Streaming and recording setups - An overview

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noah abbott

New Member
You could send the sound through a Virtual Audio Cable and then forward it once to the headset and once to the capture card. Using two audio repeaters or the listen to function and a repeater.

How could I do this? Could you go more into depth with the answer or give me a link to look at.
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
Your Virtual Audio Cable has to be the default Playback device in Windows. Then you start two audio repeater (they come with VAC):
i3JAl0Z6TapQV.jpg

Wave in for both repeaters would be Line 1 in your case. And wave out you would once select your Logitech Headset and in the other your "Capture Card". By Capture Card in this case I mean the HDMI Audio device you normally have if you connect the CaptureCard over HDMI. For example such device from AMD connected to a monitor looks like that:
i5UP2PVgCHkkb.PNG

If you use a DVI to HDMI cable to connect to your Capture Card, that would not work as you cannot send sound over DVI.

You can then start both repeaters and should have sound in your Headset and in the Capture Card. The repeater settings can be tweaked to a very small delay and I often set them to high priority. If you get audio crackling you can also change the priority of VAC itself, in its control panel software.
If you hear a Voice saying "trial" over and over again, you have to buy VAC unfortunately, as its not freeware.
 

Xcom78

New Member
Jack0r or anyone else I have a USB mic and want to use it and a pair of nice headphones on a two PC setup instead of one headset with a mic on the gaming pc and a usb mic plugged into the streaming pc. If I need to talk to people in game using the mic I can just use push to talk is it possible to do this? I don't want a separate audio channel with the mic for my twitch stream only.

The setup I want is like the

Capture Card, no Video-splitter, two-Soundcards/Audio Outputs diagram except instead of having a headset with a mic I want a USB mic with a pair of headphones.
 

Boildown

Active Member
I have two USB mics side-by-side. One goes to my gaming computer, the other to my streaming computer. The streaming computer uses a live mic with the noise gate feature, so it records everything I say. The gaming computer uses its mic for voice coms as usual with push to talk. I found that a lot easier than trying to figure out how to pipe the gaming computer's mic to the streaming computer. And this way I can comment on things without having to send it to everyone in-game.
 

Xcom78

New Member
Boildown have you tried streaming without a second PC from your gaming rig? It seems like a pretty dam good system to the point you might not even need a streaming PC. If so what are the results you got from doing it?

  • CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K Processor
  • Heatsink & Fan: Noctua NH-U12S
  • GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 680 4GB
  • RAM: G.SKILL Trident X Series 32GB 4 x 8GB
  • Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus VI Hero
  • Power Supply: SeaSonic X-1250 1250W
  • Case: Silverstone Fortress FT01-BW
  • Monitor: BenQ XL2420T
  • Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K90 Mechanical
  • Mouse: Logitech G9X Call of Duty: MW3 Edition
  • Headphones: Razer Tiamat 7.1 Analog
Two mics are just not an option for me. I can do some good impressions that I want my stream to hear as I am talking to people in game so having them listen to the mic I use in game is a must.
 

Boildown

Active Member
The mics I have are side by side, so the stream hears everything I say in-game, plus everything I say when I'm not pushing to talk as well. Its not like the stream mic goes dead when push to talk on the game mic is pressed.

I've captured to disk on my game computer but not streamed from it, that said, it worked great. I like the separation of duties though, it comes in handy having the streaming computer separate. My streaming computer is my old gaming computer, when I upgrade again, my gaming computer will most likely become my next streaming computer, etc. The only significant thing I've really had to add is the capture card (which I got cheap on Ebay).
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
Having two physical microphones is definitely not bad, but what you could do to get the microphone input to your second PC is a simple TeamSpeak configuration with a local server. The server just needs one channel to which you connect with both PC's, the gaming PC uses the USB Mic as its microphone and you can use PTT or voice activation and the streaming PC outputs that to its desktop audio device for example which will be recorded by OBS.
 

Henry

New Member
Hi,
Im looking to use my old pc as a streaming pc i7 920 @ 3.8ghz. Which I will put a capture card into. I have a few possible issues which have likely been answered before but the info is spread out all over the place and I'm getting confused.

So I have one 144hz monitor and one 60hz monitor both 1080p on my current gaming rig. Can I still use the 144hz through dvi or do i have to drop to 60hz and use the hdmi splitter to the cap card?

The audio is also pretty confusing. I would like to have a single mic and headphone set up. So I'm looking at a Mic (XLR), Behringer mixer. I'm just confused as to how i would wire it up and what wires and cables would be needed? i.e 3x 3.5mm female to RCA & 2x 3.5mm to 3.5mm etc etc.

I bookmarked some of your Videos on youtube (amazing stuff) and I definitely would want to be able to talk to stream and then push to talk to Skype/TS whilst the stream gets muted or vice versa. Also this may be a silly question but i would like to use dolby headphone with this set up. Hope i have explained myself well enough.. would totally appreciate some help.
 

jdm12983

Member
Had a question about my current setup. And sorry if this has basically been answered already.

My current gaming PC specs are as follows:

Windows 7 64bit
AMD FX-8350 (8-core CPU)
Nvidia GTX 660 (2GB VRAM)
16GB RAM
Creative Sound Blaster Z (sound card) [plus integrated/on board sound as well]

For what I play and stream/record everything runs good and smooth and no major issues that I can tell for the OBS settings I use. But, I'm wondering if I'd get any advantages switching to a 2-PC setup or not?

My second PC I already have, the specs are:

Windows 8.1 64bit
AMD FX-4300 (4-core CPU)
Nvidia GTX 660 (2GB VRAM)
8GB RAM
Rocketfish sound card (cheap sound card) [plus integrated/on board sound as well]

Would it do me any good/be worth while to add a capture card to my second PC and use it? Also, I currently have a dual monitor setup for my gaming PC, and then just use one of the monitors for the second PC (both monitors have multiple inputs).

Also, if it's needed info, my primary monitor has HDMI, DVI, and VGA inputs, and my second monitor has DVI and VGA inputs. I also have 5.1 surround sound speakers plug into the gaming computers Sound Blaster sound card and use the on board (of the gaming PC) sound card/plugins for my mic and headset for voice chat only.

Hopefully I gave enough information and made it clear enough lol. If any other info is needed let me know. Thanks in advance.
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
So I have one 144hz monitor and one 60hz monitor both 1080p on my current gaming rig. Can I still use the 144hz through dvi or do i have to drop to 60hz and use the hdmi splitter to the cap card?
Yes, with an Nvidia Graphic Card, you can output over hdmi and dvi at the same time, but tell your card to output 144hz over dvi and 60 through hdmi. On an AMD/ATI gpu it can problematic to get this working. There are workarounds though, but they definitely make it a bit complicated.
The audio is also pretty confusing. I would like to have a single mic and headphone set up. So I'm looking at a Mic (XLR), Behringer mixer. I'm just confused as to how i would wire it up and what wires and cables would be needed? i.e 3x 3.5mm female to RCA & 2x 3.5mm to 3.5mm etc etc.
Your mixer would probably give you the option to output the main out to your first pc and a secondary output or monitor output to the second PC, that way you could configure the Mic on both PC's. But, because of your question below, I had a better idea, see also below.
I bookmarked some of your Videos on youtube (amazing stuff) and I definitely would want to be able to talk to stream and then push to talk to Skype/TS whilst the stream gets muted or vice versa. Also this may be a silly question but i would like to use dolby headphone with this set up. Hope i have explained myself well enough.. would totally appreciate some help.
You could use my current setup, I just run a local Teamspeak server, both PC's connect to it. The gaming PC inputs the Microphone and the streaming PC listens to it. In my case I setup a second channel and even send desktop sound over using TS if needed, but mainly because I had problems with HDMI Audio.
For the Microphone part I can recommend it to anyone though, you can setup PTT or Voice Activation and Hotkeys to mute your Mic either on stream or to your mates. One thing though, Skype in general sends everything so you might want to dive into its settings, advanced and then set hotkeys for it too.
To get your desktop sound over, the question is, is your headset USB or does it use normal stereo jack? If it uses a stereo jack you could use a Y-cable and feed your game sound into the mixer, or directly into the second PC. Dolby should probaby work ?!
If your headset uses USB, we might have to use a software like Virtual Audio Cable to first grab the desktop sound (thats done by using VAC as the default playback device) and then distributing it, once to your hdmi output, and thus to the second PC, and once to your Headset. In this case you might loose surround sound (I guess thats what you mean with dolby right?)

Would it do me any good/be worth while to add a capture card to my second PC and use it? Also, I currently have a dual monitor setup for my gaming PC, and then just use one of the monitors for the second PC (both monitors have multiple inputs).
Hmm, the main benefit is that you completely offload all work to the second PC. But I am not sure you will be able to improve the quality of your stream, the FX-4300 might not be enough for that. You might end up with the exact same stream.
 

jdm12983

Member
Thanks for the reply Jack0r.

Yeah, overall I'm OK with my streaming setup - based on upload speeds I have the bitrate as high as I can go anyways. And it's smooth when I stream and play.

Just was wondering sense I had the two computers if it would be worthwhile to utilize the other computer while streaming. I kind of figured that - especially sense everything seems to run smoothly with my main computer only - using the second one probably wouldn't be a huge bonus anyways.
 

Henry

New Member
Thanks Jak0r. One other question. with the nvidia card. Will i be able to do this. DVI-D to 144hz monitor, DVI to 60hz secondary monitor and then a clone of may gaming screen @60hz to the capture card?
 

UrzuS3V3N

New Member
Thanks Jak0r. One other question. with the nvidia card. Will i be able to do this. DVI-D to 144hz monitor, DVI to 60hz secondary monitor and then a clone of may gaming screen @60hz to the capture card?

@Henry, on an Nvidia graphics card that should be possible without big problems.

Can anyone detail exactly how to do this? Whenever I clone my main 120hz screen it automatically sends 120hz to the clone (cap card) and the refresh rate for the clone gets grayed out so I cant set them independently.

I really dont want to drop my main monitor to 60hz!
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
I though you would just have to go into the Nvidia Control Panel like so:
NVIDIA_CP_130713.JPG

In this case select your display you want to put to 60hz and then change and apply the settings.

I unfortunately have neither a Nvidia graphics card, nor a 120hz display so I cant help more detailed, but we have several users on the forum that reported using this setup just fine on Nvidia Chips. On ATI/AMD it can be a problem though.
 

kiw1

New Member
If you use a DVI to HDMI cable to connect to your Capture Card, that would not work as you cannot send sound over DVI.


Fyi it does work, the recieving end has to be HDMI though. (I'm using a DVI -> HDMI on my TV and i get sound with no problem whatsoever).

aaanyway i got a totally different question:

I want a 1080p60 USB3.0 WITH HDMI passthrough
"Why no HDMI Splitter?" well the signal is already splitted (so i can use it on monitor and/or my tv) and i really don't want to buy 2 AC powered HDMI splitter so i dont get lag.

USB3.0 because i just switched to a notebook and i don't trust the elgato 2.0USB solution.. it just seems like a bad idea. The only other device i found was the Avermedia U3.. which of course doesn't have a HDMI passthrough for some reason.

Any other suggestions? I really want to record in 1080p60 over USB3.0 :/ I hope this thread is right for asking such a thing
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
I think the x-capture 1 might be interesting for you in this case. I think it has some passthrough capabilities but its hard to find exact details on the device. You might want to think about getting a splitter that does 1 input to 3 output splitting. Then you can at least choose between all available usb 3.0 devices.
 
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