RATE/UPGRADE/CONSOLE STREAMING

[xFLYNNx]

Like a million times before you've heard, "I'm a complete noob", please have patience and let me know what info I need to provide to get the answer I'm looking for.

Back in 09 I had a Dell unit crap out on me, somehow I came across this board and figured I could build my own. You here helped me with the components and after 2-3 hours the build was done. No one was more astonished than I when she booted up and ran with no issues.

So now, 2 yrs later, I want to rate this build, how can I improve on it for the least amount of cash, say $200 more dollars or so.

I'm wanting to stream console gameplay at justin.tv via xplit with a hdpvr, edit videos via sony vegas 9 to upload on youtube.

I've got Fios, 30mb down and 25mb up. And here is the build I did in 09.


AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor HDX945WFGIBOX

GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

OCZ Gold AMD Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model OCZ3G1600LVAM4GK.

OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

HEC 6T Series 6T10BB Black 0.7mm SECC Steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders w/ Tech Guarantee - OEM


Thanks in advance once again.

 

[Proximon]

I would say you are best served by overclocking the CPU and adding more RAM.

You COULD get a Thuban
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1289/9/


X6 1100T
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103913

8GB DDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

CPU cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106150

Not sure about the HD PVR? how does that fit in with what you are doing exactly?

 

[xFLYNNx]

Yes, the hdpvr acts as a passthrough to the tv and sends the signal to the pc. I was trying to do live streaming on justintv using xsplit screen cap software. Not sure if it's my pc not being able to handle the load or I may have had the setting on xsplit to demanding for my pc, but I was getting a bunch of lag on the stream and my pc was struggling to keep up. Several times the programs crashed and trying to move program windows around by dragging them, they were ghosting or jumping as I was moving them, everything was lethargic.

So, I was hoping that someone that's knowledgeable in streaming gameplay could look at those specs and say, "You're system is strong enough to handle it, your setting on jacked up," or "yea, your quad core isn't strong enough to push the load."

Thanks for taking a stab at it!!!

 

[Proximon]

Have a look at the system monitor while you do that. Look at CPU usage and RAM usage, and you may get a feel for where the bottleneck is.

You are probably writing to disk a lot and the software isn't robust enough to handle a lot of input while doing everything else at the same time... hence the crashes. I've seen that type of "hang" often enough, even though I haven't used that software.

A second monitor and slightly stronger GPU might also help you there, because with more desktop you won't have to move those windows around.

Your system might possibly handle 16GB of 1333mhz RAM. You might need to think about that also. Maybe 8GB and then another 8GB of the exact same RAM if needed... but that usually involves more tweaking.

 

[tsnor]

Agree with pumping up the memory.

Check the Xsplit forum for guidance on what you can upload with your PC. http://www.xsplit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=918

Here is partial cut/paste. You look slightly better than 'current' but not close to 'mini power rig'. Benchmarking your system with passmark (google it) would give you a better idea.
-------------------------------
Very old pc:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (also has 4gig of ram, AMD 4850 1gig GPU)
Passmark: 1047
What I can do with it smoothly: Record Call of Duty 4 Locally at 640 x 360p. It's definitely pushing the limits of the computer, I need to hard kill everything and run a minimal install to
be able to have a fast enough framerate. I'll still occasionaly get some dropped frames.


Current Desktop
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80GHz (also has 4gig of ram, AMD 5850 1gig GPU)
Passmark: 1918
What I can do with it smoothly: Record Call of Duty 4 Locally at 640 x 360p. Smoothly. Record locally at 1280 x 720p. That resolution is pushing it a little bit. I can't stream and record. Framerate while not recording is very high, and idle cpu usage is about 10-20%. Recording cpu shoots up to about 70-80%.

Mini Power Rig
CPU: Intel Core i7 875K @ 2.93GHz (also has 4gig of ram, AMD 5770 512meg GPU)
Passmark: 6521
What I can do with it smoothly: Record Call of Duty 4 Locally at 640 x 360p. Smoothly. Record locally at 1280 x 720p smoothly. It can do both with a decent amount of headroom at 1280 x 720p, however I didn't have the internet connection to test streaming at a good enough bitrate to make that resolution worthwhile.
It did look like the graphics card was holding that setup back a fair bit.
This setup has plenty of wiggle room to capture and do pretty much everything in XSplit while gaming, so look at that passmark as something to aim for.

 

[Proximon]

Nice find tsnor!

 

[xFLYNNx]

Guys, I've played w/ the settings, thanks for the help, the stream looks great for what I'm working with.

We're doing nightly streams of GOW3, stop by and check it out, send me an invite if you want to play with us, gt is TeFxFLYNNx, probably not a lot of console gamers here but just in case check us out.

Probably would help if I linked you to the channel, lol. http://www.twitch.tv/teflonhearts