Recording with external capture card?

Acher

Acher

New Member
Hi.

Just a quick question. I've read that using an external capture card to record video can relieve some pressure on the GPU that's running the game and thus obtaining better results. I was thinking about getting one (maybe an Avermedia 2 Plus Live Gamer Portable 4K) since I'm in a low budget and getting a stronger GPU might be a bit expensive. What worries me is my CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz. Would it be useless to buy an external capture card with that CPU? In the sense that what I want to improve is the slowness and blurryness of the video that I get with some games, but I'm worried that the actual solution is upgrading both CPU and GPU and that spending that money on the CC alone won't be enough. So I wanted to see if somebody else has experience recording with a similar CPU that saw good results with a capture card connected via USB-3.

Thanks in advance.
 
Do you mean you want to record on the same computer with the capture card? You won't see any benefit if you do that, because the computer will still have to compress the video which is the slow part. If you have an Nvidia GPU, the Experience overlay is a good way to record without much slowdown but it gives you few options, just bitrate and framerate
 
DayGeckoArt said:
Do you mean you want to record on the same computer with the capture card? You won't see any benefit if you do that, because the computer will still have to compress the video which is the slow part. If you have an Nvidia GPU, the Experience overlay is a good way to record without much slowdown but it gives you few options, just bitrate and framerate
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Thank you very much for your answer!
That's exactly what I meant and that was my fear, that I won't notice any changes.
I have an Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 which doesn't have the NVENC H.264 as far as I know (and it doesn't let me use the overlay either, it says it's not compatible with my card). I've read that it's not a very good card to capture video and that's why I thought maybe an external CC would be as simple as connecting it to the USB port and be good to go.

All I can record decently right now is Diablo I and old point and click games.
 
If you want to record something from your computer (and no external device like a gaming console), invest in a better graphics card that comes with a decent hardware encoder instead of a capture card. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a decent CPU, but the GT 1030 you currently have is underpowered in comparison to the good CPU.
If you want good video quality with the hardware encoder, don't buy an AMD card but an Nvidia card that comes with the very good nvenc encoder. The cheapest that come with Nvenc are the GTX 1050 and GTX 1650. You will benefit twice from such a card: your games will run better even if you're not recording, and the encoding process of recording can be offloaded to the hardware encoder of that card.

If it comes to resource usage, a capture device is actually more resource intensive than OBS game capture or display capture, because OBS is able to get the video data directly from the frame buffer of the GPU, while the data you get from a capture device must be funneled back into the computer through the capture card API.

There are capture devices that come with their own encoder, so they actually need less computing power from GPU or CPU, but if use such a device, you have to use the capture app that comes with that capture device. OBS isn't able to use the encoder of such devices.
 
koala said:
If you want to record something from your computer (and no external device like a gaming console), invest in a better graphics card that comes with a decent hardware encoder instead of a capture card. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a decent CPU, but the GT 1030 you currently have is underpowered in comparison to the good CPU.
If you want good video quality with the hardware encoder, don't buy an AMD card but an Nvidia card that comes with the very good nvenc encoder. The cheapest that come with Nvenc are the GTX 1050 and GTX 1650. You will benefit twice from such a card: your games will run better even if you're not recording, and the encoding process of recording can be offloaded to the hardware encoder of that card.

If it comes to resource usage, a capture device is actually more resource intensive than OBS game capture or display capture, because OBS is able to get the video data directly from the frame buffer of the GPU, while the data you get from a capture device must be funneled back into the computer through the capture card API.

There are capture devices that come with their own encoder, so they actually need less computing power from GPU or CPU, but if use such a device, you have to use the capture app that comes with that capture device. OBS isn't able to use the encoder of such devices.
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I can't thank you enough for this helpful answer. I was told in the shop where I configured my PC that it wasn't worth to get a better GPU with the CPU I got, that's why I got that one (although maybe they recommended me that specific one because they didn't have others in stock).

I think I will save for one of the cards you recommended. From what you guys have been telling me an external capture card won't solve anything.

I really appreciate your time, thanks again.
 
Acher said:
I can't thank you enough for this helpful answer. I was told in the shop where I configured my PC that it wasn't worth to get a better GPU with the CPU I got, that's why I got that one (although maybe they recommended me that specific one because they didn't have others in stock).

I think I will save for one of the cards you recommended. From what you guys have been telling me an external capture card won't solve anything.

I really appreciate your time, thanks again.
Click to expand...
I'm surprised they told you that. The Ryzen 5 3600 is very powerful. It's almost twice as powerful as my i5-9400 that I play modern games on at 4k with a RTX 2060S https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+3600&id=3481 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-9400+@+2.90GHz&id=3414

Intel Core i5 9400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600: performance comparison

We compared 6-core Intel Core i5 9400 (2.9 GHz) against AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz) in games and benchmarks. Find out which CPU has better performance.
nanoreview.net nanoreview.net

I would consider your CPU to be high end and the GTX 1030 is very low end
 
DayGeckoArt said:
I'm surprised they told you that. The Ryzen 5 3600 is very powerful. It's almost twice as powerful as my i5-9400 that I play modern games on at 4k with a RTX 2060S https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+3600&id=3481 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-9400+@+2.90GHz&id=3414

Intel Core i5 9400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600: performance comparison

We compared 6-core Intel Core i5 9400 (2.9 GHz) against AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz) in games and benchmarks. Find out which CPU has better performance.
nanoreview.net nanoreview.net

I would consider your CPU to be high end and the GTX 1030 is very low end
Click to expand...
Darn, that's very disappointing then. I guess I have to be more meticulous next time and do more research when purchasing hardware instead of delegating it all on the shop.
You're very kind, I really appreciate your input. It's a relief to know I only have to change the GPU.
 
@DayGeckoArt is correct, the GT 1030 is some kind of ersatz GPU. It's used to have a GPU at all if you buy a CPU that doesn't come with an integrated CPU, and if you intend to not totally rule out gaming for an office PC.
The performance is only slightly above the performance of an integrated GPU found in Intel CPUs.

This is a comparison to classify performance of current desktop GPUs:
1644418464784.png


The "Intel Iris Plus" is the integrated GPU of current Intel CPUs. The GTX 1050 is actually outdated, but still the cheapest "good" Nvidia GPU available, given the ridiculous prices currently asked for GPUs. The GTX 1650 would be the appropriate partner GPU for your CPU in terms of performance. The RTX 3060 is the lowest of the current high end - ridiculous price, but I want to show the performance gap. The prices in the chart are not real - in shop, you currently pay up to twice to thrice for the RTX series.

 
"ersatz" is one of the few german words imported into english - like kindergarden, zeitgeist or angst. Given the vast amount of english words imported into german, I take every opportunity for revenge ;)
 
koala said:
@DayGeckoArt is correct, the GT 1030 is some kind of ersatz GPU. It's used to have a GPU at all if you buy a CPU that doesn't come with an integrated CPU, and if you intend to not totally rule out gaming for an office PC.
The performance is only slightly above the performance of an integrated GPU found in Intel CPUs.
Click to expand...
cyclemat said:
@koala didnt know you are german ;) ersatz = replacement ;)

@Acher look you become an old 750 ti its faste in 3d gaming as the GT1030 and has in nvenc encoder ;)
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I'm ryangoslinging internally right now.
Both the store and I would've benefited if they recommended me a competent GPU. They get more money, I get what I need.
Oh well, it's my fault for delegating what's my responsability after all.

Thankfully you guys have been very helpful. I found an MSI GeForce GTX 1650 4GT Low Profile 4GB GDDR5 for around 300€ so now it's just a matter of saving for a couple of months, it'll be a good investment.

Thanks again for all the information provided. I really appreciate it and it will help me to know what to look for in the future.
 
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