Optimal Specs Needed to Run OBS with Two Cameras and Two Mics

[DylanNicolosi]

Hello, I was wondering what the optimal specs needed to run OBS with two cameras and two microphones are. I have been running OBS on a MacBook Pro from the late 2010's. When I record, the audio and lip movement do not align, and sometimes it can be glitchy. We have tried running a lower quality and it works a little better, but the lips and audio are still not aligned at moments. Any information about how to solve this and what the necessary specs needed would be greatly appreciated.

 

[AaronD]

Audio/Video desync happens on good rigs too. That's not necessarily a performance problem. I'm not at one right now to take a screenshot, but there's a Filter for Video Delay if that's too soon, and a Sync Delay in the Advanced Audio Properties if that's too soon. Both per-source.

If the required setting keeps changing, then that's a problem, but still not necessarily with the computer. I recently replaced a set of 4 HDMI->USB capture cards with a single internal 4-input card, and that made a huge difference! The 4 USB cards always had different latency, so that the cameras were always out of sync by different amounts each time, and I gave up chasing it. The single internal card is rock-solid.

 

[thomaslfessler]

Hello, I was wondering what the optimal specs needed to run OBS with two cameras and two microphones are. I have been running OBS on a MacBook Pro from the late 2010's. When I record, the audio and lip movement do not align, and sometimes it can be glitchy. We have tried running a lower quality and it works a little better, but the lips and audio are still not aligned at moments. Any information about how to solve this and what the necessary specs needed would be greatly appreciated.

If you want better performance, consider bootcamp. OBS on the Mac has serious performance problems compared to the same rig running on macos.

Version 28 and up also has slower frame rendering performance vs 27.x releases, so running on an older version of OBS may speed things up.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

The challenge in answering your question is that the answer is .. .it depends.
If you optimize the Operating System (OS), and OBS Studio, avoiding CPU hogging settings, filters and plugins, then a system like what you have should be fine. Though, as alluded to above, beware USB Root hub issues (which can vary my model). There are non-USB camera that would bypass such issues, but then you swap that for other considerations
Follow 1st rule which is to avoid WiFi whenever possible (unless you have wireless Network Engineer related tools and knowledge)

But some folks expectations with chroma-keying (green screen), audio effects, plugins (some very definitely poorly written) can bring a powerful system to its knees (so to speak). Laptops are subject to thermal throttling, which may or may not be a problem depending on workload (ie everything going on at OS level). Many folks that have lots of apps open/running in the background are unaware that can be the problem in and of itself

Real-time video encoding is very computationally demanding. Then you add in lots of flexible options, and the Spec's required can vary greatly... it just depends (on a LOT more details than what you provided). And then there is the common human tendency to get something to work, and then want to improve it (which may, in this case, take more resources than simply getting it to work. For example, you may start at 1080p30 but in a few years want 4K?). For the same reason that video editing is not recommended on a laptop (can be done, with caveats) ... similar applies to OBS Studio and comparable applications. Then there is the complication of well-matured x86 code for various operating systems, and Apple not going their own chip route, meaning it will take a while for code to mature to a similar level as existed before. How that impacts things... it depends. sorry

All of this to mean... your current system may be fine, you just need to adjust Operating System and OBS Studio settings. Or not. If not, what you would need... depends