Dual/Single recording/streaming setup - What are the overheads?
Good day/evening all,
Epos sent me here from twitter and so if I am not in the correct channel mods please just inform I will copy pasta to the correct channel.
So as the title states, the main intent of my questions are to understand (relatively, given every scenario is different), what the overheads would be in different setup configurations and essentially see how best to optimize the setups to get the most out of them. This isn't specifically targeted at streaming but using it as a general guide given it can be quite a taxing task on a machine. Taking into account Av1 is now properly on the rise and imagine it'll get some better support/implementation over 2024. Reason being is to free up my second PC to be purely a rendering machine, pulling files I need to from PC1. Internet is also strong enough to download/upload whatever I need to.
Question: Is it better to have a single/dual gpu system for streaming & recording a system, or is it still better to have a dual PC setup to not bog down the machine being recorded. Because from what I have researched having a dual gpu, single pc removes most of that overhead, at least in Av1.
PC 1:
I have about 8pcie lanes left over for a secondary gpu given my nvme config, which is the main factor in whether or not it will even be worth slotting a second one in, possibly re-configuring slightly to add a 10gb network card into this machine to direct connect to PC2
Aorus Master Z690
12900KF
64gb 5200mt/s cl40
4090
PC 2:
(There's obviously no hindering for pcie lanes on this platform, I'm only using 20 lanes currently)
Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI
Threadripper 3955WX
128gb 3200mt/s ecc
4090
TIA! If there's anything I left out let me know and I'll provide what I can (:
4 Replies
Well there is no universal "best" - but dual GPU won't free things up. Encoding takes up barely any resources, it's the scene compositing/rendering that competes with your game - and pushing your PC to do that on a second GPU is rough. Even on a Z690, you're most likely going to be dropping your 4090 to x8 to run dual GPUs, which will cause a bigger performance hit (most likely) than you're going to gain.
(This is always hard to tell, some people have immediate performance hit even w/o OBS open by doing dual GPU, some somehow never notice it.)
My vote is if you already have a second beastly PC like that, just roll capture into it and never worry about performance again
dual PC is a LOT more complicated, so it's hard to call it "best"
but it does take the raw performance/stability concerns away
*forgot to add the gpu I was thinking of adding was a Arc A380 6gb ITX, since it is x8 with no external power source, but it doesn't get around the pcie lane issue.
And for 1440p I've barely ever gone over 70% usage on GPU and 50-80% usage on CPU, but that's also resolution dependant and I often move to 2560x1440 for stretched res, not a factor I can really consider though as native is more intesive so better to just go off that.
And awesome thanks @//addie I thought it would just be better to do dual pc's as stutters are my biggest concern, nothing is more irritating than momentary stutters because 1% & 0.1% lows could be 50-100% lower with single setup. I am moving into video editing /3D modelling from 3D terrestrial scanning which will obviously come with recording on some projects etc so to cover the general basis streaming is a good enough reference given the processing power it requires.
nvm the a380 does require 1x8pin xD missed that. But much appreciated once again Addie, I know dual setups can be a bit complicated but the goal is overall efficiency. And I couldn't exactly tell if there was any significant updates outside of Av1 entering the chat over the last three years since your last video on single/dual setups.
The only encoding related task that will take away GPU resources from your game (Aside from compositing as Addie mentioned) are if you using Nvidia's P6 and P7 presets, which uses those extra resources to enhance the encoding quality. It's usually not worth doing especially with AV1 & HEVC being available for YT, and AV1 eventually coming to twitch
Like NVENC HEVC with like 1/2 the bitrate at preset P1 will generally look the same as NVENC H.264 with preset P7
Thanks @hunter_ap , currently waiting for new cases to arrive in my country so i can get this back into a case to get back up and running & will get testing