Question / Help Which SFF-GPU for 1080p/60fps

[kaoz]

Hey everyone!

I recently bought a new SFF-PC (Small Form Factor) as a Streaming PC. After finding out that it will be impossible to stream from that machine in 1080p/60fps i'm thinking of upgrading it with a new gpu. I'm thinking about a GTX 1650 but any advice is welcome because i don't really know if that will be enough with my setup. The only important thing is that it has to be a SFF-Card to fit into my HP EliteDesk 800 G1 and it shouldn't be an exaggerated solution. But maybe some of you experts will suggest something else?

Specs are:
i5-4690 @ 3.50 GHz
16 GB RAM
Intel HD 4600
Windows 10 Pro
Elgato HD 60 Pro

Gaming PC is extending to the capture card with an obs projector.

Actually i'm suprised that i am not able to handle 1080p/60fps. Streaming is only stable at either 720p/60fps or 1080p/30fps. Considering that i bought the machine to stream and record at the same time you can imagine that i am disappointed. I had some other problems before but updating the drivers fixed some of them though.

My Streaming Settings are:
Encoder: QSV
Balanced
Profile: Main
Keyframe Interval: 2
Async Depth: 4
Bitrate: 6000 (CBR)

Software (x264) is even worse.

Thanks for helping me out!

 

[koala]

Probably, the iGPU isn't powerful enough to composite the video. You didn't post a log, but I assume it will show rendering lag. So it is required to upgrade the GPU by addin an external GPU.

The CPU of that machine isn't powerful enough to support x264 with higher quality presets, so you probably have to resort to hardware encoding. In this case, get a GPU with a hardware encoder that gives the best quality possible. Currently, this is nvenc on the new Turing Nvidia cards, which produce a quality between fast and medium preset of x264. A quality level that can only be achieved with x264 with somewhat high end CPUs.

Unfortunately, the GTX 1650 you mentioned is the only Turing GPU that has a Volta Nvenc circuit, so it is the least suited GPU of the current Nvidia cards. The cheapest Nvidia card with the new Turing Nvenc circuit is a GTX 1660.

In my opinion, you didn't design your streaming PC properly.
A streaming PC needs enough GPU power to composite the video, but not more. This means a midrange external GPU. Neither an iGPU (not powerful enough), nor an expensive high-end gaming GPU (casting pearls before swine).
And a streaming PC does nothing else than streaming, so the only task of the CPU is to run the streaming client (OBS). It can dedicate all its power to encoding, so it is possible to use x264 with fast or medium preset for best quality - usually better than a hardware encoder.

Cheaper sufficient GPUs are the older GTX10x0 GPUs, such like a GTX 1050. Probably also some AMD CPU, but I'm biased here: I don't like AMD GPU's and would never use one. Perhaps someone else has a recommendation.

Cheaper sufficient CPUs are the better Ryzen AMD CPUs. They have more power than Intel CPUs for the same price, and their lower single thread performance that make them still not so good for gaming is irelevant for video processing and encoding.

What do you mean with "Gaming PC is extending to the capture card with an obs projector."? Are you running OBS not only on the streaming PC but also on the gaming PC? Why this? You are combining the worst of both: expensive 2nd PC for streaming and additional system load on the gaming PC. In case you intend to only stream PC games, not a console, the best use of resources is to use a 1-PC-setup and stream directly from it. With a current Nvidia Turing GPU, the nvenc encoder gives best performance and quality while least system load. OBS with such a setup is almost as invisible as Shadowplay.

 

[kaoz]

Thanks for the response! Very useful informations!

Probably, the iGPU isn't powerful enough to composite the video. You didn't post a log, but I assume it will show rendering lag. So it is required to upgrade the GPU by addin an external GPU.
(...)
In my opinion, you didn't design your streaming PC properly.

Yeah i pretty much tested everything and experienced every kind of problem. I know that my problem lies in the unsufficient power of the pc so posting a log at the moment would be unnecessary.

And a streaming PC does nothing else than streaming, so the only task of the CPU is to run the streaming client (OBS). It can dedicate all its power to encoding, so it is possible to use x264 with fast or medium preset for best quality - usually better than a hardware encoder.

What if i want to stream on that machine and watch something else or use a browser? Currently i am getting frame drops if i even have the preview window open. I want to keep the PC so x264 is no option anymore. Do you think with a GTX 1660 it would be possible to do some other stuff while streaming? Looking something up on YouTube for example?

What do you mean with "Gaming PC is extending to the capture card with an obs projector."? Are you running OBS not only on the streaming PC but also on the gaming PC? Why this? You are combining the worst of both: expensive 2nd PC for streaming and additional system load on the gaming PC. In case you intend to only stream PC games, not a console, the best use of resources is to use a 1-PC-setup and stream directly from it. With a current Nvidia Turing GPU, the nvenc encoder gives best performance and quality while least system load. OBS with such a setup is almost as invisible as Shadowplay.

I am only using OBS on the gaming pc to open a preview / fullscreen projector on the capture card. CPU usage is below 1%. The reason why i am doing this is because of tearing. The other reason is that i have a 240hz display and cloning would throttle that display down to 60hz.

I want to have a second pc for streaming because i want to do editing and other stuff on that machine while having minimum load on the gaming pc. I also plan to capture consoles in future but that is no priority at the moment.

So from what you are saying the only option for me is getting a GTX 1660. The other cards are either non-Turing or there are no SFFs available.

 

[koala]

Sorry, but I'm unable to help further. I don't know existing best practice for keeping ultra high fps on the gaming PC and streaming with lower fps in a 2-pc setup. I only know best practice for gaming and streaming on a single PC.

Your idea of using OBS to output a fps-decoupled video to a capture card is interesting, but I don't think this is best practice. Up to now and to my knowledge, best practice was to either obtain a capture card that is able to capture with the native monitor fps, or using OBS on the gaming machine directly to stream instead of just using it to copy video frames. In case you have a Turing-based Nvidia GPU in your gaming PC and use nvenc, you will not increase system or GPU load much. Honestly, I don't see the use of a dedicated streaming PC here.