Can My PC Run And Stream A Game At The Same Time?
I currently have a couple year old, mid-range pc. It has an i5–9600k, an RTX 2060 Super, 32GB of RAM. I wanted to figure out of I’d be able to play and stream a new game at the same time. So I went digging.
From what I’ve discovered, there’s no definitive way to know for sure until you try it. Honestly it doesn’t even look like there are guidelines to go by or even best practices.
Everyone seems to recommend the best pc possible within your budget.
So this video will probably be more of a discussion rather than a how to. Hopefully educational enough to help you make informed buying decisions about a PC if you’re hoping to game and stream at the same time.
So what will it take to play a game and stream at the same time? Let’s talk about it.
What is your end goal and how future proof do you want to be? There are basically 3 types of setups that offer different entry point prices and avenues for growth.
Console streaming
- If the game you want is available on console and you’re ok playing that way, all you need to invest in is a capture card and almost any PC will be able to stream that content. Great way to get into game streaming for less money.
PC Streaming Professional
- You want to become a professional streamer, playing every new title as it comes out on highest settings making crazy money? Probably need to invest in a 2 pc setup. Luckily this doesn’t have to be as expensive as it sounds.
- Two much less powerful machines. But it takes up the extra space of multiple PCs, not to mention the extra hardware and headaches it will probably cause, especially if you’re not a massive PC nerd.
Play your favorite game on stream
- Now I think for a lot of people, you should be or you’re planning on playing one game for the most part. This makes it easier to figure out. Take the recommended specs for that game and make sure the specs on your PC are more powerful than that, specifically in the GPU and CPU categories.
- You don’t want to run your game at minimum quality, so don’t go off the minimum specs required. Not to mention adding in the streaming software.
- Outside of going just above the recommended specs of your favorite game, the next step unfortunately is looking at your budget and how much of a PC you can afford.
- Easiest way to figure out which upgrades are the most worth it is to figure out where your PC is bottlenecking and upgrade that first. Bottleneck Calculator | PC Builds (pc-builds.com)
Let’s talk about the hardware now.
- Most important two pieces for gaming, streaming, and video related tasks are the CPU and the GPU
CPU
- If you plan on gaming or streaming on a PC, I would recommend at least an Intel i5 or the AMD equivalent. If you want to do both, depending again on your game of choice, but just as a general starting point, an i7.
- If you are console streaming, again theoretically you already have a computer, so use what you’ve got, try it out. If you need to buy something, I would still look for something with an i5 because they won’t be that much more expensive and then you for sure won’t have any problems. A lot of capture card software says it requires an i5.
- For a dual pc setup, you’re looking at the same type of lower end PC for streaming, then a PC that can handle simply the game you want to play. Plus a capture device.
GPU
- Same rule of thumb for GPU. If you want to run both the game and stream on one machine, go big. The RTX 2060 is about the lowest I would recommend, but that isn’t going to be enough to play all the newest games. As the 3000 series becomes easier to find, a 3070 would be a pretty great card to have.
- In a dual PC setup or console streaming scenario, something as old as a 1080 or a 1660 would probably be enough that you wouldn’t have any issues.
RAM
- RAM is for multitasking and holding running programs. The more programs you have and the bigger they are, the more RAM you need. 16 GB should be sufficient for most activities, if I was building a PC specifically to game and stream at the same time, I would go for 32GB, and probably make sure it’s not just the lowest speeds out there.
HD/SSD
- I truly believe that getting an SSD or NVME storage option is one of the best investments in your pc performance you can make. But this is going to depend on how many games you have installed and how big they are. Pretty easy to add this all up though. Streaming software doesn’t take up that much space. Recommend at least a 256 or 512GB SSD though.
- Also add in if you plan on recording your vods directly to your PC or not. This can easily be figured out with an extra external or internal large hd.
Putting it all together
- Now if you’re building this yourself, you’ll also need a motherboard, power supply, case, maybe an aftermarket cooler or two, and then don’t forget the operating system.
- The motherboard can be an important piece to your pc but as long as it’s compatible with the rest of the parts you choose, you should be good to go. Make sure to use PCPartPicker or something similar to not mess it up.
- Here’s an example PC I put together if I was going to get one for gaming and streaming at the same time.
Elgato HD60 X Capture Card — https://amzn.to/476PFts
Minimum Streaming Computer — https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Devonsc...
All in One Gaming and Streaming PC — https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Devonsc...
My PC — https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Devonsc...
My Gear:
- Mouse: Logitech G PRO Wireless Gaming Mouse Official League of Legends Edition — https://amzn.to/3DlUNfc
- Keyboard: Royal Kludge S98 96% Wireless Mechanical Keyboard — https://amzn.to/3zVEV4y
- Monitor: BenQ MOBIUZ EX3415R Curved Gaming Monitor 34" — https://amzn.to/4bmQtuA
- Camera: Sony ZV-E10 — https://amzn.to/3TZy6af
- Webcam: Logitech StreamCam — https://amzn.to/3DjORDh
- Microphone: Logitech Blue Yeti — https://amzn.to/47h5JXN
- Wireless Lav Mic: Hollyland Lark M1 — https://amzn.to/43tt5aN
- Lights: SAMTIAN LED Video Light — https://amzn.to/43w1x4v
- SD Card: SanDisk 256GB Extreme microSDXC — https://amzn.to/3SRGy9i
- Drone: DJI Mini 2 — https://amzn.to/3XW8Mlc
- Govee RGBIC Pro LED Light Strip — https://amzn.to/3In2zYD
- iFixit Toolkit — https://amzn.to/3QkYEQh
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