Question / Help Need PC Advice

[Lajukes]

Hey everyone :)

I recently started streaming on twitch, with a single PC setup. My stream quality isn't bad at all at 720p, but some games really lower my FPS, and also I want to stream at 1080p if possible. After looking around I found out about Palakis' NDI plugin for OBS, so I dug out my old PC in an attempt to dual PC stream, but unfortunately my CPU isn't supported for NDI.. My question is: would I get more benefit from adding a capture card to my second PC, or just upgrading my processor to run NDI? Or is my 2nd PC just bad all around for streaming lol..

These are my specs:

Gaming PC
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Lajukes/saved/4VhNNG

Streaming PC

CPU: AMD - Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus - M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 ATX AM3 Motherboard
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card
8GB RAM


Thanks in advance :)

 

[krillep]

The CPU in your streaming PC really drags it down. If you can afford it, I'd say go for an upgrade to the CPU, but this would also require an upgrade to the motherboard, as you'd either need a Ryzen cpu that uses AM4, or swap over to an Intel motherboard.

You could try streaming with Nvenc at 900p 60 fps with 5-6000 bitrate. Nvenc is a lot better after they don't really limit people anymore.

 

[Lajukes]

Yeah I kinda figured my CPU was going to be my biggest issue. I'll give Nvench a shot, I always just use x264 as I've read it's better for streaming and Nvench was better for recording. Thanks

 

[krillep]

Yeah I kinda figured my CPU was going to be my biggest issue. I'll give Nvench a shot, I always just use x264 as I've read it's better for streaming and Nvench was better for recording. Thanks

x264 is definitely a lot better still, but it gives a big performance hit, while nvenc gives none, at the cost of quality. But due to Twitch not limiting bitrate for non-partners anymore, everyone can use higher bitrate now, upping that quality :)

 

[Lajukes]

Man you saved me some money, at least for now lol. Ran some test streams at 900p and it was very nice, gave 1080 a go cause why not? It was good but it stutters just a bit, more than I'd like so 900p was a good call. Add a little sharpen filter to the game capture source and it's good to go. Also I was quite surprised to have little to no affect on game performance, almost as if I wasn't even streaming. Thanks a bunch :)