**There are Affiliate links ahead which I earn a small commission from. Thank you so much.
So you've been wanting to stream or are already a streamer but want to level up your streaming performance and viewing experience for your viewers, huh?
I got you!
Read on, I'll tell you what you need to do to make that happen with a Secondary Streaming PC and why you should consider one.
Why A Secondary Streaming PC?
Warriorenas! Warriorenes! The reason you want a secondary streaming PC is to take the processing load off of your main PC that you're using to stream your gameplay or anything else your streaming. That's literally the main reason why you should.
Here's the thing about Live Streaming, it's taxing on your processor, especially if you're trying to do a lot such as show commercial breaks and animations over your stream. When you watch my live streams (And if you haven't please join me I'd love to hear from you) from time to time I switch to different scenes in OBS studio which show my website plug and various things I want to engage my audience with to get them to do something I want.
Doing that takes processing power which can slow down, lag, or even worse, crash your whole stream and freeze up your computer. lol. Not gonna lie that shit sucks when it happens and it's low-key embarrassing but these are things I went through so you wouldn't have to.
Unless you enjoy the troubleshooting process as much as I do, it's best to build or purchase a secondary streaming PC to save you the headache.
How Do I Connect To My Main PC?
Plenty of people who stream, have their own way about how they connect two PCs to one another. I personally don't give a shit about how anyone else is doing it to be honest, I simply had the money and made it happen the way it made perfect sense for me and which was the least pain in the ass to set up and get it going.
Long story short, you need a video capture card (two if your using a fancy camera like I do).
The one that I currently use is the Elgato 4K60 Pro Mk.2 and I have two of these capture cards in my streaming rig. On one of these cards, I have my Canon EOS M6 Mark ii mirrorless camera connected to it via a 50-foot-long HDMI Fiber Optic Cable by DTech which is super important if you don't want to experience lag or video jitters on your stream. Pick any length you need and don't forget to get a second cable if you want to connect your camera to your second capture card. The beautiful part about this HDMI cable is the connectors both have mini HDMI connectors behind a full-size HDMI adapter "AND" both ends tell you where to plug in (Display or Source).
Your camera will also need an AC adapter so you can stream continuously without having the camera cut off mid-stream to cool off (I went through this with my Canon M100 before I received my new one). Trust me do not skimp or go cheap on the adaptor!
Why spend so much money on a beautiful expensive camera which should hold you over for a few years, to gamble on something super cheap that won't provide the high-quality and consistent electrical current your camera needs?
There are two parts to the AC adapter here they are:
Canon DC Coupler DR-E17 (This is the dummy battery that the AC adapter plugs into)
Note: Since the pandemic, these parts have been difficult to find or attain so hopefully times have gotten better and you can swoop yours up today!
Once you have your capture card(s) installed in your Streaming PC, plug the end of the HDMI cable that says Source into your Main PC's Graphics Card HDMI port, and the other end of the HDMI that's labeled Display plugs into your capture card via the HDMI IN port in your new Streaming PC. That's it! That's all there is to it.
If you have a camera you want to use, simply install your second capture card into your streaming PC and remove the adapter to reveal the mini HDMI connector on the Source end of the HDMI cable and plug that into your Camera's mini HDMI port. The other end that's labeled Display gets plugged into your second Capture card via the HDMI IN port.
You'll have to do some display settings adjustments on your operating system but essentially what you want to make sure you do is set the Display to Duplicate your Main PC display with your Streaming PC Display.
Conclusion
So that's it, folks. That's all you need to get a second PC connected to your Main PC. Have fun building your machine and understand that you don't need to spend hundreds on a graphics card for this streaming rig because it's not necessary. What you want is more CPU processing power because streaming is CPU intensive.
For my streaming rig, I didn't want to break the bank at all so I opted for an affordable ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GT Series graphics card. If you want to go all out I can't stop you but just know there's no need. Spend your money on a more powerful CPU and more RAM (32Gigs is my minimum) instead. Also, for faster load times and to minimize latency running streaming software I highly recommend installing a low-profile M2 drive like the Samsung 970 EVO SSD 1TB M2 NVMe.
Komentarze