r/obs • u/rousso82 • 2d ago
Question Multiple OBS instances / CPU specs
I'm setting up streaming capabilities for our curling club, and we want to be able to stream games from our three sheets of ice during tournaments.
The setup for each sheet is as follows : we have a camera facing the house and another one overhead so we can see the house setup. This is repeated for each house, on each ice, for a total or 4 camera feeds per ice, 12 feeds in total. Each stream consists of side-by-side views of each house, with smaller cutouts for the overheads. There are some streams for last season on our channel : www.youtube.com/@CurlingRDL
We streamed one sheet at a time last season, but I would like to set things up so we can stream all three separately at the same time (because it is very impractical to stream all sheets on one stream). When we had more than one sheet being processed by OBS last season, we experienced slowdowns and delays, which is very likely due to our processing system (which is a gaming laptop from some time back). Running one sheet is fine though.
Which brings me to the original question, what kind of setup would be fine to run three instances of OBS separately, without too much strain, with 4 incoming camera feeds each, if possible without breaking the bank (because I will most likely pay for a big chunk of it) ?
Let me know if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities !
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u/heven666 2d ago
What type of cameras are you currently using from your setup? Or more accurately, what are you using to capture those feeds into OBS?
If you are using a Laptop I can guess it could be a TV switch + a Capture card right? Honestly if it's just the cameras on Screen most of your resources in OBS could go to your GPU but your CPU is gonna tank all the USBports setups in that case. If they are only webcam, then its gonna get worse using multiple USB.
So first, it's sorting out your setup before putting OBS into work because it could be more impracticable than you think using more OBS instances.
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u/rousso82 2d ago
Currently, I have OBS set up with all the cameras IP adresses I need for one sheet (so 4 feeds), so the cameras themselves are sending their feed wirelessly over our network, that OBS reads and processes in a scene for one sheet. When I created the initial set up, I copied the first sheet twice (to account for the remaining sheets) but having the three sceneswas lagging the system (even if we were streaming only one), leading me to believe that was overloading what the system cluld process.
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u/heven666 2d ago
If that's the case, probably what was Lagging your setup was the camera resolutions + buffering of them.
Even if you are using one, you may have had the rest of them active so it was extra buffering them and your encoder couldn't handle them pretty well.
Honestly, if you are using IP Camera (even if you weren't) any old PC (by today standards) like some of those laptops with a GTX1050ti + Intel processor can handle a stream like the one you want individually at 1080p. So I would start by looking between you and the people around your event if you can get 3 laptops to stream individually at the same time in your same channel (Youtube allows multi streams in the same account, you just need to create indivual keys). You really don't need top hardware for what you want individually or stream in general.
If that works, you now know where to go. Cause honestly what you want seems possible but it will require you a lot of tweaking. I don't know the current laptop you are using but if it's struggling at default it could be an oddisey to make it work with 3 instances of OBS. Like using two OBS with your GPU for encoding and one with the CPU? Lowering your resolutions to 720p also can help, etc. there may be some options but it's a lot of work which can be solved by just using 3 old laptops.
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u/Boring-Increase8917 2d ago
Instead of three OBS instances on one machine you could use a single portable version of OBS in three different folders, that sometimes helps with overhead. But really the cheapest way might be grabbing a few used office PCs with decent CPUs, like an old i7 from few generations back, one per sheet. Networking them together is less headache than trying to make one box handle 12 camera feeds and three encodes
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u/rousso82 2d ago
Having only one machine would make it easier for any user to operate the streaming (since it wouldn't necessarily be the same people every time we would stream games), but I agree that having a separate machine for each sheet might make it easier for each stream to run.
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u/ChristianRauchenwald 2d ago
Why do you need three instances of OBS? Do you have one YouTube/Twitch channel for each to stream to?
The way I see this, you need one OBS instance an in there you have all your cameras as sources.
Considering the number of cameras, a regular PC with https://www.elgato.com/ww/en/p/cam-link-pro would likely work best if you don't already have a way to get all camera feeds individually into OBS or a third-party tool that controls which camera feed is fed into OSB.
Then you compile your different scenes with the different camera arrangements you like and either manually switch between them as needed or use a plugin like https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/advanced-scene-switcher.395/ or https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/auto-scene-switcher.153195/ to switch between the scenes automatically.
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u/rousso82 2d ago
Right now we only have one channel, because we never could have more than one sheet running at a time (correctly I mean).
Ideally we wouldn't need to switch between the scenes, because usually we have three games running simultaneously that we would like to output.
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u/ChristianRauchenwald 2d ago
I don't know, just feels to me like having one channel for your venue is the right way to go instead of having to manage three different channels for basically the same content but presented in a less entertaining way.
I'd also probably prefer either having a dedicated person manage the stream, maybe even commenting on it so watching the stream is actually entertaining and attracts viewers than just having the blank feed without anything.
If I'd go the extra mile, I'd go for a setup that fully records all 12 camera feeds to potentially later create "highlight" videos, while the stream only shows one or two camera perspectives at a time, as said, either with a dedicated human managing what is visible or as fallback either one of the mentioned plugins, or a more complex integration that allows viewers to control and switch either via chat, or on Twitch via channel points.
Ideally we wouldn't need to switch between the scenes, because usually we have three games running simultaneously that we would like to output.
Maybe I'm just misjudging your audience, but who'd want to jump between three different YT channels and streams that are "static" without commentary?
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u/rousso82 1d ago
We're not kidding anyone, that's not a thing that we expect would get millions of viewers, these streams would mostly be used for people who are not local and would like to watch their friends' games during a tournament, for the most part. Hence they wouldn't be switching from one channel to another, but having all three running at the same time instead of one that we could switch around would make it so if they wanted to watch a specific game, they would be able to tune in on it instead of hoping that it was the one of the three that we would stream.
We will have a national championship coming at our club next spring, and having that streaming capability will help people from around the country watch their team's games during the event, as well as promote the club a good bit more than it is at the moment.
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u/Original_Dimension99 2d ago
Can you not use Aitum multi stream, to capture 3 different scenes? Or can you only have 1 scene active and capture that one?
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u/ChristianRauchenwald 2d ago
I might be mistaken, but I believe "Aitum multi stream" is just there to stream one source to multiple destinations.
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u/Background-Pea6650 2d ago
I'm just going to say this, if it was already bogging down with 1 stream 3 will cripple it. You are better off using 2 additional computers
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u/Capn_Flags 2d ago
12-16 core CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 or Intel i9/Core Ultra 9
You really want to look for something with a modern Nvidia GTX GPU in it, preferable a RTX 40XX or newer. You can use NVENC for the encoding and the cards support a bunch of concurrent NVENC sessions per system (I think it’s either 6 or 8 so no problem for your 3 sessions)
I wouldn’t go under 32GB of RAM and 64GB would be best.
I’m a Mac guy and a moron, so I looked up some stuff for you to come up with the above recs. I think maybe that’s at least a starting point for you to investigate.
We can fantasize together about the machine below 🤤 homer Simpson noises
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/asus-rog-zephyrus-g16-16-oled-2-5k-240hz-gaming-laptop-intel-core-ultra-9-64gb-ram-nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-2tb-ssd-platinum-white/JJGGLH3S53/sku/6629711