Question / Help Specs for a capture computer

[Wambat]

I am looking into getting myself a second computer for capturing gameplay. I have been trying to find the minimum and/or recomended specs for OBS, but if they are listed somewhere I cannot find them. Please point me to where I can find them, or post them here.

If I am using a second computer to record the gameplay, will what game I am recording still be a factor in what hardware I need on the recording computer?

 

[Suslik V]

High end PC required. OBS Studio uses hardware acceleration of Direct3D (from v10.2) or OpenGL (from v3.2). Without hw acceleration it refuses to start. OBS Studio uses shaders to transform and combine sources, to render and filter output.

Some video cards has build-in hardware encoders. OBS can use Intel's Quick Sync, AMD's VCE, NVIDIA's NVENC and some others.

 

[Boildown]

This is hobbyist open development stuff here, so no one has bothered with recommended specs, and no one probably will in the future either. The tech changes too quickly, it would be hard to come to an agreement, it would be hard to keep the recommendations up to date, it would vary on too many factors, etc, etc.

I can tell you what I've built that works: https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/47bzdc/budget_friendly_secondary_streaming_pc_guide

If you don't want to bother with ebay and used gear, I'd go for a Ryzen 7 build instead.

If you want to save money, depending on what you want to do, you don't have to go that high end, but we'd need to know more about what you want to do.

Yes, different games have different visual complexities, and so while a card game (HotS) might have no trouble encode on a certain hardware or settings, a more visually complex game (like FPS) might fail on the same.

Another factor is the video capture card. The most general advice is to get a PCIe adapter, not USB. Even USB 3.0 devices have a ton of people posting about problems on these forums. PCIe capture cards are way more reliable.

Oh and like Suslik says, unlike most other recording software, OBS requires a not-terrible GPU to work. Something like a GTX 550 or better, I'd say. If you're buying something new, go for a GTX 1050.