Question / Help PC Game Streaming with Elgato HD60 Pro

[Dojii]

I am doing some research and trying to find out if using an Elgato HD60 Pro will offload CPU tasks onto the capture card? The product seems to be marketed for console streaming and capture.

It would be nice to have a "streaming card" that does all the encodings/streaming work. Like video cards, and audio cards offload that work from the CPU. I understand that using OBS specifically uses your CPU to encode. Unless there is some setting that OBS can use the capture card's CPU (If it has one??).

I've read a decent amount of material. Most stuff is outdated and completely shuts down using a capture card to stream, as there were performance gains due to hardware/bandwidth issues etc. But things can change, and perhaps there are a few innovative minds out there with the know-how, who would like to impart some wisdom on how exactly one could see some performance gains/CPU offload by using the HD60 Pro or the HD60S. (The HD60S is an external Elgato that runs on USB 3.0)

If the Elgato GameCapture software was EXCELLENT (which I hear it's a work in progress)-- then in theory one could just simply use their software and see performance gains. Anyhow, I hope that this can stimulate some conversation. I know that a lot of people out there already have their minds made up about the subject-- But with the new HD60 Pro, and the HD60S and some good software tweaks we might be at that stage in the game where using a capture card for streaming may actually alleviate some of the stress from the CPU.

Any thoughts?

Discuss

 

[Sapiens]

No, and this isn't really what capture cards are for. If you want to capture an external device like a gaming console or a second PC, a capture card is the way to go. If you just want to offload the encoding work from your CPU, look into using a hardware encoder like QSV (Intel CPUs), NVENC (NVIDIA GPUs) or VCE (AMD GPUs).

 

[Dojii]

The HD60 Pro has an H.264 encoding chip inside. Is it not powerful enough to utilize? Is that chip not doing the same thing my CPU is doing when encoding video for streaming?

It seems like the hardware is there. It just seems like software limitations right now. Or what am I missing?

 

[Boildown]

If it does have an encoding chip inside, OBS can't utilize it. You'd have to use Elgato's own software. Avermedia has something similar but they don't expose the API (or similar programmer-speak to that effect). Which means that third party software can't send the commands to the encoding chip to even try to use it. I imagine Elgato is the same.

 

[Dojii]

Yea I think that's where we stand, after researching more.

In theory, in order to see the performance gains from offloading the Encoding task, you have to use their software (until at some future point they allow other software to talk to their chip and hardware). I say in Theory because I haven't tried their software yet, and it has to be not so bulky, and it has to be resource friendly and stable to be even worth using.

From what I've read their software has come a long way, but still has a way to go. Once I actually get the device in the mail, and installed I'll post some more feedback here. I love OBS and will continue to use it for all sorts of different tasks.

I wish Elgato would be a little more specific about what hardware is inside their card. I bet it even has RAM inside. From what I've read their support team is really easy to work with so they will be hearing a lot from me as I pursue this Quest.