How did you pay for this?
When I first started streaming, I already had the Gaming PC setup built, and I used a 1PC setup for a couple years. Once I became a Twitch Partner, I started saving the money from the stream and put it towards a second computer. Once I had saved up enough money, I cut a deal with my stream. I said that I would pay for half of the Streaming PC and would use their money to pay for the other half. After the streaming PC was built, I continued using revenues from the stream to "break even" and pay my half off.

Final Thoughts
Hope this helps. The biggest issue that people run into is screen tearing. Capture cards are notorious for screen tearing issues, and I'd encourage you to do some proper research into this topic to figure out which cards are good and which cards aren't good. Note that if your Streaming PC is not strong enough, you may run into screen tearing issues (this is why my x264 CPU Preset is at "Faster" and not at "Slow"; if I overclocked my PC further, I think that I could achieve a slower preset).

I want to thank the people from the Open Broadcaster Software community for their help and education. I wouldn't have been able to figure this out on my own. I'd specifically like to thank Dodgepong, Mrasmus, R1CH, Sapiens, and ths|jack0r.

If you need any help at all, go to those guys. Seriously. They're the best.

https://obsproject.com/forum/
#Obsproject on QuakeNet IRC

Slin, if you have a capture card around, if you could make a video or something describing this and showing how to set it up rather than just explaining why its good and not showing how to really utilize it besides settings. Thanks man! c:

when will slin be getting his twitch badge?

i remember reading a similar guide by sp00ky, but this is a lot easier to read

thanks slin!

I'm not sure what you're asking for here, but I did my best to make a video talking about my setup:

http://youtu.be/jRy71pjGv_0?list=PLQ-oNjz9WriOEslp-QzLIJRHmbF2ma6iY

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

I've been thinking about streaming and this really does help out on how to set everything up.

I'd never even considered this as a possiblity, thanks for this guide, it looks like it'd help quite a lot of people!

Also, would I be right to assume the specs from the Streaming computer wouldn't need to be *too* high, as it doesn't need to render things? I have a laptop that would run TF2 at 10-30 fps, but now I'm wondering if it could work for this purpose.

Just a few questions.
Are you playing TF2 on 1280*720?
Are you sure using the 3930K for playing and the 4790K for streaming is the best setup? I'd say the 4790K should be able to handle TF2 just fine, depending on how well TF2 deals with 12 threads maybe even better than the 3930K. I'm not sure how well x264/OBS can take advantage of AVX2 either. Basically assuming perfect optimization and utilization your setup would be the correct way, but afaik there's a lot of limitations for 256-bit integer usage in x264 and TF2 doesn't even know what perfect means.
Is the 4790K running at 4.0GHz ignoring turbo boost or "fixed"? Either way you should be using 4.4GHz "fixed", it's so easy I wouldn't even count it as overclocking and should get you a few percent more power.

Do you use a 120/144hz screen for your primary monitor?

Is the monitor showing TF2 cloned with the HDMI output that connects to the capture card?

If so, can you run the screen at 120/144hz and the HDMI out at 60hz?

NvENC makes it waaaaaay easier to stream as well.
I can stream with the blu ray preset at 45fps 720p (3570k gtx770) with tf2 at1920x1080 120hz dx9 on my gaming monitor, foobar, browser, mumble, irc, on my 2nd monitor @1440p 85hz.

http://youtu.be/UF4_u-Jhptg?t=3m13s

this video shows what the presets look like.

I had so much trouble with that same capture card. Audio was very quiet and buzzy. The monitor clone method only works (single pc) if both monitors are the same refresh rate. Tricking it into outputting 120hz to a 60hz monitor is difficult, and would lead to it switching back to 60hz at seemingly random. I had tried it with a 2nd pc and had similar odd audio issues. nvenc saved the day and took away that "my 120hz feels like 60hz when i stream" issue.

I like the idea of having two pc's for streaming, not having to alt tab when you want to change music etc is very convenient, and thinks like http://synergy-project.org/ keep you from having to have 2 mice/2 keyboards.

Kudos to you for learning how to set it up, and putting together the post. It's a lot of trial and error, and can be very frustrating.

I'm glad to see that people are at least a little interested in this topic.

You really don't want to be doing this with a laptop. In my opinion, go big or go home -- you're better off buying an i7 and doing a 1 PC setup until you can get a second.

1. I'm playing at 1920x1080 on my Gaming PC.
2. You want the stronger computer to run the game up until the point where you don't notice a difference. At that point, it switches and you want the stronger computer to run the stream. So it really doesn't matter to me which setup I use to play TF2; an i7 is more than enough to play the game without noticing any performance issues. So as long as I'm using the more powerful setup to stream, then I'm doing it in the most effective way possible.

Hey, if you can get away with doing a 1 PC setup and you don't notice or don't care about any performance hit, then more power to you. Personally, I've always encountered issues with a 1 PC setup on certain games such as TF2, DayZ, Battlefield 4, and more; it really depends on your preference. It might not be a necessity for a game like TF2 for everyone, but almost every single major streamer in the BF4 community uses 2 PCs. People who play TF2 might want something like this as well; I know that it's helped me out a lot. I used to hate streaming ESEA matches for this very reason, and once I set up a second PC I was able to comfortably stream my matches in both 6v6 and highlander.

You also made a reference to production streams for major events, and I still feel that this kind of setup still helps out in that arena as well. Nothing beats the quality of game capture (I heard there was a capture card that could match it but it's way too expensive for our needs) and that's fine. When you're in production, you're not playing the game so even if TF2 is running at 100 FPS, you probably don't care.

1. My main monitor on my gaming PC for TF2 is a 144hz. The monitors on either side are 120hz, and the one on the far left is 75hz.

2. It is cloned, and I should have explained that in the guide. http://i.imgur.com/du9OGGd.png
The capture card will show up as a 3rd monitor on your Gaming PC (so you have Monitor #1 144hz, "Monitor #2" Capture Card, and Monitor #3 120hz). Duplicate the display on 1 and 2 as shown in the screenshot, and this will get the image from your Gaming PC GPU to your capture card.

3. I can't run the screen at 144hz and the HDMI out at 60. I heard that there was a way to mess with the Nvidia control panel to get that to happen, but I wasn't able to figure it out. I know that you likely want to get it to 60hz to reduce tearing, am I correct?

I dunno, so what refresh rate is that primary monitor setup as? It sounds like it's running at 60hz.

I really like the concept of using a second PC to stream because it does fix the problem of input lag and it does improve your framerate (your CPU can scale to higher clock speeds if less cores are in use).

So, my overall question is, does this set up allow you to play tf2 on your 144hz screen at 144hz?

Yes. I play at 144hz. All of my monitors are at the refresh rates that I mentioned above (144, 120, 120, 75).

Cool, well it sounds like your cloned screen is running 144hz through dvi and 60hz through HDMI.

I was more looking like, how to set it up, but its cool I found a guide online

Quick question, I use a USB Mic, would I use a splitter to have my microphone go into both OBS and Ingame, also, would this work with like a Happauge,

1. Software vs hardware downsampling (OBS vs capture card)? I'm always assuming that capture cards are shit so downsampling in OBS with a good filter might look better.
2. You either didn't read the whole paragraph or missed the point. That's exactly what I said. Except that I think the 3930K would be more powerful for streaming. On top of that the 4790K might run TF2 better. So you'd be doing it the least effective way right now if I'm right.

I didn't want to be as blunt as dashner before knowing all the facts, but it really seems you just got carried away.
It's a colossal waste of money. I have streamed 1080p 60fps. On an i7-4770K. I just tested it again on an 4790K. 720p 60fps on faster no problem, only for 1080p 60fps I have to use veryfast.

I use a USB mic as well. I plug my mic into the Gaming PC. I then set the microphone as my default recording device in my volume mixer. I then select the device (the capture card, i.e. AVERMEDIA HD-4 as shown here: http://puu.sh/f0zJP/3e3c89af61.png ) and then I can use the microphone slider to adjust the output volume to my Streaming PC (shown here: http://puu.sh/f0zPb/7b19fc8fd2.png ). By doing it this way, I can control my stream microphone volume independently from my Mumble or game microphone volume.

1. I tried doing it that way and ran into major screen tearing issues. It might work better to downscale using OBS for some users.

2. To be totally honest, it seems to me that I do not understand computers as well as you do, and I was simply trying to come up with an answer to what I thought was a question in layman's terms. I only made the processor selection that I currently have because of the motherboards that I'm using. You may be right that there is a more efficient way to do it, but I built these computers 12 months apart and I wasn't going to swap a bunch of parts out.

3. There's just certain games that you can't stream without taking a hit. Like I said, if you're able or willing to do a 1 PC setup and stream happily, then more power to you. If you're considering using 2 PCs, you can read this guide and learn more about a way that another broadcaster did it.

I thought about it some more and I know what you're saying. Many people out there will read this thread and ask themselves if they seriously need to invest in a second computer. For amateur broadcasters like myself (people who don't do this for a living), it's difficult to justify spending this kind of money. All of the money that I've spent on computers and internet quality has come from my Twitch Partnership, and I know that a lot of other broadcasters out there who are just starting out don't have that luxury.

Do what I did. Start out with 1 PC, and then later on you can figure out if you need a second one or not. For me, I felt like I wanted to do everything that I could to make my stream as good as possible for the people who support it. I did as much research as I could with my limited knowledge, and I came up with a solution to these performance issues that I was having.

Knowing what I know now, would I do it again? Heck yeah. Before, I could tell the difference between when I was streaming and when I wasn't, even if it was a relatively small difference compared to what many broadcasters who don't have an i7 feel when they stream. With this setup, I don't even notice that I'm streaming, and I actually play TF2 in windowed no-border these days to make alt tabbing and showings things on stream easier.

It all comes down to your finances and what you feel comfortable with. Don't go out there and blow a ton of money on expensive, beastly computers before you know whether or not you even like broadcasting. For me, I streamed for over 2 years as a partnered Twitch broadcaster before deciding to build my second computer, and I like to think that I was fairly consistent with streaming throughout that time. Others may decide to upgrade sooner, while some may never upgrade at all.

My recommendation to other broadcasters would be to do as much research as possible, talk to as many people as possible, and get as many opinions as possible. Then do what's best for you and use the information that you have to make the best decision that you can. That's all you can hope for.

You missed the point again. I'm trying to suggest swapping the streaming and gaming computer around.

The most effective setup would probably be

My point is you said

but you're using the less powerful setup to stream.

oh! maybe I'll give that a shot then thanks. gotta do some file transferring but could be worth it. how much of a boost do you think I'd get?

This really is the key. Lots of people want to stream, but are not willing to accept the lag that it entails.

There are methods that reduce the streaming lag, but I don't know of any that are completely effective in removing it.

A streaming computer with a capture card probably would work perfectly with a cheap AMD CPU and built in graphics.

You should see a slight boost by using the 4790k CPU system to play TF2, it should be in line with the single threaded performance improvements in haswell vs ivy bridge. Some benchmarks are here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/552?vs=1260

Best case around 50% more power for the stream, 20% for TF2.

Would it be possible to see an updated list of what are currently the best/good/low tier of streaming OBS specs? And for streaming or local recording?

Thanks!

can someone help a noob streamer out how to help me set up with a laptop as the streaming pc (my laptop is pretty brand new). i just want to learn any possible capture cards i can use if this were to be done with a laptop

tbh im not looking to do a 720p stream. a ggglygy-tier stream is good enough for me

ill give a free $5 game from steam to whoever helps me out with this shit

pm me details