How to set up a dual-PC stream (the easy way)

Lian Li Lancool 205 Source: Windows Key

Streaming PC games to Twitch, YouTube, or any of the other popular services out there is a pretty intensive process. Information technology's a lot of strain to put on a single PC, playing a game while also encoding your stream and uploading that to the internet. If you take a specially beastly rig, say with ane of the newer AMD or Intel Farthermost processors or an NVIDIA RTX graphics card, yous tin can probably become away with it, merely in most cases, serious PC streamers are using a secondary auto. Here'south how to set upwardly a 2-PC stream the easy way.

What type of PC y'all demand to stream from

The dazzler of a dual-PC streaming setup is that each motorcar has its own dedicated task, thereby ensuring maximum performance from each. Information technology also means you lot don't demand an absolute monster PC to run your stream since that'southward essentially all that car volition be doing.

If you're building a dedicated machine, you can certainly become past with whatsoever decent quad-core CPU. But, probably the best choice is an AMD Ryzen 5, with six cores and 12 threads affording enough of performance and headroom while also maintaining an bonny price.

If y'all're going with an AMD Ryzen CPU, you will, of course, demand a graphics card lest you never see the user interface of your PC, just unless y'all intend to encode with the GPU, it really doesn't thing what yous use. If y'all go for one of the newer, 5000-series Ryzen APUs, yous won't demand a graphics carte, and you should still be able to encode a decent-looking stream.

If you lot do go with a graphics card in your stream PC, then going for an NVIDIA RTX is a winner. If y'all're using OBS to stream, as you lot quite possibly are, information technology has back up built in for the latest NVENC encoder. Using NVENC is an extremely efficient mode of encoding video as it uses dedicated hardware on the GPU so information technology has much lower impact on overall system resources than encoding using the CPU.

How to gear up up the hardware for a dual-PC stream

Live Gamer Bolt Source: Windows Central

Getting a dual-PC stream prepare comes in ii parts. The outset is setting upward the hardware so your stream PC can collect the video and sound output from your gaming PC. To make life equally easy as possible, if you want multiple displays set up upwards to display things like your streaming dashboard or social media feeds.

For this, y'all'll need your two PCs, a capture card, and an HDMI cable.

Connect the capture menu to the stream PC using its supplied USB cable.
Plug one end of the HDMI cable into an HDMI output on your gaming PC's graphics card.
Connect the other end of the HDMI cable into the input on your capture bill of fare.

At that place's no requirement to and so hook upward the output on the capture carte to your PC monitor as all you want is the feed going into the capture card for your PC to translate.

How to fix the software for a dual-PC stream

Setting upward the rest of the stream is washed in software on both PCs. Firstly, you'll need to ensure your gaming PC sends video and sound to your stream PC while ensuring y'all can withal hear and control game sound on your gaming PC. The second phase is then to prepare your streaming PC to circulate to your chosen service.

The first step is to ensure you send video to the capture card from your gaming PC.

Right-click on the desktop and select display settings.
If you lot only have one monitor, under multiple displays select the option to duplicate.
If you lot accept multiple monitors, under multiple displays, select the option to duplicate on x and y where x is the monitor you wish to play games on, and y is the output to your capture menu.

In your streaming software at present on your stream PC, you should come across a indistinguishable of your primary gaming PC monitor.

The next footstep is to ensure you lot're sending sound to that PC as well as existence able to hear it yourself on your gaming PC. For that, we're going to use Voicemeeter Assistant. Our full guide goes into more than particular on what you can do with Voicemeeter, merely on your gaming PC, information technology'southward only function is to split the audio betwixt your headset and the other PC. Once you've downloaded and installed information technology, here's what to practise.

For hardware out A1, select your capture bill of fare output, which should exist listed from your graphics card.
For hardware out A2, select your gaming headset output.

If you don't see the choice to send audio to your capture card over HDMI from Voicemeeter you may need an additional 3.5mm to three.5mm cablevision, which you would demand to run from the headphone output on the back of your gaming PC into the line-in jack on your gaming PC. The but difference here is that yous'll then need to add this equally an audio source in your streaming software, whereas using HDMI means information technology'll be pulled in through the capture card.

Setting up your stream PC

OBS Studio Source: Windows Central

On your gaming PC, all y'all demand to do is follow the steps above. The only other thing yous may want on your gaming PC is Discord/TeamSpeak/Skype or whatever your vocalism chat service of selection is. Everything else should live on your stream PC, be that bots, background music, everything.

Setting up the secondary PC to stream is a simple enough process. Whether it's Streamlabs OBS, OBS Studio or XSplit, you'll be up and running in no time. The essentials are adding your capture menu as a video capture device, ensuring the sound is coming through either through that aforementioned video capture or a secondary 3.5mm connection and that your credentials for your streaming service are set up up.

From there, the rest is down to yous. Deciding on resolution and bitrate is partly based on your internet upload speed. Notwithstanding, with a decent CPU or graphics card, you can exist sure that any yous go for, it's more than than capable of coming together the demand.

It'south a practiced idea to do a couple of examination recordings before going live to brand sure everything is gear up correctly between the two PCs, but assuming yous followed the steps above, y'all should be ready to hit that go live push button.

Our top equipment picks

If you're building a second PC to use purely for streaming, there are a couple of important items that y'all demand to become right. The CPU and the capture card are essential, and for those, we turn to AMD and AVerMedia.

The beating eye

AMD Ryzen 5

AMD Ryzen v 5600X CPU

Six cores and 12 threads go far a animate being for encoding

AMD'south latest 7nm Ryzen v is an excellent CPU for encoding a stream with six cores to easily handle the intensive workload without the need to dial downwardly your settings.

Peachy capture card

AVerMedia Alive Gamer ULTRA capture card

A beast of an external capture card

This capture card tin handle 4K video, HDR, and loftier frame rate passthrough, all over a USB connection.

Additional equipment

Information technology'south essential to take the right tools for the job, and whatever PC and capture card you end up with, you'll need to make sure y'all accept these on hand.

AmazonBasics HDMI cable ($8 at Amazon)

You'll only demand the one, but yous'll need to get your gaming PC video into the capture carte du jour, then it's essential to accept around.

Voicemeeter Banana (Gratis at VBAudio)

An amazingly powerful application that truly allows yous to control your audio devices with ease on Windows 10.

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Richard Devine

Richard Devine is an Editor at Windows Fundamental. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2022 and has been found on Android Central and iMore likewise every bit Windows Primal. Currently y'all'll find him covering all manner of PC hardware and gaming, and you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.