Dual PC no capture card streaming setup

sirjoshuaj1

Honorable
Aug 25, 2015
7
0
10,510
Hi, I am trying to stream Battlefield 4 via twitch and I am having some issues.

Gaming PC: Motherboard: MSI H87m-G43
CPU: i7 4770 stock
RAM: 16 gb some random DDR3 RAM
OS: Windows 10 Home x64
GPU: AMD r9 290


Streaming Laptop: Dell L702x
CPU: i7 2670QM @ 2.20 ghz
RAM: 8GB
OS: Windows 10 Enterprise x64
GPU: Nvidia gtx 555m

Internet: 200 mbit/s down
5 mbit/s up

My goal is to stream BF4 to twitch at 720p preferably 60 fps while maintaining a minimum of 144 FPS on my gaming pc. When I play BF4 (all settings low, mesh quality on ultra) on my gaming pc without trying to stream, I get constant 144 FPS no matter what. However no combination of settings in OBS will allow me to stream at 720p (even @30 fps) without my ingame fps dipping way below 144.

I recently found a guide which explained how to set up a dual pc streaming setup without a capture card. The way it works is that you run OBS on your gaming pc and stream your game at a very high bitrate/resolution/fps (50 mb/s) over your home network - such that your gaming pc's CPU doesnt do much encoding - to your streaming pc which is running an NGINX server and VLC. You then open a second instance of OBS on the streaming pc, and stream the VLC window to twitch with the proper settings (720p 60 fps 3,500 kb's upload, etc.)

This has so far produced the best results for me, however, my ingame FPS still drops from 144 and begins to fluctuate between 120-144. I have tried running x264 and Quicksync; quicksync produces by far the better results.

When I am not streaming BF4 accounts for about 50-60% of total CPU usage, and other applications for another 10% total.While I am streaming (from gaming pc to streaming laptop) OBS adds another 5% -10% maximum. My cores are all unparked. I dont understand how come when I start obs streaming on my gaming pc my ingame FPS drops. My total CPU usage is still well under 80% and no other components (RAM/HDD/SSD etc) are being excessively used.

What OBS settings should I be using on my gaming pc to minimize encoding/CPU usage, or am I doing something else wrong?
 
That's not how it works. ANY screen capture without external capture will reduce framerates since the game is no longer exclusively handling the GPU. If you must have streaming and 144Hz (completely pointless to cry about a tiny drop if you are still getting >100Hz), get an external capture card CONNECTED TO THE SECOND DEVICE!