How To Use 2 Computers For Gaming And.streaming

Lian Li Lancool 205 Source: Windows Primal

Streaming PC games to Twitch, YouTube, or any of the other popular services out there is a pretty intensive process. It's a lot of strain to put on a single PC, playing a game while also encoding your stream and uploading that to the internet. If you take a specially beastly rig, say with one of the newer AMD or Intel Farthermost processors or an NVIDIA RTX graphics menu, yous can probably go away with information technology, but in most cases, serious PC streamers are using a secondary machine. Hither's how to set up a two-PC stream the easy mode.

What type of PC you lot need to stream from

The beauty of a dual-PC streaming setup is that each machine has its own dedicated task, thereby ensuring maximum operation from each. It also means y'all don't need an absolute monster PC to run your stream since that's essentially all that machine will be doing.

If you lot're building a dedicated machine, you tin certainly get by with any decent quad-core CPU. But, probably the best pick is an AMD Ryzen 5, with 6 cores and 12 threads affording enough of operation and headroom while also maintaining an attractive cost.

If yous're going with an AMD Ryzen CPU, you will, of course, need a graphics card lest you never run into the user interface of your PC, but unless you intend to encode with the GPU, information technology actually doesn't matter what you apply. If y'all become for one of the newer, 5000-series Ryzen APUs, you won't need a graphics carte du jour, and you should notwithstanding be able to encode a decent-looking stream.

If yous do get with a graphics carte du jour in your stream PC, then going for an NVIDIA RTX is a winner. If you're using OBS to stream, equally yous quite possibly are, it has support built in for the latest NVENC encoder. Using NVENC is an extremely efficient way of encoding video as it uses dedicated hardware on the GPU so it has much lower impact on overall system resources than encoding using the CPU.

How to gear up up the hardware for a dual-PC stream

Live Gamer Bolt Source: Windows Primal

Getting a dual-PC stream set up comes in 2 parts. The first is setting upwardly the hardware so your stream PC can collect the video and audio output from your gaming PC. To make life as piece of cake equally possible, if you desire multiple displays set up to brandish things like your streaming dashboard or social media feeds.

For this, you'll need your two PCs, a capture card, and an HDMI cablevision.

Connect the capture card to the stream PC using its supplied USB cablevision.
Plug ane end of the HDMI cable into an HDMI output on your gaming PC'southward graphics card.
Connect the other finish of the HDMI cable into the input on your capture card.

There's no requirement to and so hook up the output on the capture card to your PC monitor as all you want is the feed going into the capture carte for your PC to interpret.

How to fix the software for a dual-PC stream

Setting upward the residue of the stream is washed in software on both PCs. Firstly, yous'll demand to ensure your gaming PC sends video and sound to your stream PC while ensuring yous can still hear and control game audio on your gaming PC. The second stage is and then to ready your streaming PC to circulate to your called service.

The first stride is to ensure you lot transport video to the capture card from your gaming PC.

Correct-click on the desktop and select display settings.
If you just have one monitor, under multiple displays select the option to duplicate.
If you accept multiple monitors, under multiple displays, select the selection to indistinguishable on x and y where x is the monitor y'all wish to play games on, and y is the output to your capture card.

In your streaming software at present on your stream PC, yous should see a indistinguishable of your primary gaming PC monitor.

The side by side step is to ensure you're sending audio to that PC too every bit being able to hear it yourself on your gaming PC. For that, nosotros're going to use Voicemeeter Banana. Our full guide goes into more detail on what you can do with Voicemeeter, but on your gaming PC, it's only function is to split the audio between your headset and the other PC. In one case yous've downloaded and installed it, hither's what to exercise.

For hardware out A1, select your capture card output, which should be listed from your graphics carte du jour.
For hardware out A2, select your gaming headset output.

If you don't see the pick to ship audio to your capture card over HDMI from Voicemeeter you may need an boosted 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable, which you would need to run from the headphone output on the back of your gaming PC into the line-in jack on your gaming PC. The only difference hither is that you'll then need to add this as an audio source in your streaming software, whereas using HDMI means it'll be pulled in through the capture card.

Setting up your stream PC

OBS Studio Source: Windows Fundamental

On your gaming PC, all you lot need to do is follow the steps in a higher place. The only other matter you may want on your gaming PC is Discord/TeamSpeak/Skype or whatsoever your voice chat service of selection is. Everything else should live on your stream PC, be that bots, background music, everything.

Setting up the secondary PC to stream is a elementary enough process. Whether it's Streamlabs OBS, OBS Studio or XSplit, you lot'll be up and running in no time. The essentials are adding your capture menu every bit a video capture device, ensuring the audio is coming through either through that same video capture or a secondary 3.5mm connexion and that your credentials for your streaming service are set upwards.

From there, the rest is down to you. Deciding on resolution and bitrate is partly based on your internet upload speed. All the same, with a decent CPU or graphics card, you lot can be sure that whatever yous get for, it'due south more than capable of meeting the demand.

Information technology'south a skillful thought to do a couple of examination recordings earlier going alive to make certain everything is gear up upward correctly between the ii PCs, just bold you followed the steps higher up, you should be ready to hit that go live button.

Our top equipment picks

If you're edifice a second PC to employ purely for streaming, there are a couple of of import items that you need to get correct. The CPU and the capture card are essential, and for those, we turn to AMD and AVerMedia.

The beating middle

AMD Ryzen 5

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU

Six cores and 12 threads brand it a beast for encoding

AMD's latest 7nm Ryzen v is an excellent CPU for encoding a stream with six cores to easily handle the intensive workload without the demand to dial down your settings.

Great capture bill of fare

AVerMedia Live Gamer ULTRA capture card

A beast of an external capture carte

This capture card tin handle 4K video, HDR, and high frame rate passthrough, all over a USB connection.

Additional equipment

It's essential to accept the right tools for the job, and any PC and capture menu you end up with, you'll need to brand sure you have these on hand.

AmazonBasics HDMI cablevision ($8 at Amazon)

Y'all'll only need the one, but you'll need to get your gaming PC video into the capture card, then it's essential to have around.

Voicemeeter Assistant (Free at VBAudio)

An amazingly powerful awarding that truly allows you lot to control your audio devices with ease on Windows 10.

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Richard Devine

Richard Devine is an Editor at Windows Central. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been plant on Android Central and iMore likewise as Windows Central. Currently you'll find him covering all manner of PC hardware and gaming, and you tin follow him on Twitter and Instagram.