#laggy capture card, please help?

433 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

orchid pebble
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I was always adverse of buying a capture card to stream from my switch because from what ive heard i would worry that the experience would be super awful and delayed and laggy for me, and basically make it not worth the money or effort.

I was later assured by a friend that that only goes for bad capture cards and that if i get a good one, these problems would not appear.
So I got convinced and went on amazon and bought this capture card claiming

"【Real-time Preview】: The audio and video capture card adopts ultra-low latency technology, allowing you to game live recording without delay. And makes it easier for you to have real-time streaming for Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, TikTok, record videos directly to the hard disk, output no compression without delay."

with reviews confirming the same thing, basically no review i saw complained whatsoever about lag or delay, not even bad ones, and i made sure to check that my computer was above the minimum specs required on the amazon page of the product.

So why, why is that now that i finally got it all set up, it feels like ass??
There is a noticable delay when playing which makes me bump into walls and walk off things even just from walking around in a game, and the sound is even MORE delayed.
Its basically completely unplayable and unenjoyable like this. WHAT am i doing wrong????

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of couse the video doesnt completely show the lag, but you can see the delay of the audio, and how walking around is kind of awkward to do with delay

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its hard to notice without being the one playing though

harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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immediately

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i havent tested if it gets worse over time or anything tho

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i cant bare playing more than a few seconds like this lol

harsh kernel
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what software are you using on the PC side to capture with? OBS?

orchid pebble
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yes

harsh kernel
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what frame rate do you have set for capture?

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@orchid pebble

orchid pebble
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sorry

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i have it set at 40

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ive tried setting it lower too and it doesnt make any visible difference

harsh kernel
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40 makes no sense. Try 60

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@orchid pebble

orchid pebble
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60 seems to make it slightly worse tho

harsh kernel
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Where in the world are you located?

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@orchid pebble

orchid pebble
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germany?

harsh kernel
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Try 50 or 25 then

devout nova
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what capture card are you using?

surreal hornet
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Ah I came to this thread late

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@orchid pebble What your friend said about capture card is correct, but we have no idea what capture card did you get.

The premium capture card that has no lag/delay cost upward 100 bucks. Anything lower than that will have issues.

The reason why you don't see complain in reviews because people often buy capture card to...well, capture for recording or streaming. The usage of viewing the console's output on your PC's screen is rather niche.

There are ways to reduce the delay on cheaper capture card, not by much, but possible. But first you need to tell us what it is.

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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if 24 or even 10 fps is delayed why would 25 fps make a difference? /gen

harsh kernel
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Because your TV runs at 25 gpa

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Fps*

orchid pebble
orchid pebble
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but i dont have much hope haha

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The premium capture card that has no lag/delay cost upward 100 bucks. Anything lower than that will have issues.
then why did all the reviews say there wasnt any delay? like i said even bad ones dont complain about it

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i cant spend 100 grand just to screenshare some videogames to my friends

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thats the whole reason i DIDNT want to buy a capture card in the FIRST place

harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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i will

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trying it right now

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there is no noticable difference to me

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"【Real-time Preview】: The audio and video capture card adopts ultra-low latency technology, allowing you to game live recording without delay. And makes it easier for you to have real-time streaming for Twitch, Youtube, Facebook, TikTok, record videos directly to the hard disk, output no compression without delay."

"Basically, this product is "just" an HDMI-to-USB port. Which is particularly interesting for gamers who are active on YouTube or Twitch, since the HDMI signal is transmitted without any input lag. I don't have to worry about lag anymore. Therefore I can only recommend it."

"The** sync of picture and sound is good**, and we didn't notice any input lag or anything unusual."

"I had no lag when playing games and very low latency."'

"This little thing is seriously better than £300 capture cards I've gotten in the past. I was able to capture 4k video from a mac with this where I couldn't with my elgato capture card."

"Purchased to display the video output of a piece of laboratory equipment in a window on my PC. It's not perfect - the reds are a bit burned out - but it does the job well for me and at an amazingly low price! Animation seems smooth and there is no obvious latency."

these and more descriptions and reviews are the reason i bought this thing, so i dont see why i out of all people, am the one to suddenly experience this lag that apparently didnt exist

harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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idk what PAL means :,)

harsh kernel
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PAL means Phase Alternating Line

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it's the old european standard for analog TV

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the 25 frames per second rate was carried over to digital tv

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what frame rate is your monitor running at?

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@orchid pebble

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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are you running windows or are you running mac os

orchid pebble
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windows

harsh kernel
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right click the desktop and tell me what options you have

orchid pebble
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it says this in the monitor settings btw if thats any help

harsh kernel
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okay, so you're running at 60 fps

harsh kernel
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try capturing at 60

orchid pebble
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I already did, its smoother (obviously) and i think the delay is slightly worse, but i could also be imagening that

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in any case its definitely not better

harsh kernel
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are you connecting directly to the PC or are you using a USB hub

orchid pebble
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directly

harsh kernel
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hmm

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try using a different usb cord

orchid pebble
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cord?

harsh kernel
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cable

orchid pebble
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but the usb cable part is directly connected to the capture card

harsh kernel
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it's not detachable?

orchid pebble
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no see

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i would try using the type c output to see if that improves anything but i dont think my pc has any usb c input

harsh kernel
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hmm

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do you have another computer you can try this with?

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a laptop or something

orchid pebble
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no

harsh kernel
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do you have a friend who has a computer?

orchid pebble
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no

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noone that lives within any sort of reaching distance lol

harsh kernel
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that's unfortunate

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have you tried using a different usb port on your computer?

orchid pebble
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no

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should i try a front one (not usb 3.0) another usb 3.0 back one, a non usb 3.0 back one

harsh kernel
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yes, yes, and yes

orchid pebble
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well people in the reviews say its not usb 3.0 anyways so idk if it even matters but Shrug

harsh kernel
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try a usb 2.0 port then

orchid pebble
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ill try a front port

orchid pebble
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hm.......... i dont see anything

harsh kernel
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try setting it up again in obs

orchid pebble
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it worked again after plugging it back into the back and de&reactivating it

harsh kernel
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what about the front port we were going to try?

orchid pebble
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im doing that right now

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i just wanted to check

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wdym by setting it up again exactly?

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make a new source?

harsh kernel
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yes

orchid pebble
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ok

harsh kernel
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delete the old source and make a new one

orchid pebble
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oh yeah weird

orchid pebble
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right now without changing anything else its just as delayed as before

harsh kernel
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try changing the frame rate to 50, then try 25

orchid pebble
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should i not change the settings to whats recommended first?

harsh kernel
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what are the recommended settings?

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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i can barely read thart

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that

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in fact i can't make out what it says at all

orchid pebble
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just zoom in

harsh kernel
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i did, and the text is impossible to read

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just a bunch of dots

orchid pebble
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i mean i can read it fine but ok, ill try sending several screenshots

harsh kernel
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how about you just tell me what it says

orchid pebble
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thatd be a lot of text to write down

harsh kernel
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the relevant bits then

orchid pebble
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still

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its easier to just screenshot

harsh kernel
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okay

orchid pebble
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only the bigger white overlayed text is relevant

harsh kernel
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no idea but i can barely make out most of the text in those images

orchid pebble
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oh come on

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oh wait yeah that ones irrelevant anyways

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its just 3 and 4 that talk about settings

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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let's try this: plug your switch directly into the monitor and tell me what FPS the monitor says the switch is outputting at

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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okay

orchid pebble
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you cant tell me you cant read that

harsh kernel
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i can read that now

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barely

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but i can

orchid pebble
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so basically exactly the same as my pc

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except hdmi instead of analog

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also man did it feel good to be in the game without delay again xD

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god its so annoying

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i dont understand how anyone would be able to play like this

harsh kernel
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okay, so you want the capture device set at 60 FPS. If that fails to work properly, we need to try the capture device on a different computer. if THAT fails to work properly, then you should return the capture device and exchange it for something else.

orchid pebble
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even a less than a second delay is extremely noticable in videogames

orchid pebble
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and when i put obs settings at 60 it made no difference

harsh kernel
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do you have buffering turned on in OBS?

orchid pebble
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idk what other capture card i would get. If the one that claims and has reviews saying theres no delay, has delay, then wtf am i supposed to do

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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go into the video capture device settings

orchid pebble
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idk if you mean this

harsh kernel
surreal hornet
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Guys...

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You guys are doing nothing to improve the situation

orchid pebble
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i connected it back in the original port on the back btw

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audio output capture doesnt work anymore tho

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idk why

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even when adding a new one

surreal hornet
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You don't even use analog so what's the point of PAL

harsh kernel
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show me the settings for the video input device

surreal hornet
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It's also literally saying you have 60hz monitor

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Yes, that's why I pinged you before

orchid pebble
harsh kernel
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yes

orchid pebble
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and i already responded to you, most reviews talking about delay are specifically talking about streaming and viewing games

surreal hornet
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You will have delay on this capture card, no matter what

orchid pebble
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oh heck

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i just opened the setting and the sound came back suddenly

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weird

surreal hornet
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Even if you have the correct setting it will still have delay

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But you can improve it somewhat

orchid pebble
orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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And do you have delay?

orchid pebble
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im just frustrated because the only reason i bought this thing in the first place was because i was reassured that there WOULD be no delay

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so it seems like IM specifically doing something wrong that everyone else isnt

surreal hornet
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It's a cheap capture card, dude. There's a reason it's that cheap.

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The capture card without delays are very expensive.

orchid pebble
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so every single review, even the bad ones, are just lying for shits and giggles?

surreal hornet
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You are reading Amazon reviews, they are as reliable as my mom's knowledge on computers

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But look, you wanna setup this better or not?

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Or a better solution is just returning this and buy a more expensive capture card

orchid pebble
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yes but you make it seem like theres no way to make this playable in general

surreal hornet
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because like I said, even with a better setup, it will still have a slight delay

orchid pebble
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i dont know how small an input lag would have to be to be playable but id assume the answer would be, extremely small

surreal hornet
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"Playable" is depend on how much you can tolerate the delay

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For many people, they are willing to accept that to play it on the their laptop's monitor

orchid pebble
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i dont know what person on earth would tolerate a delay even as small as half a second

surreal hornet
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And for certain types of games, such as RPG, the delays don't matter

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But for action, fast games like Smash for example, that is very annoying to play with

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So yeah, I can help improving this somewhat, but there is no way to make it as exact like direct HDMI connection

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Ah I see, so that's your purpose

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Well, there is a better solution for that

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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A better solution that this capture card, I meant

orchid pebble
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what is it?

surreal hornet
orchid pebble
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why would anyone prefer their character to feel unreactive unpredictable unreliable and sluggish?

surreal hornet
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What you need is 2 separate functions, one to output the video/audio to your PC for streaming and another to output to your monitor.

surreal hornet
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But do you want to stay here and argue that or we move on?

orchid pebble
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im just saying

surreal hornet
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Yes yes, we all have our says, I tend to focus on solving issues realistic issues first, not opinion

orchid pebble
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i find it hard to believe that anyone would want that but if its true then go off i guess who cares

surreal hornet
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So what you need is either:

  • A capture card with HDMI passthrough.
  • OR a capture card use together with a HDMI splitter.
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If you return this capture card, I can recommend you a different capture card with HDMI passthrough.

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But if you don't want to return it, you can buy an additional HDMI splitter.

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What this kind of setup will do is it gives you 2 outputs, one for your PC and another for your HDMI monitor.

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The stream/recording on your PC will have delay, but it doesn't matter since you would play on your monitor via the 2nd output.

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The 2nd output here is direct HDMI signal so it has no delays.

orchid pebble
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how much does a (FUNCTIONAL) hdmi splitter cost vaguely compared to a capture card with passthrough?

surreal hornet
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Haha your market is different than mine

surreal hornet
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so my gauge of price is eh, quite skewed

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Hmm

orchid pebble
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like is it closer to 5 bucks or 20 bucks or 50 or 100

surreal hornet
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The price for an additional HDMI splitter can be equal to a capture card with HDMI passthrough

orchid pebble
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or is it like theres ones for 20 but theyre super bad and only the functional ones are like 100 which would just be the same deal as a capture card and therefore useless for me

surreal hornet
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Not really, HDMI splitter is ancient tech

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and it's rather solid

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But you understand how it works, right?

orchid pebble
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im looking on amazon and they seem to go for around 10 bucks

surreal hornet
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Yeah, for me, the price of the normal cheap capture card is around 6 bucks

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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and the capture card with HDMI passthrough is 8 bucks

surreal hornet
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for you it's much higher, of course

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I'm living next to China

orchid pebble
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i think ill just see what amazon says

surreal hornet
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you have the, eh, what I call "Western market tax" x)

orchid pebble
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sometimes they return your money without requiring you to send back the product

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which would be lucky ofc xD

surreal hornet
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Actually that would be ideal

orchid pebble
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if they ask me to physically ship it then i think id probably be too lazy and just buy the separate hdmi splitter lol

surreal hornet
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You want a recommendation on the capture card with HDMI passthrough?

orchid pebble
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bruh i searched "capture card with HDMI passthrough" and the first thing it recommends me is literally the very same card we're talking about right NOW xD

harsh kernel
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obviously that one doesn't have passthrough

orchid pebble
orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Damn these prices...

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you guys literally have double the price

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Get the one that looks like this:

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Or this

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It just have some audio input/output splitter, not that big of a deal

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They are 8 bucks in my market lol

orchid pebble
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these are the next two suggestions by amazon

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the top one looks promising

surreal hornet
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Have you ever looked at our streaming guide?

tardy lagoonBOT
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stream

CAPTURE CARD RECOMMENDATIONS

※ You will need a capture card and a computer to stream the Nintendo Switch.

• What is a capture card?

A capture card is a device that can take (capture) the video and audio output of the console and send it to the computer, where software can be used to record or stream the content onto Twitch, Youtube, Discord, etc...

• Recommended Capture Cards:
(Amazon listing & prices updated July 2020)
Elgato HD60 S - $199.99
Elgato HD60 PRO PCIE Card - $249.99
AVerMedia - Record without PC - $161.99
No brand - Budget option (Youtube link) - $10 - $35

This budget capture card is sold with different names through different sellers. We have tested several ones that were identical to each other. One was able to output 1080p@60fps while the other was 1080p@30fps, both can do 720p@60fps. It is, however, the cheapest capture card with acceptable quality on the market.

※ Be sure to read Our Streaming F.A.Q

orchid pebble
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no

surreal hornet
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The budget capture card here and these things

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basically all capture card under 100 bucks

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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they all use the same chip

orchid pebble
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so i guess ill let customer support decide xD

surreal hornet
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good luck then

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meanwhile, wanna run an experiment?

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I can try to give you a better setup for that capture card but via VLC

orchid pebble
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off topic but i love the name "elgato" because i cant help but think of

surreal hornet
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They are pretty big in the capture card/streaming market

surreal hornet
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You have VLC installed?

orchid pebble
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vlc media player?

surreal hornet
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Yeah

orchid pebble
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yes

surreal hornet
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Check where is it installed on your PC

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default is C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Confirm the location of the install for me

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eh right click that shortcut and choose "Open file location"

orchid pebble
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its the shortcut tho- idk if thats different

surreal hornet
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Then you can find where is it installed

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My dude, your additional of "o" to OK is very appreciated 😛

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Alright

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1 sec

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Download this

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Click on this button to download:

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This is a script to run VLC for your capture card

orchid pebble
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i shall immediately download the strange file that cannot be scanned for viruses without question :)

surreal hornet
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haha you can literally see its content right there

orchid pebble
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yeah but me big stinky brain dont know what it means

surreal hornet
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it's just a command line to start VLC using specific parameters

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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Oh shoot I forgot

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One sec

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close that

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and open VLC alone, nothing else

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Then choose this menu

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Your capture card is in this list:

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The audio output of the capture card is in this list:

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Can you note down the name of the capture card and its audio source?

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I'll go change the file

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you can also change this btw

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But if you are not used to editing cmd then let me

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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That's from you clicking OK?

orchid pebble
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i just pressed play idk if i was supposed to do that aha 😅

surreal hornet
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huh

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ok one sec

orchid pebble
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unless its just me copy pasting in a command

surreal hornet
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Weird why didn't it work for you

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Go back to that menu again and see which selection works

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it sounds correct for me

orchid pebble
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omg what happened xD

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i checked obs and it showed this lol, maybe i didnt put the switch back in the dock correctly, when i moved it back out and in again it worked fine again xD

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sound mysteriously gone again tho until i open capture device settings again for some reason

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oh well, i guess thats irrelevant

surreal hornet
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Ok, try this file

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Remember to close OBS

orchid pebble
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u dont think having obs open as well is interfering with vlc?

surreal hornet
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Of course haha

orchid pebble
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welp

surreal hornet
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the thing can't output to both

orchid pebble
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then thats probably why xD

surreal hornet
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Ok try that file

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I hope I typed in the correct name

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if not, we can take that from VLC again

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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ok test the file

orchid pebble
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closing vlc and opening your file now

surreal hornet
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How's the delay?

orchid pebble
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i think the input delay is even worse on here xD

surreal hornet
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fuck lol

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well it's an experiment

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1 sec

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The file previously is 1080p60fps

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but this new one is 1080p30fps

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try it

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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ah just update, ignore it for now

orchid pebble
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oke

surreal hornet
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so how is it?

orchid pebble
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about the same, maybe slightly better

surreal hornet
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same thing, right? 😛

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Yeah because I know the limit of your capture card

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Ok now let's do some magic

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On your Switch, go to System Settings > TV settings

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then change resolution to 720p

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And then download and run this one

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This is 720p60fps

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which is the best performance for your capture card

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Tell me how it goes

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One thing I know from these capture card is that no matter what they look like, what name they have, they all work exactly the same

orchid pebble
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alrighty

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thats interesting

surreal hornet
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brb getting water

orchid pebble
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this, right?

orchid pebble
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yeah its no better than obs haha

surreal hornet
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Yeah that's correct

orchid pebble
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i guess i didnt really expect it to be anyways

surreal hornet
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Well, that's the best you can get, unfortunately

orchid pebble
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except now everything looks like a jpeg xD

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thats alright, ill see about getting an hdmi splitter or a capture card with pass through

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thanks so much for all your help

surreal hornet
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Yeah, you should change the TV resolution back

orchid pebble
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doop too

surreal hornet
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If you want to know how bad these things are

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the capture card has a USB 3.0 name, right?

orchid pebble
surreal hornet
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but it isn't USB 3.0

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it's just USB 2.0

orchid pebble
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see i said that too xD the reviews told me as much

surreal hornet
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they change the name and put a blue color jack/port on it ._.

orchid pebble
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thats so dumb xD

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i hope amazon can get me my money back lool

surreal hornet
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1080p60fps will struggle through a USB 2.0 bandwidth

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And their chip can't handle that

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but they will advertise that performance

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That's how the story goes

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Alright, good luck with your HDMI passthrough capture card, it should work better

orchid pebble
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👍

orchid pebble
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if you cant really say thats ok id understand that too 👍

surreal hornet
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Try brand like ugreen, baseus or aukey

harsh kernel
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@orchid pebble I can vouch for ugreen stuff — everything of theirs I’ve tried works well

orchid pebble
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i will try to see what i can find

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theres this but its a bit pricy for my liking

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looking for baseus just gives me

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and looking for aukey doesnt seem to give me anything

harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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i mean im trying to stay under the price that buying a capture card with hdmi passthrough would cost lol

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idk i mean the cheap ones have good reviews though

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i mean so did the capture card

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but i cant think of anything obvious like latency that could go completely wrong no?

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i bought a cheap audio splitter cable and a cheap denoisifer underground loop thingy whatever its called and both worked perfectly fine

orchid pebble
orchid pebble
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especially when it seems like theres cheaper options that appear to work just fine

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but like i said if you think theres any inherent big risks with that lmk

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obviously if its doomed to fail like cheap capture cards are ill just have to pay more

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oh nice i i can get a used one for cheaper

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thatd def be my next choice then if you say 6-9 dollar ones are hopeless

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oh and another question though

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do i need another hdmi cable for this or something?

harsh kernel
orchid pebble
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dang, that cements even more that i wanna get a very cheap hdmi splitter lol

surreal hornet
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Is waiting an issue for you? Why not just buy the capture card from Aliexpress?

orchid pebble
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apparently what i ended up biyng was a fkn dhmi SWITCH splitter

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which does the OPPOSITE of what i needed

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uughhhhhhhhhh..

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in fact most products amazon shows you when searching for hdmi splitters are actually SWITCH splitters

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so fkn annoying..

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i searched in for 1 in 2 out specifically and its still giving me a bunch of switch splitters although some of them clain they do 1 in 2 out as well???

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idek anymore, this is so confusing

surreal hornet
# orchid pebble welp

This is a common thing, unfortunately.
In my experience, you just have to check the product's description for each one to know ._.'

orchid pebble
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😩

orchid pebble
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wtf does amazon want from me

surreal hornet
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It has been months since this thread starts, you haven't been able to find a HDMI splitter? 0_o

orchid pebble
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i havent been searching for it until recently again

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i think i found one now but im gonna make a new thread for it cause its been so long

surreal hornet
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I'm just simply surprised you haven't done it sooner haha

orchid pebble
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i already did it and figured it out earlier xD but thank you

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ended up working flawlessly so yay! i can finally properly use my capture card without lag