, and you increased that by 30%? not a problem, assuming thermal throttling or similar don't come into play.

So I leave the Stats window open when I use OBS Studio, but I do ignore the CPU value.

 

[CheeseFries]

Having not used OBS Studio on a Mac, I can't say with certainty, but on Windows OS, the OBS Studio Stats window reports CPU usage for the OBS Studio process itself.. NOT overall system CPU utilization, which tends to be the MUCH more important metric to keep track of, assuming a typical other CPU demand workloads are variable (which most are). For an explanation... if OBS Studio CPU usage goes from 1-3% to 30%, is that a problem? it depends... if overall CPU utilization (of total capacity, not core) before the change in OBS Studio CPU load was near 70%, then of course that would be a problem. But if overall system CPU utilization was 20%, and you increased that by 30%? not a problem, assuming thermal throttling or similar don't come into play.

So I leave the Stats window open when I use OBS Studio, but I do ignore the CPU value.

I understand. In my experience (on MACs), I've watched the CPU usage in OBS as that was really all that was running on the machine anyway. Anytime it creeped over 10%, I'd lose frames due to encoding lag. When it got over 20%, encoder overload error was imminent before reaching 30%. So watching that, allowed me to tweak settings within OBS to get it all running smooth.
Now, in windows it's totally useless for sure, it's all on the GPU so I watch the GPU usage stats in the task manager. My CPU usage displayed in OBS for each stream is 0.01%. My overall CPU usage as displayed in the Task Manager is 5% or so. GPU is high 30s to low 40s. It's been running buttery so far.

 

[CheeseFries]

Just something to be aware of in the Windows OS realm... using RDP changes the graphic interface a session uses, and that has implications (problems) for OBS Studio and its requirements for hardware support. I don't recall the protocol/technique AnyDesk uses, so mentioning just in case you run across unexpected oddities. There are old discussions in the Windows forum on RDP implications, work-arounds, etc.

Yes, I've had a few weird issues with Anydesk affecting the output of the streams, mainly the display. I also have to use a "dummy" monitor to remotely connect as I leave the display off and the pc will not send an image back to Anydesk if the display is turned off. That one really threw me for a loop. But, with a little HDMI adapter plugged in a different port, it works great now.

 

[AJ CoRe TV]

I have a late 21’ M1Pro chip based MacBook. Using new Elgato 4k60 capture card, with OBS I can’t use any of the encoder options to properly encode 4k 60 stream.. like just 1 stream, encoder overload!! Damn…was thinking of getting a Mac Studio M3 Ultra….. but after reading this.., maybe building a PC with Intel Arc AV1 encoder?

 

[MacStream]

Scott, thanks for this great post. I know it is a few months dated but I'm facing the same decisions.

I'm a Mac guy, both by way of an ancient love affair dating back to the first 128K Mac and because of very bad eyesight. Nobody beats Apple when it comes to tools for the sight impaired; I can't get along without it.

My Intel Macbook Pro is giving up the ghost. I'm looking at the M2 max. I don't do three simultaneous streams or anything close, but I'm trying to be sure I'm not making an expensive mistake over and M1 or m2. I tend to get the highest-end configuration I can, in the hopes of getting an extra year or two life span.

Did you end up returning the Mac? If not, did you end up getting satisfactory performance at any point?

Kenton