Question / Help Streaming with no GPU?

[92hatchattack]

Hi all,

Let me start by saying I am 100% new at this. I just finished a new PC build but have yet to save up enough $$$ for the gpu. Right now I'm chilling with a 7700k and 16gb of ram. The question here is, can I produce a good quality stream with no GPU?

I was just messing around with a game my son was playing. Some kid game that's not very demanding and was running on the lowest settings and getting 90fps on the intergrated graphics. The game ran fine, but when messing around with obs and using window capture it was a damn mess. Totally choppy. Looked like about 15 fps in the stream and OBS was laggy and crashing.

What is causing this? Is the window capture just demanding on the gpu? Can't handle it without a dedicated gpu? I tried a few different setting, played with the bit rate, went down to 720/30....set the cpu thingy to slow to put more work on the processor.... And while some of that helped, at no point was the stream ever good.

Now, this is me just messing around. What I really plan on doing is getting the Elgado Pro and using it to stream my ps4 and webcam. My question is, once I have the capture card will I be able to put out a high quality stream of my ps4 at 1080/60, or is my pc without a gpu not going to be able to handle a good stream? From what I had read this setup should be fine for streaming without a gpu, but now I am starting to worry. Or is the window capture combined with the fact that the game is already maxing the intergrated gpu out just killing me at the moment?

Thank you for your help!!!

---Joe

 

[FerretBomb]

OBS uses the GPU for scaling, compositing, color conversion, and other tasks. Normally this is handled in the card's VRAM, which is very fast and dedicated. An iGPU has to use system RAM which is significantly slower and shared.

You absolutely NEED a discrete GPU with hardware DX11 support (not just the drivers) to use OBS smoothly. Even a budget card will do, so long as it has the full DX11 hardware instruction set available.

 

[92hatchattack]

So, whats exactly would be a suitable budget card?

 

[Mario345]

OBS uses the GPU for scaling, compositing, color conversion, and other tasks. Normally this is handled in the card's VRAM, which is very fast and dedicated. An iGPU has to use system RAM which is significantly slower and shared.

You absolutely NEED a discrete GPU with hardware DX11 support (not just the drivers) to use OBS smoothly. Even a budget card will do, so long as it has the full DX11 hardware instruction set available.

not 100% i used to stream off an apu and it worked fine for games like ow csgo and emulations and other light games

 

[92hatchattack]

I cant even get my setup to window capture youtube at a smooth 720/30. What am I doing wrong? I thought this pc would be plenty powerful to handle simple streaming. Blah.

 

[SumDim]

You got a decent i7-7700 suitable for PC gaming and streaming.

Start off with a GTX 1050Ti. They go for around $150.
1050 vs 1050Ti is significant - over 25% performance difference for just $30 more.

 

[92hatchattack]

Hmmm. $150 is more than I wanted to spend for a temporary card. I'm starting to feel like I'm not ever going to end up with enough HP to put out a decent 1080/60 stream, which sucks because I was led to believe that this rig should have been plenty powerful enough without a gpu. (Not here, but from other sources on the web) Combine that with all the issues people generally have with capture cards and I'm feeling a bit anxious.

How is it that the PS Pro can do 1080/30 (and soon 1080/60) but I am having so much trouble with this PC? Oh well, I guess I have a lot more to learn.

 

[92hatchattack]

So, will I be guaranteed to be able to do good quality 1080/60 with a 1050 ti? I don't want to spend the money, but I will if I can be sure that I'll be able to have the quality stream that I want.

Internet speeds are good by the way. 100/35

 

[FerretBomb]

If you're going to YouTube, maybe.
1080@60 is ridiculously heavy, and unless you're a Twitch Partner, you won't have the realistic bitrates available on Twitch needed to drive it without looking like complete crap, and crippling your stream's growth. 1080@30 will run mostly-okay on 3500kbps, 60 means doubling that to 7000kbps which is above the Twitch recommended maximum; and for the normal quality-target of 0.07bpp density you're looking at closer to 10mbps. But the discussion about why chasing numbers is just harmful wankery is a different discussion.

If you're just capturing from the Elgato you can get a second or thirdhand GTX650Ti for about fifty bucks, which will work much better than the iGPU. Just something not-mobile and preferably not absolute bottom-end. There's a flood of secondhand GTX 950s and 960s out there from people upgrading to the 10-series that still work just fine, and can be had for pennies on the dollar, if you plan to also game/stream from the same PC.

Also, I wouldn't take advice from anyone who 'streamed fine' from an APU. Calling them 'anemic' is being very generous. They're a complete dumpster-fire when it comes to streaming.

 

[Banyarola]

So, will I be guaranteed to be able to do good quality 1080/60 with a 1050 ti? I don't want to spend the money, but I will if I can be sure that I'll be able to have the quality stream that I want.

Internet speeds are good by the way. 100/35

Buy it on Amazon and if it's not right for you then return it...

 

[92hatchattack]

Here's the dumb question of the day for you all....why do most gamers prefer to stream to twitch instead of YouTube?

And does anyone know how the consoles are able to stream so easily?

 

[Banyarola]

I stream to YT..I'm not a gamer...I stream a webcam and a weather station..
I can also stream to Twitch but i don't..I'm happy with YT and they also record my stream if I want to use it for something else.

 

[FerretBomb]

Here's the dumb question of the day for you all....why do most gamers prefer to stream to twitch instead of YouTube?

And does anyone know how the consoles are able to stream so easily?

Because Twitch's stock in trade is gaming livestreams. They're over-diversifying at this point and trying to catch all the fish, but the net is starting to get spread too wide and at risk of becoming another generic failed also-ran like JustinTV was.
YouTubeGaming can't compete due to an absolutely abysmal launch and poor interactivity and support.

Consoles can do it because they use crap-quality hardware encoding and higher than necessary bitrates to compensate. With software x264, you can use less bitrate and better compression, meaning that people on weaker connections will be able to watch your stream more smoothly, and/or the person's whole connection won't be hogged by your stream so they have a higher chance of leaving you on for background noise while they do other things.

Running at 6000+kbps is a total sucker's move on Twitch (and I'd say elsewhere, but Twitch is the only one who has put out data). It excludes viewers, makes your stream less accessible, and will as a result drop your chances of retention like a rock. The fact that significantly fewer than 10% of your viewership will have you fullscreened and notice at all makes the massive hit that 1080@60 bitrates demand a much more bitter sting.

Hardware NVENC/QSV/AMF and the consoles' built-in streaming are like the cheapest, crappiest trench junk food you can get. It will get you fed, but not well. Software x264 is like a home-cooked meal. You may not get ten pounds of it, but you'll enjoy the experience MUCH more.

 

[92hatchattack]

^^^That was a great explanation! Thank you!

Ok, new development. So today I tried to play around again with doing a simple window capture of some youtube videos, THIS TIME WITHOUT MY WEB CAM. To my surprise the stream ran fine. 1080p/30 without any issues. No skipped frames in obs or on the stream...

So was my web cam the culprit? Full disclosure, the web cam I was using was about 10 years old almost. Its a piece of crap but the only thing laying around. Couls this old web cam have been trashing the stream? Will a new web cam bog down my stream just as bad? Are there setting that can be adjusted so the webcam doesnt destroy the stream?

 

[GomezKS]

This thread was very helpful and answered alot of questions. Need a GPU, etc.

I’d like to add a question to this discussion, if anyone else is interested.
So, If I had an Intel i7 9th gen processor with 8 GB of DDR4 2666 MHz Ram and a 10 series or 16 series GPU With 4 or 6 GB of Ram. Will I expect exceptional live streaming results? I am not streaming any games. Just church services. Where should I place my investment? More Ram or PSU/GPU combination?

Kind Regards,
GomezKS

 

[Tomasz Góral]

You no need more investment, of course depends on your camera configuration.