Question / Help Record Elgato Game Capture HD with OBS

djnguyen

New Member
Hi guys, I'm planning to buy an Elgato Game Capture but I'm not sure if I should buy it or not. The reason I want to buy is because whenever I record my games using OBS, my game starts to drop fps, not all games but most of them (even when i lower the game quality)

That is when is started to do some research and I heard that, if you record games using Elgato with your obs, your game won't drop fps or something like that.

But the main question that keep bugging me is that, if I set Elgato to my OBS and then press record on OBS, doesn't it mean I am using 2 recording software at the same time? If I already have fps drop when recording my game with OBS, then how is it gonna help my game "not dropping fps" when record Elgato with OBS? I don't understand how using Elgato with OBS gonna help my game when record.

Additional info:
I follow this post for my OBS setting: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/
 
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Harold

Active Member
If you're only using a single computer, using a capture card will NOT reduce the processor impact on your system and will NOT improve fps while recording.
 

djnguyen

New Member
Welp i guess my p.c is old (4 years old) to use for these kind of things. Do you have any suggestion if I should upgrade my p.c or buying a new one is better? I know its a broad question to ask but in general what is a good answer?
 

djnguyen

New Member
I think i found some

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) X6 1045T Processor 2.70 GHz
RAM: 8GB
64-bit Operating system
Video card: AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series
Mother Board: GA-78LMT-S2P

is that enough info? should i upgrade or buy a new p.c?
 
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chummy

Member
What game are you facing strong fps drops and how much of it?You CPU should be capable of running some x264 ultrafast encoder while gaming without much performance hit.

Maybe you can only buy a new Graphic Card which nowadays has encoder to record your gameplay and keep the rest of system.
 

djnguyen

New Member
I mostly play games that i just bought on steam this new year sales, like The walking dead, Tomb Raider, Life is strange, Alien Isolation, mostly RPG type of games, some fps games like csgo. Games that are around 1GB~20Gb memory space. And i can't really enjoy the game without lower the game quality
 
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djnguyen

New Member
So you are saying my p.c parts are fine except Graphic Card should be upgrade?

Cuz when i asked some of my friends, they say if I wanna upgrade the Graphic Card, I should consider upgrade my processor and mother board too.

Their reason is if I upgrade to another Graphic Card, maybe my current Processor or Mother board can't handle it.
 

chummy

Member
If you dont go to a too big GPU, probably your current cpu is capable of handle it. Something like gtx950/r7 370 or gtx960 at peak.

But if you can purchase a whole new pc then go for something like i5/i7/FX8300, below that any CPU will be very similar to your Phenom x6.
 

djnguyen

New Member
I see, really helpful information. Oh and one last question, if i buy a new pc especially for gaming/recording game/stream that will work good/decently, what is the cost i should keep in mind? like $700~$1000? $1000~$1500?
 

chummy

Member
About prices this is relative, you should pair the right pieces, dont spend too much money in CPU and take a slower GPU, neither do the inversion, sometimes i see people taking a expensive i7 and pairing it to something like gtx750. Take a i5 and spend the rest of the money in better GPU.

From the list of your games Alien Isolation is the only big deal there, the others are very obsolote in terms of graphics. And what is holding you back for games like Alien Isolation is your GPU first.

If that's me, i first will purchase the GPU and test with my current system, if CPU hold you back then its time to upgrade the rest.
 
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