Building an "Interceptor" streaming helper...

[zovc]

Hey!

I'm hoping to build a SFF computer to serve as a 'capture card' and a means of offloading streaming from a main desktop/gaming computer. The idea is to have it portable and a little rugged so it's not much of a concern if it needs to get packed or moved from one room to another in a hurry.

Last I checked--mind this was a year or two (or more???) ago--the Elgato's PCIe card was pretty much top-of-the-line. It seems like it's still one of the top recommendations. It's also a low-profile card!

I'm wanting to include a capture card like the Elgato in the computer, but if there is one out there it'd be nice to be ready to record 4K at 60fps for the sake of being ready to make that jump when I am.

I'm also kind of taking for granted that most cases that can fit one LP card can fit a second, so I'm wondering:

• What would be most useful in this slot? More USB ports?
• Are there audio interface cards that would plug in a proper mic?
• Are there sound cards that can plug in a proper mic (or 'pass through' an interface)?

Is there any way of verifying before hand that my motherboard/CPU and these cards will play nicely with PCIe bifurcation?

I don't really know what level of CPU muscle I should be aiming for with this computer, I don't know how intensive "just" running a capture card and a stream is compared to doing that stuff while gaming.

And finally, I'd like to be able to keep the system relatively cool and as quiet as possible. Having space for at least one fan would be a plus, I'd think.

 

[jØrd]

If you plan on simulcasting or mixing multiple video sources, etc it might be worth looking into encoding accelerator cards. 4k is a metrick fuckton of data to deal w/ so PCie SSD to use as scratch space maybe. Blacmagic make some nice capture cards but iirc their anything but cheap. There are PCIe sound cards that are quality, @GuilleAcoustic can probably chime in on this, iirc he has looked into it in the past. All the streaming / simulcasting / restreaming i've done in the past has been for my own entertainment (learning how to do it), on linux w/ ffmpeg and never in 4k so thats basically the limit of my input.

 

[zovc]

A PCIe SSD isn't a bad idea, and I do currently have an audio interface that could plug in via USB, so I don't technically need one in the system.

Any idea how PCIe SSDs deal with bifurcation?

 

[jØrd]

Any idea how PCIe SSDs deal with bifurcation?

My understanding is it should be fine but i have no experience trying it. I guess it will come down to how your streaming box is setup software wise as to weather its worth it though. If the incoming video stream from your gaming box never touches the disk, is transcoded in memory and then pushed out to the network then it might not be necessary, otoh if you keeping a local recording in 4k then some fast storage might be of use. My experience here is a little removed from what your trying to do, i was streaming, etc content generated on boxes that didnt even have displays. It might be worth building the box, using it for a while and keeping an eye on how it performs, find the bottlenecks then look into what hardware you can hang in that 2nd slot that will solve those bottlenecks instead of trying to guess preemptively what they will be.