Question / Help Should I get a streaming card?

[Decox]

I have a gtx 780, 12gb ram and a i7 2600 but when I steam I get massive fps loss so I was wondering would a steaming card work better and be worth getting? If so what card should I get?

 

[Boildown]

They're only worth getting if you have a dedicated PC to put them in. If you game and stream on the same PC, then it actually makes things worth to try to use one.

 

[archer75]

Any recommendation on specs for a secondary capture machine? If using a capture card does it need to be high end?

 

[Boildown]

Any recommendation on specs for a secondary capture machine? If using a capture card does it need to be high end?

Depends if you're just recording to hard drive or if you're streaming to a site like Twitch. If just recording, you can just get a GTX 750 and a recent dual core (Sandy Bridge or later) and use NVEnc encoding and it'll be fine. If you're streaming, you'll want an Intel i7 to get a decent quality stream going because you'll need to use x264 encoding, and that takes a lot of CPU to do.

As for the expense/quality of the capture card you get, that depends entirely on the resolution and framerate you want to stream at. The bigger and faster, the more expensive it gets.

 

[archer75]

I was considering something like AverMedia Live Gamer HD c985. It would be for streaming to Twitch.

 

[Boildown]

I was considering something like AverMedia Live Gamer HD c985. It would be for streaming to Twitch.

That's a popular one that works well with OBS. It has a limitation that basically makes you choose between 1080p30 or 720p60. Can't do 1080p60. Other than that, people like it. It can get the audio over the HDMI input as well.

 

[Decox]

So it would be better and cheaper to get a card then get a second build?

 

[Boildown]

So it would be better and cheaper to get a card then get a second build?

That's not what I said. You either choose to have a 2nd PC with a capture card, or you get neither a 2nd PC nor a capture card. Both or neither.

 

[Decox]

Hmm alright