Dedicated PC for gaming to your left, loyal and sturdy PC for streaming to your right—a dual setup is optimal when you want the best of both worlds. But what pushes your dual PC setup to its maximum potential when you’re trying to kick your content game up a notch?
Lessen the load: No longer do you have to fear overburdening your single PC with a vast array of programs and games vying for top priority. With a dual PC set up, one PC can be dedicated solely to gaming, while the other PC can be used specifically for running and maintaining stream-related programs, such as OBS. In splitting the workload between two different PCs, you (and your viewers) get to enjoy a stream with gameplay that’s smoother and better quality. It’s a win-win!
Eliminate the risk of downtime: A lingering (but all too real) fear when streaming is the sudden and unforeseen circumstances of crashes. Experiencing a hiccup in software or gaming on a single PC setup can often result in the stream crashing, which affects the momentum that you’ve built up with your viewers. A dual PC setup lowers that risk exponentially. Even if your game crashes or freezes, or if your entire computer decides to go haywire—your dedicated streaming PC will still be going strong, allowing you to keep up the engagement with your audience.
The price is right: A dual PC setup can sound expensive (it IS two computers), but depending on the specifications of your hardware, it can be surprisingly more affordable than a beefy single PC setup! For those with an older setup that’s still usable, a simple upgrade in a few components will allow it to function as your dedicated streaming PC. Place a larger emphasis in researching the ideal CPU upgrade for your streaming PC, and then focus on finding a higher end graphics card for your gaming PC. With careful research, solidifying your own dual PC setup isn’t as lavish as it looks!
When looking for the optimal capture card (hint: that’s us!) these are probably the most common terms to know and understand:
Refresh Rates: A measurement of how many times the image on a display is updated. Refresh rates are measured in Hertz (Hz), so a 60Hz display will render up to 60 frames per second (FPS). Higher refresh rates typically results in smoother, fluid gameplay that makes all the difference when playing high paced competitive games. Refresh rates don’t improve the quality of the image; however, it increases the rate in which the images on your screen gets updated, allowing players to react quicker or detect motions much easier—essential factors for FPS or MOBA games.
HD: Known as high definition, this refers to the display resolution for monitors. HD is typically measured at 1280 x 720 in dimension, but with modern standards rapidly evolving along with increased demands for sharper clarity, the common resolution for today’s laptops and PCs offer 1920 x 1080 as the standard resolution. 1080p is considered to be Full HD, but many gamers are beginning to explore higher resolutions, such as 1440p (aka: Quad HD) or 4K (aka: 2160p, or Ultra HD) for even sharper gameplay. Currently, AVerMedia’s capture cards support 144Hz and 240Hz, allowing you to play, stream, and record optimally.
Pass-Through: As the term implies, pass-through means that the source is passed unaltered to the receiver, without any sort of processing.
Preview latency: It might not always be about how fast your reaction time is, but how low your system’s latency is. A high frame rate combined with low latency can often mean gaining the competitive edge in a video game.
Through a test on input latency from HDMI to the actual preview software (OBS), results showed that the AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K had the lowest preview latency of any capture card, measuring at 36ms. Ultra low latency in this case, allows streamers to view and record gameplay with next to no delay—virtually, real time.
One thing is for certain: When it comes to latency, the lower the better. But for a visual example, check out this quick video:
Set it Up:
Got your setup ready? Or curious to see how the whole thing looks as a whole? We’ll walk you through our dual PC setup, featuring our very own AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K capture card:
4k is to go beyond:
A dual PC setup might look intimidating, but if you’re looking to step up the quality of your streams, it opens a whole new world of possibilities while streamlining everything to run as smoothly as possible. And if you’re still not convinced, check out these reviews on our 4K capture cards to see what all the hype is about:
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