Stream only pc help

[gomezse]

morning all,

So, I'm new to streaming having only did it for about a month or so for my local church. We are currently using and old 2013 iMac to stream but can't stream at 1080p without the obs warning coming up. So i was thinking of building a streaming only pc to be able to push 1080p. The problem im coming up against is everywhere I look I get different data on what will be able to handle that. I'm trying to get the best bang for my buck, but I don't want to over spend either. I was looking at building around the 3400G since it has integrated graphics and i could skip buying a stand alone graphics card. However, if that isn't smart let me know. Any suggestions for builds would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Lots of recent conversations on this topic, in this forum. Unfortunately the answer is... it depends.
Video encoding is strenuous activity for a computer, so
- how many years do you want this computer to last?
- what all will you be using in live stream? just a single camera/audio source, or pre-recorded videos, something for service bulletin (we use PowerPoint), How about lower thirds or other fancy effects?
- are you going to want to record stream as well so you have cleaner copy ? [this has resource impact]
- etc.

See my posts for details on what I recently purchased, which is complete overkill now ($1,500 with business class desktop tower, with 5yr next business day, US based premium phone support) but can handle video editing, etc and I expect to last a full 5 years... so high value (from my perspective). A 5yr old gaming laptop couldn't handle our stream at all (maybe with a lot more knowledge than I had on OBS optimization could have got it to work). Personally, I try to avoid consumer grade PCs more than I do nasty infectious diseases..
Assuming wanting a 4-5yr life, I'd recommend 6 core/12 thread, 16GB of RAM (upgrade later if/when need arises), NVME SSD, and a GTX 1650 Super or better (due to Turing NVENC support).. again complete overkill for us today using a single webcam ... but means that as we learn OBS, we have lots of performance headroom. Also, we are getting a NDI HX PTZ camera, which means de-compressing work for CPU for video input. And we will hopefully add additional cameras in future.
On the other end, a 3yr old business class PC (4-core/8-thread), with a GTX 1050 for $400-500 should have sufficed for us now with webcam

so.. lots to consider beyond what you posted.

 

[gomezse]

Lots of recent conversations on this topic, in this forum. Unfortunately the answer is... it depends.
Video encoding is strenuous activity for a computer, so
- how many years do you want this computer to last?
- what all will you be using in live stream? just a single camera/audio source, or pre-recorded videos, something for service bulletin (we use PowerPoint), How about lower thirds or other fancy effects?
- are you going to want to record stream as well so you have cleaner copy ? [this has resource impact]
- etc.

See my posts for details on what I recently purchased, which is complete overkill now ($1,500 with business class desktop tower, with 5yr next business day, US based premium phone support) but can handle video editing, etc and I expect to last a full 5 years... so high value (from my perspective). A 5yr old gaming laptop couldn't handle our stream at all (maybe with a lot more knowledge than I had on OBS optimization could have got it to work). Personally, I try to avoid consumer grade PCs more than I do nasty infectious diseases
Assuming wanting a 4-5yr life, I'd recommend 6 core/12 thread, 16GB of RAM (upgrade later if/when need arises), NVME SSD, and a GTX 1650 Super or better (due to Turing NVENC support).. again complete overkill for us today using a single webcam ... but means that as we learn OBS, we have lots of performance headroom. Also, we are getting a NDI HX PTZ camera, which means de-compressing work for CPU for video input. And we will hopefully add additional computers in future.
On the other end, a 3yr old business class PC (4-core/8-thread), with a GTX 1050 for $400-500 should have sufficed for us now with webcam

so.. lots to consider beyond what you posted.

Thank you for the concise post it gave me a lot to think on. We are running a 2 camera setup. I can't rember the types off the top of my head but one is used for a wide view of the sanctuary and the other is a begging professional camera from Sony that we use for close up of the people on stage. Then we have one computer that runs the slides and all of these devices go through a Roland board and then our capture card to the imac i use obs on. To be honest runs well at 720p and 60 fps but since the computer is getting old they want to upgrade. I figure if we are going to upgrade we should try for 1080p to get the full use of the cameras we have. Once again thanks for advice and I will look at some 6 core processors. Since you mentioned hyperthreating I figure I will look at ryzen cups

 

[qhobbes]

In the time being and for what it's worth, I was able to stream 1080p at 29.97 on a late 2012 iMac at 6 Mbps with NVENC on a GTX 660M. I only had 5 frame issues over 8 minutes. I used the built in webcam stretched to 1080 as the source and the quality was acceptable. OBS stopped responding when I tried for 59.94 FPS. This was all on Windows 10.

I could be completely wrong here, but I would say if you can do 720 60fps, you can do 1080 30fps. If available, use the hardware encoder.

 

[gomezse]

In the time being and for what it's worth, I was able to stream 1080p at 29.97 on a late 2012 iMac at 6 Mbps with NVENC on a GTX 660M. I only had 5 frame issues over 8 minutes. I used the built in webcam stretched to 1080 as the source and the quality was acceptable. OBS stopped responding when I tried for 59.94 FPS. This was all on Windows 10.

I could be completely wrong here, but I would say if you can do 720 60fps, you can do 1080 30fps. If available, use the hardware encoder.

I tried the 30 fps and still was flagged by OBS as too much for my system. Thank you for the suggestion though.

 

[gomezse]

After listen too you all and realizing what I was going to build was probably to weak I decided to do some more research and came up with this build. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/bt4Bf9 it looks like it should handle 1080p quite well. Please let me know if you see an issue with this build though

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

if I recall correctly (top of my head, didn't look up) the B450 is PCIe v3 vs the CPU supporting v4 (not that big of an issue now, but might be in a few years.. and latest SSDs can take advantage of improved bandwidth now).
Also, that GPU is lower-end. As I mentioned, the 1650 Super (or higher) has the Turing NVENC. At $150, I consider the 1650 Super to be a much better value *if* you plan to use GPU encoding offload. As for cost, you can get WIn10 OS license much cheaper elsewhere (legitimately) so that would save the difference. ... and that SSD is overpriced. That Ryzen was the CPU I was targeting ... before I realized I couldn't find what I wanted (truly disappointed) and I didn't want to build/support my own. I'm hoping that Tier 1 OEMs offer x570 (or equivalent) based system with next gen desktop Ryzens due shortly so I can replace my personal primary machine (which will also be a backup streaming PC, as well as being used for running VMs, and Photo/video editing).

Finally regarding 1080p - I assume you are streaming via YouTube? Facebook only currently accepts 720p from non-gamers (though I expect that to change before too long.. next year maybe??). And for church streaming, I've been using 30fps and our style wouldn't benefit from 60fps (at all)

 

[gomezse]

if I recall correctly (top of my head, didn't look up) the B450 is PCIe v3 vs the CPU supporting v4 (not that big of an issue now, but might be in a few years.. and latest SSDs can take advantage of improved bandwidth now).
Also, that GPU is lower-end. As I mentioned, the 1650 Super (or higher) has the Turing NVENC. At $150, I consider the 1650 Super to be a much better value *if* you plan to use GPU encoding offload. As for cost, you can get WIn10 OS license much cheaper elsewhere (legitimately) so that would save the difference. ... and that SSD is overpriced. That Ryzen was the CPU I was targeting ... before I realized I couldn't find what I wanted (truly disappointed) and I didn't want to build/support my own. I'm hoping that Tier 1 OEMs offer x570 (or equivalent) based system with next gen desktop Ryzens due shortly so I can replace my personal primary machine (which will also be a backup streaming PC, as well as being used for running VMs, and Photo/video editing).

Finally regarding 1080p - I assume you are streaming via YouTube? Facebook only currently accepts 720p from non-gamers (though I expect that to change before too long.. next year maybe??). And for church streaming, I've been using 30fps and our style wouldn't benefit from 60fps (at all)

The reason I run 60 fps right now is because I'm running 720p. I tried 30fps at 1080p and that was a nogo for my computer. I'm not necessarily going to go 60fps at 1080p but if I'm upgrading I want the ability to. I decided on 1660 for the video card because its nvenc uses the turing instead of the older model. Once again thanks for your help.