Question / Help Stream stuttering on VM, looking to buy a basic streaming PC, which processor/GPU?

[thatnoob]

Hello all,

I am currently using OBS to stream music from iTunes to a private video radio station of sorts via an unlisted YouTube stream. This sometimes works quite well in my virtual machine via VirtualBox. Unfortunately it started stuttering again when I left it on overnight so I need to get a dedicated PC to do this.

Currently specs are 4 cores allocated of the host's i7-8750H, 4 GB of RAM allocated, and 256MB video memory with 2D video acceleration on in VirtualBox. The stream itself is 1080p 30FPS on ultrafast preset but it is still stuttering. The only program running besides OBS is iTunes which plays the music and a small utility that puts the cover art and song info from iTunes into the OBS scene.

What processor and or GPU do I need in a dedicated PC to have this work without issues? I just want to set it and forget it. I'm currently targeting 3rd gen i3/i5. Would an i3-3220 suffice (dual core 4 threads, 3.30ghz, HD graphics 2500) or do I need to step up to something quad core ex. i5-3470 (4 core 4 thread, 3.2ghz, HD graphics 2500)?
Also are the integrated graphics on these older processors too weak? Do I need a basic GPU as well for this level of streaming?

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Narcogen]

Best Nvidia GPU you can justify. In the current lineup, the best encoder chip is available for the lowest price in the GTX 1660.

CPU is less important, but an i3 might still be too little.

OBS isn't intended to work in a virtual machine. It runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux so I'm not sure why you'd want to.

 

[thatnoob]

Best Nvidia GPU you can justify. In the current lineup, the best encoder chip is available for the lowest price in the GTX 1660.

Would the IGPU work? The stream is basically a static image with a few lines of text and another image overlaid on top of it. The machines I'm looking at originally came with a Radeon 7570 1GB. Would either that or the IGPU be good enough for encoding basically a static 1080p image plus audio? (Sorry I'm a total noob at picking out parts for streaming)

 

[Narcogen]

For just a static image all the time? Probably.

 

[cgtyoder]

I am currently using OBS to stream music from iTunes to a private video radio station of sorts via an unlisted YouTube stream.

thatnoob, a little off-topic, but can you share how you are streaming in OBS to a YT Unlisted Stream? I can't find how to stream Unlisted, vs the default Public stream - thanks much!

 

[thatnoob]

Posting again on this since cgtyoder reminded me about this thread

The machine I ended up buying was an Optiplex 3020, i5-4590 using the integrated graphics. Intel 4th gen and up has quicksync video which is important for h264 encoding. Hitting 30fps 1080p with a static image broadcast was completely fine, no issues whatsoever even on 4gb of ram. Only used the integrated graphics, no GPU. Hope this helps anyone searching how to do something similar in the future.