PC for streaming

Streaming computer from GamingPC online store

The boom on streaming games in online mode began with the resource Twitch. This gamer online platform was created in 2011 and by 2012 every month the total number of viewers exceeded 14 million people. Already a year later, officially, the unique visitors on this resource was noted 45.1 million. But in 2014, this online resource was bought by Amazon for almost 1 billion US dollars. In 2018, this online service was used by 2.1 million streamers from around the world, and the number of viewers amounted to 15.3 million people per day. Stream (derived from the English word Stream, i.e. "flow") - in IT sphere this English word means streaming data transmission. Thus images streaming - is a demonstration of your gameplay in real time, which with the help of servers to your viewers. Twitch offered all of its streamers the opportunity to make a profit, as well as the opportunity to showcase their gaming skills in all their glory to their audience of millions. Twitch has torn down almost all barriers for its streamers who want to showcase the way they play games.

These days, players have simply awesome streaming facilities and opportunities:

• Free online services.
• Opportunity to earn through ads, subscriptions, etc.
• Multiple options for encoding your video to customize for any PC.
• Fast internet is a law, not a luxury.
• A huge audience, waiting and hungry for more views of your games.

VIDEO STREAMING, HOW DOES IT WORK?

1. Your computer makes a video capture from your monitor screen. This process of streaming PC does not consume much of its power. As a result, the video files are quite large. A few minutes of such video in Full HD quality will easily be several gigabytes in size.

2. Your PC's graphics card or processor reduces the size of such video and audio, a process called encoding.

3. The transcoded version of the video is sent to the servers at the same moment.

WHICH ONLINE SERVICE IS BETTER TO CHOOSE?

If we talk about the runethe virtual world of streaming game video stands on three conditional elephants:

• Twitch.tv - the company giant which has millions of online audience. It will be quite difficult for newcomers to squeeze in as there is a lot of competition.
• YouTube.com - here the online audience is quite large, many visitors often watch videos posted on channels, not in online format.

PCs for streaming on Twitch is essentially no different from the same PCs for streaming on YouTube. The way you encode and capture video is determined by the software(s), not the online service. Therefore, the hardware requirements will be the same.

WHICH PROGRAM IS BETTER TO USE FOR CAPTURING VIDEO BROADCASTS?

Capturing, encoding and sending video data to the server of the streaming platform is done by one program. Here is a list of them:

• OBS Studio - is the most popular of the programs, and it is absolutely free.
• XSplit Broadcaster - is conditionally free, if you do not purchase a license, the program will add its logo to your video. The main advantage can be considered the ability to simultaneously send video to several online services.
• GeForce Experience - software for video cards from the manufacturer NVIDIA. The disadvantages include the fact that the software only works with "native" video cards and does not support webcams.
• FFsplit is a twin of OBS program in terms of functionality, but has a different control interface. One of the pluses: it is much easier to display statistics of your video to monitor it.
• Wirecast - the most powerful software, it is already used even by some TV channels when working in their reports from the scene. The choice of settings in this program is quite large, and it already goes beyond the scope and needs of game streaming. A weighty conditional disadvantage price - in the region of $ 500, and also this program requires a powerful hardware.

All these programs support hardware and software encoding in different quality, all you will need is to specify the settings you need.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENCODING?

Video of your stream before sending it should be compressed. Because if you leave it in its original, raw form, it will not be easy to upload it to the server, as it will be a huge size. Hardware encoding creates a video with a fairly low level of quality, but the encoding occurs in an instant, it is performed with the help of the video card of your gaming computer. Software encoding, occurs at the expense of the work and resource of the processor, in this case, the quality will depend on the power of your processor and partially from the RAM.

What is the bitrate of the stream?

This indicator determines how many bits will be used to store one second of video recording. If the quality is too high, you may experience slowdowns and freezes (stopping the video for a second) because your Internet speed is not high enough and your Internet plan has low bandwidth. With a low bitrate, the quality of your video will become quite low. So unless you have top-of-the-line hardware at the time of this writing, it's worth finding a balance. When the bitrate of your stream is 2000 Kbps one second of video will be 250 Kbytes.

WHAT KIND OF COMPUTER IS NEEDED FOR STREAMING IN 2025?

Computer processor

For simple, simple graphics games you will be enough quite "budget computer", with Intel Pentium Gold G5400 processor. It will be able to deliver 1080p and 60fps in undemanding online games, small indie projects. For AAA level games (Battlefield 1, Battlefield 5, Rage2, etc.) in high quality, you should choose Intel Core i5-8400 or i5-9400F. Some game settings will still need to be downgraded or turned off. If you plan to use hardware encoding or a video capture card, this processor will be quite enough for all current PC games at maximum settings. The next on the list is "Powerful PC" for streaming should be done by choosing in the direction of Intel Core i7-8700, i7-8700K. Processors of this level will cope with program encoding of your video files even in the most demanding computer games. It will be able to handle 1080p and even 1440p resolution in the latest voracious and iron-demanding PC games. Then comes the "Master PC" for streaming, which will be able to handle 4K resolution monitors and will not choke in powerful, graphics-demanding games. Intel Core i7-9700K processor is what you need, it can easily cope with the most complex tasks, 8 cores and 8 threads. This super-monster will not be loaded even halfway when running the most top-end and games. The rest of its power can be used for video transcoding.

Video card for your computer

The graphics card is responsible for the level of graphic settings in video games. For undemanding to graphics games CS GO, Dota, etc. will be enough GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, this card is well suited for many online projects such as Apex, League of Legends, Warframe, etc. It is a budget solution for streaming in 2025. This graphics card can easily work with two monitors at the same time. If, in addition to simple online games you plan to play and stream with serious resource-intensive games in Full HD resolution, you will need Nvidia GTX 1060 c 6Gb. It will allow you to play most PC games at high/maximum graphics settings with decent FPS (frames per second). Here it will already be enough for streaming at 1440 p resolution and medium bitrate. For a comfortable game at 1440 p (2K), you need to buy GeForce GTX 1660Ti or GeForce RTX 2060. These graphics cards will provide you with a comfortable FPS (FPS) in all video games. Cards of such power can cope with three connected monitors at the same time. The top solution will be RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti from NVidia. These models of video cards are created for the fact that their owners would not deny themselves anything in games for the next couple of years, including streaming. In all games without exception, graphics settings only ultra!

RAM for the computer

Computer for quality streamers in 2025 simply must have a minimum of 16 Gb RAM (RAM). More will be needed to process complex tasks. In addition to the amount of memory should pay attention to the memory frequency (2400 MHz, 2666 MHz, 2800 MHz, 3000 MHz, 3200 MHz) RAM frequency determines its speed of information transfer between the processor, video card storage, etc. The higher the frequency, the faster it transfers information. Restriction on the frequency of RAM can be the motherboard, current motherboards mainly support up to 64Gb or processor, such as I9 9900K supports the frequency of up to DDR4-2666 MHz, so put RAM with a frequency higher does not make sense. Ryzen 7 3800X 3200 MHz, Ryzen 7 2700 2933 MHz, Ryzen 7 1800X and Ryzen 7 2700E 2667 MHz processors, etc

SSD drive for streaming computer

This part of the computer is not mandatory, but it plays a role. Fast loading of games and locations is something that will not make your favorite and respected viewer wait long. Install your games, programs on the SSD disk in conjunction with it should definitely take HDD (hard disk drive), on which you will store all your video files and other materials. Here works the principle of the more volume of your drives - the better it is for you.

Case and cooling system

These two details do not play a major role for the stream itself, but if the quality of your case will be low, I think the rattling of the case walls or the noise of cheap air fans will not be very pleasant for your viewers, your system unit should be as quiet as possible!