Part 4 - Muhahahaha! ... Or what happens when you get given a list of requirements and a flexible budget, as well as more reasonable setups for those without bundles of cash burning a hole in their pocket.
This is late, but considering recently someone hit me up for advice on how to build a PC, I just remembered that I had to finish this up, and in the process I got the opportunity to finish up my research.
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Building a fail proof system - I wanna build a dedicated PC for broadcast and/or recording, but where do I start or hell, why should I?
When building a workflow, you have to consider your requirements and expected work environment.
Or in plain English - Just what the hell are you using this for and what do you intend to do with it?
If your goal is to just stream at low quality, then any old thing will do.
If you want to record at lossless 720p59.94 then upload somewhere, you'll need to ensure your setup allows for that.
If you want perfect 1080p59.94 or 60, or maybe 2k303D(SidebySide), you'll need the requisite write speeds and processing power to handle of that.
If you want to be able to broadcast and record a 4K signal while playing without the threat of lag spikes due to processor load, you'll need to figure out how to handle that.
If you want to process lots of video without locking your PC up for days at a time, you'll need to account for that too.
Solution 1: Sufficiently powered PC with capture device attached.
This is the easiest solution and the cheapest. Apart from choice of capture device, any requirements (HDCP breaking) and supporting drives (assuming lossless), there should be no issues if you're trying to capture a console. However, there's a few drawbacks.
- If you're trying to record the PC you're on, the encoding and recording is going to significantly impact your PC performance. There's a reason why so many PC streams for upper end titles suffer so much - most of the streamers end up overtaxing the CPU, and streaming is particularly strenuous at higher resolutions.
- If you're encoding video, you'll need to remember that the process of encoding WILL chew up stupid amounts of CPU time and do a lot of IO onto the drive/s handling the process. So if you wanted to play a taxing title while encoding, well... be prepared to suffer performance, and run the risk of corrupting the encodes in the process. Heck, I've had to redo some im@s recordings because once I was doing text editing using notepad++, and that managed to spike the CPU at an inopportune time. You have been warned.
Solution 2 - build a secondary PC to handle the above issues.
The benefits of building a secondary PC are obvious - The work is on a dedicated machine, and as long as the machine is configured correctly, it'll do what you want it to do, and you don't have to worry about said PC doing anything else OTHER than what you want it to do, so less chance of a hiccup.
Catch is, it'll cost money to do so. (Well, duh.) Good news is that all the notes previous (ie card selection, supporting drives) can be transferred over to the new device, so it's not like you HAVE to start from scratch. Modularity was part of the design, so if you wanted to go further, there are costs, but you do NOT have to scrap your previous investments until you're prepared to move onto higher quality equipment and are prepared to make your older investments redundant.
If you want to invest money into building a dedicated solution, then read on.
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Understanding encoding - What components for this PC matter the most for encoding and streaming anyway?
The first thing you HAVE to remember about encoding is that the CPU being used really does matter.
In fact, for streaming, about 90% of the load is handled by your CPU, because there just isn't enough time to hand off the work to any other processes, and besides, most cards are NOT optimized to handle this sort of fast number crunching (and to add insult to injury, technically the cards COULD do so... but most of the streaming programs and codecs don't use even a small fraction of said power anyway because no broadcasting software actually EXPECTS a specialized GPU to ever show up in the first place!)
For encoding work (ie recording the raw absolute -> encoding for distribution eg Youtube) a GPU can pick up more or the slack, but unless you own a specialized graphics card, the contribution is ~5-10% of the overall workload required. (A Nvidia Quadro line card would get you much more, but of course, they also cost an arm and a leg (as in 1k+ for the good models))
You won't use all that much RAM for streaming (Think about it, you're going to be encoding then punting through a stream of roughly 1mbit - 10mbit, which is only about 20MB/s. As you can guess the overheads are tiny compared to the amount of RAM you can get cheaply.) and for encoding you can get good benefits from more RAM, but you'll just end up caching the whole thing anyay unless for some unknown reason you can shove the entire clip you're trying to encode can just fit into the RAM (Which is unlikely the higher the resolution is).
So for all you PC enthusiasts out there who are smart enough to build PCs on their own, your expenditure emphasis is simple.
Once you clear your recording requirements (Namely your method of capture and required supporting hardware) CPU over all else. You get a GPU to lessen the load of displaying the screen, and of course if you're bored, you can convert the PC into a gaming PC by swapping in a decent (or good) graphics card, but I'm assuming you have a budget here.
Also, be warned, overclocking WILL bite you in the backside more often than not - You'll have to overclock conservatively or even not at all, because errors WILL ruin your day (you'll have to restart everything from scratch), even if they're not fatal.
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Let's play - Building a PC based off actual specifications.
If you want to play along, I'll be using NewEgg US prices, as of the 9th March 2016. I'm making ZERO attempts of trying to find good pricing, and brand selection is mostly random from personal experience. If you know of better equipment, by all means, do so.
Entry level - i7 4th gen system
Intel i7 4790 - $310 - CPU
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97X - $165 - Mainboard. Options are surprisingly limited due to phasing out of 4th gen boards.
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 - $150
Graphics card - Seriously? Any old thing. Hell, use this as an excuse to upgrade your existing graphics card. You're only adding the card in to lessen the load on the CPU by not using the onboard. $0-75
If you want to have this serve as a half decent gaming PC, throw in a GTX 750 Ti at absolute most, and you'll get decent to good mileage. They're in the $120 range.
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB -$120 - OS drive. Note, if you have brand preference, and/or cost requirements, basically 'You need something to run the OS off. You could just use a mechanical.'
Additional drives for lossless - Read the earlier parts. Namely 'if cost restricted but want raw record, SSDs in RAID. If you can afford it, SAS. If you're recording lossy, a decent mechanical.' I'll include example modulars (with the capture set) in a separate section, and you just tack it on top.
Capture device - Will be included as a modular.
750W Corsair CX750M - $130 - Power supply - There's a lot of theory in this but it amounts to this 'Your base load would say 600W is enough. When you're firing all cylinders, uh, you'll need that extra 150W, particularly if you intend on some of the better setups, and/or if you intend on using a decent to good graphics card'.
CPU fan+thermal paste - $50-100? Pick the one you like I suppose. You may need this because not all CPUs come with stock fans, and you need a fan of SOME kind at least. Just make sure it fits.
Case - ATX Mid or Full case (ideally full) - 100-200 US
Shipping - 50 US
Assembly - Your problem. Learn to do it yourself or find someone who can.
All in (Assuming my math is right) ~ 1100 US.
Sound expensive? Well... wait until you see what the 6th gen i7 version will cost you.
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6th gen i7 setup.
CPU- i76700k - $379
Mainboard - ASUS Z170 - $155 (! I did warn you how odd this is)
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 - $93 (! I wasn't kidding the first time)
All other notes the same.
Cost - ~1100 US.
... See what I mean?
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Adjustment of the above only for a very peculiar setup (This gets its own special mention):
Thunderbolt port enabled Mainboard for an i7 6th gen - GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 - $480 US. (Basically +320 over the other i7 6th gen setup.)
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Attachments:
Lossy record:
1x Mechanical drive (anything from 100US+ depending on the size. Please don't use Green drives. Really.)
1x Capture device (AVerMedia GC550, with CPU to handle encoding on the fly, 170ish?)
Lossless record 1080p60 @60m:
2x 512GB SSDs (Samsung 850PRO @ 220 each)
1x capture device (Avermedia CG550 running at lossless (170ish) or a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K ($600, note 2K + 4K + 3D, but as a specialist card, requires knowledge to work well.)
And finally...
The record anything you damn well please in the future with ease option - REQUIRES THUNDERBOLT:
2 or more 512GB SSDs or higher (1TBs maybe, @ 440 each)
One Ultrastudio 4K - 995 US
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudiothunderboltThe 4K extreme model is a little overkill since we'll be using the PC to do the write and encoding at our end anyway.
The main advantage of this is that it's a plug and play solution that is self adjusting, can up/down scale on command, does most of the processing, and most future formats. Including say a PS4's 3D signal, if you say wanted to record Project Diva or... other games with 3D support. (I said nothing. Particularly about Plat- Yeah, nothing.)
All you need is a thunderbolt connection and a PC that can write, and of course, you can take the unit around to any place with said thunderbolt connection (Like say, oh, a recent mac pro or another PC with a thunderbolt connection) and work there without having to open up the device to plug in the card.
Of course this IS sort of overkill and essentially lets you gain full control of virtually any modern signal (and I could go on with some very inappropriate mental comparisons) but considering previously that level of entry used to cost 2-4k US AND had significant configuration issues (namely PCI-e laning nightmares) it's pretty much one of those things you could really use, and the cost of entry is a lot lower than it used to be.
... As you can guess, I really, really want one. (I could make all SORTS of inappropriate mental images concerning this device.)
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Ahem. Well, that should cover everything you'll probably ever need to know about how to do recording properly, at least from a hardware perspective.
If there's any further questions, I'll field them, mostly cause I probably forgot something here and there.