Optimal specs for a dedicated OBS PC ONLY for encoding?

[MartinKing]

Hi,

since OBS loves to be randomly unstable and crashing my stream (or system) when also gaming on the same system while streaming - and I'm simply fed with this - I wanted to set up a dual PC solution, means: Gaming PC -> Capture Card -> Dedicated Streaming PC. The dedicated streaming PC has to handle the signal
- from the capture card,
- mic,
- Discord (audio/video),

and to put it out at 1080p/30fps at min 6 MBit/s.

I was thinking about buying a Mini PC, but because I tried something else in the past - using an old PC and encode everything via CPU - that was a total failure, I'm a little bit skeptical and more in favor of a cheap desktop with a GPU. But what are the recommend specs to not buy something I actually won't need?

 

[Deffcon01]

I've been contemplating the same thing with the mini pc. I've done some research and watched some videos and it seems to be a viable option. The videos I watched didn't even use high end mini pc's. I think the biggest thing is getting one with quality built parts, not necessarily high end but just quality. I'm looking at ones that are around $200 and they seem to be in line with what the testers used.

 

[qhobbes]

My 2012 iMac is fully capable of recording 4K 25 FPS from a capture device without issues. I would hope any PC that meets Windows 11 requirements can encode 1080p 30FPS H264 at real time.

I have 0 experience with Discord but what exactly are you doing with it? Sending live video, receiving live video, capturing the Discord window, etc?

Do you want to future proof it or just 1080p 30FPS H264?

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

since OBS loves to be randomly unstable and crashing my stream (or system) when also gaming on the same system while streaming - and I'm simply fed with this

Depends on which settings you are using. Though most frequently, instability and crashes are often NOT the fault of OBS Studio, but triggered by how it is using your computer. And there are some really piss-poor 3rd party plugins for OBS Studio that are known to cause all kinds of trouble. Are there some bugs in OBS Studio? I'm sure.
Over the last 4 years, the VAST majority of the 'problems' I've seen in these forums tend to be
- bad or misconfigured plugins
- video drivers,
- BIOS,
- unrealistic and/or inappropriate OBS Studio and OS/Display hardware settings
- Operating System hygiene (most games are atrocious from a code quality/maturity perspective),
- etc

Often, I've seen when a user troubleshoots by running OBS Studio in portable mode with NO plugins, on a computer of adequate capability, uses the OBS Studio auto-configured settings ensuring appropriate for their system, and uses appropriate OBS Studio Settings, then makes sure Operating System is clean and properly set up for demanding workloads, Recordings/Streaming often work fine (there are those few games/workloads that drive a PC to overload, so naturally adding extra (OBS Studio) won't work with balancing hardware resources demands)

no way for any volunteer here to know one way or the other with what you've posted.
A 2nd PC can be the right solution, in certain circumstances, but also adds its own level of complexity