Question / Help NDI Is working, but still laggy with latest update

ktfright

ktfright

Member
Okay, I have 2 computers,
1) a 2012 Macbook Air with an i5, and
2) a custom gaming PC with a G4560 CPU and an Nvidia GTX 1050.

I want to capture my Macbook Air's display with the gaming PC to record Logic Pro X, as my last capture card crapped out on me. This is for local recording, as I don't have cable internet installed to make streaming worthwhile for me yet. I read a bit about NDI, and so far, I have it working, albeit with a 2-5 second lag and single digit frame rates from the NDI source on the gaming PC(OBS is open on both the Mac and PC, but so far I've only been recording on the PC). Also, in the gaming PC's OBS, the webcam and everything in the scene works fine, except for the NDI source, though the sound is fine.

I have a few questions.

- Using NDI, would I need to Have OBS open on both computers for NDI to properly work?

- I'm currently on WiFi due to my computers being really far away from an ethernet cord, but what is the minimum speed for NDI to work properly with minimal lag from it's source?

If all else fails, I'll just get another capture card, and I'll have cable internet installed early this week.

Macbook log: https://gist.github.com/0b642bd8c3bb43b0fb1db9b244ec62dd

PC log: https://gist.github.com/3e45a84d0dc28dc99ec0dcd6fb41a3c5
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
- Using NDI, would I need to Have OBS open on both computers for NDI to properly work?
Click to expand...
YEs

- I'm currently on WiFi due to my computers being really far away from an ethernet cord, but what is the minimum speed for NDI to work properly with minimal lag from it's source?
Click to expand...
150mbit. Connect via gigabit wired.
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
NDI needs computer to computer speed in the 150-200mbit range.

And I strongly recommend AGAINST getting elgato.
 
ktfright

ktfright

Member
Harold said:
NDI needs computer to computer speed in the 150-200mbit range.

And I strongly recommend AGAINST getting elgato.
Click to expand...
Thats good to know, cause I literally had an elgato hd60 in my cart on Amazon haha.

I used to have a Live Gamer Portable from Avermedia, but what would you suggest? My PC is MicroATX, but the gpu is blocking a PCIe slot, and my other slot is already using a WiFi adapter. I may need to get an external one again.
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
Generally, we recommend blackmagic design intensity or decklink, or the startech cards.

But seriously, get wired.
 
APerfidiousDane

APerfidiousDane

New Member
There's always Powerline adapters if you want "wired" but most networking enthusiasts recommend you stay far away from them. (but they work for me with NDI)
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
Just one thing... if you're just in it for recording, why do you need NDI at all? Just record with the gaming PC on minimal settings and high bitrate. You're only need a capture card or NDI if you plan on streaming it.
 
ktfright

ktfright

Member
Boildown said:
Just one thing... if you're just in it for recording, why do you need NDI at all? Just record with the gaming PC on minimal settings and high bitrate. You're only need a capture card or NDI if you plan on streaming it.
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Honestly, I don't really need NDI, I just didn't feel like buying a capture card again unless I really needed to, and I'm totally fine with something with at least 720p/30fps that will let me capture my Mac's Screen and output it to my stronger gaming PC. The gaming PC captures fine using OBS with NVENC on it's own, but my main goal is to capture Logic Pro X and it's sound from the Macbook air, and output it to Obs on the gaming PC. I eventually do plan to stream when my internet is set up later on.

Mybad if it sounds like I'm repeating stuff hehe
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
ktfright said:
Honestly, I don't really need NDI, I just didn't feel like buying a capture card again unless I really needed to, and I'm totally fine with something with at least 720p/30fps that will let me capture my Mac's Screen and output it to my stronger gaming PC. The gaming PC captures fine using OBS with NVENC on it's own, but my main goal is to capture Logic Pro X and it's sound from the Macbook air, and output it to Obs on the gaming PC. I eventually do plan to stream when my internet is set up later on.
Click to expand...

I'm not super-familiar with OBS's NDI solution, but I think it captures the game with OBS on the gaming PC in a very non-CPU-intensive way, then passes it on (via NDI instead of RTMP) to a streaming PC for better encoding.

The thing is, if your gaming PC can capture it at all, you can just crank bitrate and record it instead of passing it to a streaming PC. So you only need to get this working for streaming at a later date, for recording you should already be fine.

This means its not an OBS issue, and its probably a networking issue. You using wifi leads credence to this conclusion imo.

What I don't understand is how you can use a video cable for a video capture card but not a network cable. If you can use a capture card, a network cable instead would be even easier than that.
 
ktfright

ktfright

Member
Boildown said:
I'm not super-familiar with OBS's NDI solution, but I think it captures the game with OBS on the gaming PC in a very non-CPU-intensive way, then passes it on (via NDI instead of RTMP) to a streaming PC for better encoding.

The thing is, if your gaming PC can capture it at all, you can just crank bitrate and record it instead of passing it to a streaming PC. So you only need to get this working for streaming at a later date, for recording you should already be fine.

This means its not an OBS issue, and its probably a networking issue. You using wifi leads credence to this conclusion imo.

What I don't understand is how you can use a video cable for a video capture card but not a network cable. If you can use a capture card, a network cable instead would be even easier than that.
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Huh, you know, I never thought to even try that, but I had my new Time Warner Spectrum internet installed this morning, and I'm getting around 20-50 Mbps so far. So even using a network cable, I'm predicting that NDI is becoming less likely right now since it wont be fast enough.
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
ktfright said:
I had my new Time Warner Spectrum internet installed this morning, and I'm getting around 20-50 Mbps so far. So even using a network cable, I'm predicting that NDI is becoming less likely right now since it wont be fast enough.
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You've been sending NDI to a remote computer via the internet? Not just somewhere else on your local lan?
 
Harold

Harold

Active Member
Wifi doesn't have the bandwidth to keep up most of the time, you need easily 100+Mbit STABLE to be able to use ndi properly, and closer to 150mbit for 1080p
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
These two seem to be in conflict with each other:
ktfright said:
I had my new Time Warner Spectrum internet installed this morning, and I'm getting around 20-50 Mbps so far. So even using a network cable, I'm predicting that NDI is becoming less likely right now since it wont be fast enough.
Click to expand...
vs.
ktfright said:
Nah, I was sending NDI only from Mac laptop to my PC, in the same room, though using Wifi on my network.
Click to expand...


Instead, connect a network cable between your laptop and your PC and IP address it such that they are each other's default gateway. Or follow this guide: http://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers . Time Warner Spectrum doesn't even enter the picture.
 
ktfright

ktfright

Member
Boildown said:
These two seem to be in conflict with each other:

vs.



Instead, connect a network cable between your laptop and your PC and IP address it such that they are each other's default gateway. Or follow this guide: http://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers . Time Warner Spectrum doesn't even enter the picture.
Click to expand...

You're totally correct, that's a brain fart on my part. One thing I just realized however is that it looks like NDI isn't going to work unless I have a ton of adapters, so I'm off that for now. My mobo (B250m PRO-VD) only has one ethernet port (Which is now already being used), and my macbook air has none.The good thing is now this frees up my PCIe slot, so I don't need my wireless adapter anymore.

I'm still sort of confused on something. Currently, the Macbook Air has thunderbolt, and I also have a mini-displayport to HDMI adapter. Since NDI isn't feasible for me at the moment, I have two questions:

1) Since I have a free PCIe slot to use now, is it worth it getting an internal capture card to output the macbook to my PC, or an external 3.0 card? As it stands, when I stream/record games on just my gaming PC, I always used my GPU to do the encoding as a single PC setup Via NVENC, so I understand I don't need a capture card for that. However, when I want to stream/record my MBA, I basically want to use my "gaming PC" as my "Streaming PC", while my MBA as my "gaming PC", but for music production. Logic Pro X is somewhat CPU heavy, and I want the MBA to completely focus on that while the encoding is handled by my PC

2) No matter the capture card (PCIe/USB 3.0), when using them as a source, can I use hardware encoding in OBS as I already did before?

I think I may have missed something here haha, but I'm happy to clarify even more.
 
Boildown

Boildown

Active Member
Which computer has the PCIe slot?

Your Macbook Air doesn't even have a physical network jack?

You're not outputting with a video capture card, you output with the same signal that goes to a monitor, except you're connect a video capture card to it instead. The video capture card gets an input, the HDMI/Thunderbolt/whatever is your output. If your Macbook Air doesn't have a PCIe slot, then you can't put a video capture card in it. You'd have to get a USB capture "card" if you want to be able to use it on either computer. And USB is about the worst solution there is, although if you can do USB 3.0, somewhat less bad.
 
ktfright

ktfright

Member
Boildown said:
Which computer has the PCIe slot?

Your Macbook Air doesn't even have a physical network jack?

You're not outputting with a video capture card, you output with the same signal that goes to a monitor, except you're connect a video capture card to it instead. The video capture card gets an input, the HDMI/Thunderbolt/whatever is your output. If your Macbook Air doesn't have a PCIe slot, then you can't put a video capture card in it. You'd have to get a USB capture "card" if you want to be able to use it on either computer. And USB is about the worst solution there is, although if you can do USB 3.0, somewhat less bad.
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The PC with the GTX 1050 has the PCIe slot. I want to see if it's possible to put a card in the PC instead of the Macbook. This model Macbook Air (mid 2012) only has one Thunderbolt and 2 usb 3.0 ports, I think Apple were phasing network jacks out around this time.

Thanks for better helping me understand that process, and the PC has a few USB 3.0 ports I can use if that's my only option.
 
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