Question / Help What is the BEST Capture Card for 2PC and OBS?

[Guilherme Hoffmann]

I need an advice on a real professional capture card to dual PC capturing/streaming in OBS.
I have 2 Avermedia cards and 1 Elgato, and they have serious problems.

Elgato HD60 won't output the same picture quality in OBS compared to its own software (Game Capture HD). It's something related to Directshow filters. This card has potential to output 1080p60 at 40 Mbps but in OBS it's capped to something that looks like 8 Mbps for some reason. I mean, the preview itself has bad quality, even before encoding.

Avermedia cards (Extremecap U3 and Live Gamer Extreme) have bad sharpness and colors and sometimes drop from 60 to 30 fps with no reason - they stay there for 2 minutes and go back to 60.

Do you have any recommendation for a card that works flawlessly in OBS for dual PC? No worry for prices. I've had enough of these cheap gaming products.

 

[R1CH]

Magewell are generally regarded as a bit higher end than Elgato / Avermedia cards, but they have a price to match. Take a look at these for example: https://www.amazon.com/Magewell-Capture-HDMI-Video-Card/dp/B019M5IB2C or https://www.amazon.com/Magewell-Capture-HDMI-Video-Card/dp/B01LWVJ152

 

[sam686]

Elgato HD60

Avoid USB 2.0 capture devices for anything over 480p 30fps, they require heavy compression just to fit a slow USB 2.0 speed, which may also add delay and use more CPU usage.

USB 3.0 and PCI-E 2.0 x1 can capture 1920x1080 60fps (YUY2 = 16 bits per pixel) at 1990 Mbps (MegaBits per second), but older AverMedia capture cards is only PCI-E 1.1 that limit 1080p to only 30 fps.

 

[Guilherme Hoffmann]

Thanks for the input. I heard about Magewell cards, they do look more consistent. To be honest I'd like to try the Elgato HD60 Pro first tho. If anyone here has this card and can tell me about the quality in OBS compared to the native software that would be great.

 

[Adrian Schofield]

I have an HD 60 pro which I use with OBS, you can check out the results at Twitch and YouTube, links should be in my signature.

 

[Guilherme Hoffmann]

I have an HD 60 pro which I use with OBS, you can check out the results at Twitch and YouTube, links should be in my signature.

I appreciate your answer but Twitch and Youtube have heavily compressed image. Can you tell me if you see a difference between the preview in Elgato native software and OBS?

 

[JohnnyOmaha]

I'm using the Elgato 4k60 Pro and it's legit. Was having problems with native monitor resolution (1440) and having to downscale to 1080 and the 4k60 Pro solved all my issues and produces a beautiful image because I'm getting some extra pixels to downscale from 1440 to 1080 all at 60fps.

 

[Guilherme Hoffmann]

I'm using the Elgato 4k60 Pro and it's legit. Was having problems with native monitor resolution (1440) and having to downscale to 1080 and the 4k60 Pro solved all my issues and produces a beautiful image because I'm getting some extra pixels to downscale from 1440 to 1080 all at 60fps.

I bought a 1440p monitor last year, it's very nice for playing and editing but it only brought me trouble for recording and streaming. I'd gladly go back to 1080p to avoid the extra hassle.

 

[Raul]

I need an advice on a real professional capture card to dual PC capturing/streaming in OBS.
I have 2 Avermedia cards and 1 Elgato, and they have serious problems.

For fuk sake man... we have exactly the same scenario. Maybe we can share notes by email