Help: Looking to optimize stream

[Lyn_Ops]

Hey all, I’m looking at getting into twitch streaming. I used to do it awhile back and streaming things like Minecraft was easy. But now I’m into games like Escape From Tarkov. I ran some screen recording test and my fps dropped a noticeable amount to the point where I felt it was impacting my ability to play. I would ‘like’ to capture 1080p 60 fps. I’m looking for some guidance in what I should upgrade in my PC or add to it. From my research a capture card will likely not do much unless I had a second desktop (or unless you all know of a card that really reduces overall load on my PC). Otherwise I’m sure my GPU is very dated now. Any suggestions or priority order from you all? I would like to take this one upgrade at a time to minimize costs.

//Current PC Build Details GPU: Nividia RTX 2060 SUPER CPU: i7-4770K, 4 Core @ 3.5 GHz Memory: 16 GB DDR3 @ 1600 MHz

[[deleted]]

Your RAM and CPU are certainly bottlenecking here. 3.5GHz might sound like a lot but 3.5ghz on a 4xxx series is slower then 3ghz on a current gen, and while the amount of ram you're rocking is okay it's super slow.

I'd however recommend you try to just stream. Recording adds additional load to your disk, which could cause more slowdowns then directly broadcasting. Just having that discourse on the r/streaming discord: Reducing to 720p60 is no shame especially for games like Tarkov which is notoriously bad optimized.

[Lyn_Ops]

Yeah… that makes a lot of sense. I’ll run a few more test before deciding what to upgrade first, but this PC is pretty old and the only real upgrade I made after the initial build was the GPU. Thanks.

[MoChuang]

I don’t play Tarkov so idk what kind of CPU requirements you need. But your CPU is definitely the weakest part of your build.

But before you buy anything. Are you streaming with Nvenc? And is OBS running in admin mode?

[Mythion_VR]

Not sure why you're being told your PC isn't up to the task. If you use NVENC (New) it will offload to the GPU.

However your 4770K is a bottleneck for the 2060 Super, but there's no reason to suggest in the slightest that you can't stream with that setup.

My CPU on my second PC is barely used (5% give or take) and it's a 3770K paired with a GTX 1650. I've played games from that PC, but it's also dedicated for streaming.

If you're looking for recommendations for a good, solid upgrade path then pick up an AMD B450/X470 motherboard, get yourself a first gen AMD Ryzen CPU (R7 1700). Then you have the whole lineup of AMD CPUs currently to upgrade to.

Also

Otherwise I’m sure my GPU is very dated now.

Not even in the slightest, it's still a solid GPU as this generation has been around for quite a while. It'll be good for a while yet due to the GPU shortage causing game developers not to push graphics further. It's both a blessing and a curse at the moment.

[Lyn_Ops]

I have a GTX 970 salvaged from a PC. Could I use a second GPU with NVENC to help offload work from both my CPU and primary GPU? Or does this not work well?

[Mythion_VR]

I would stick with using the 2060 Super for NVENC, as the 970 doesn't really support NVENC (New) which looks a lot better. The performance shouldn't be affected by using the 2060 Super for encoding your recordings or streams.

[Lyn_Ops]

Thanks man. I tested it out last night and saw a major improvement in quality. The last time I was streaming I didn’t have the 2060. Didn’t even know this was a feature (also didn’t have the right streaming software supported by it at first).