Questions about the limits of obs and the physical equipment?

[tripletopper]

I heard the limit of live motion items can be six at one time. If you try to introduce the 7th then one of them will eventually skip out. It doesn't matter how high or low the definition is or how high or low the frame rate is six motion elements is the most motion elements OBS can mix.

If that's the upper limit then I should be able to plan for that.

If that's the case then I should get fast cameras for all my setups because it doesn't matter how fast or slow they are all that matters is how many are running at a time.

Also question about UVC cameras? Most my sq-11s are low frame rate. (I use sq11s because they are the easiest to make 3d videos.) The frame rate is very choppy on the Mac. Should I start selling those low frame rate cameras on eBay or might they perform better on a PC versus a Mac?

Apple has been known to monkey with inputs like my audio inputs being converted from stereo to mono. I just want to see if Apple has been known for monkeying video inputs if you use more than a certain number by chopping their frame rates or reducing their resolution. Or whether the cameras themselves are inferior.

I do have one Superior version of the camera but I don't know whether it's because it's a version of the camera or because it's a better version of it. I noticed my inputs on my system notice dropped to 12 megabits which is USB 1.1. I don't know if sq-11s are natively USB 2.0 and the operating system is dropping them down to 1.1 or whether the cameras come in 2.0 and 1.1 versions.

When things are sure PCs will simplify it, a lie in 2000.

 

[koala]

OBS itself doesn't have any limit with its inputs. However, the hardware has to support all your physical devices you intend to use. If you connect a camera with USB, the USB port has to be fast enough to carry the data of that device, and the whole USB bus bandwidth has to be big enough to carry the accumulated data of all connected devices.
If you use a hub to increase the number of the usb ports available on your system, you're funneling the data of all the devices through one port. If that hub port isn't fast enough for the accumulated bandwidth of all devices on that hub, they are not working properly.
You can use tools like UsbTreeView to see how and where your usb devices are actually connected, which speed they actually have, and how many devices are behind some hub.

Such a tree is a bit difficult to understand, because if you mix USB 2 and USB 3 devices on the same USB 3 port, the tree seems duplicated and you see one USB 2 tree and one USB 3 tree, while actually they use the same physical connection and add to each other's bandwidth limit.

tl;dr
for USB 2, usually only one USB 2 device behind each root hub port is acceptable in terms of bandwidth, because one USB 2 camera uses up most of its bandwidth. If your root hub has 4 ports, you can connect 4 cameras, one behind each. If you have 2 USB controllers so 2 root hubs, you have 2x4=8. However, not every usb port actually has a jack to the outside.
For USB 3 cameras, you have to determine the actual bandwidth usage of the cameras, add all camera bandwidth and make sure it's not above the overall USB 3 bandwidth limit. Unfortunately, he actual USB 3 bandwidth limit is kind of rocket science, because there are so many variations of USB 3, so you have to look very thoroughly what connectivity your machine actually provides.

tl;dr 2
No forum post can tell you the exact number how many devices your computer can actually support. You have to work out that yourself.

 

[tripletopper]

I think all my cameras are USB 2.0, and I got a Thunderbolt Line and will switch to a NUC with a Thunderbolt 3+ line. I know I get multiple USB 3.0 lines and one TB3/USB3.1 line and hopefully that means multiple 3.0 ports, and those fan be funnelledvinto mulilti USB 2.0 ports. Are those the ones guilty of being old cameras? The ones listed as 12 Mb/s?

Also my system tree reads SQ11s as 12Mb/s or USB 1.1 ports.