Stream setup & equipment for LAN events

[remmah]

Thanks for the heads up! Our Monoprice adapter works as well. I've updated the post with links to both. Word on the street is pretty much any adapter will work now, but I'll wait for confirmation before recommending people get random adapters.

I do plan on doing a good bit of experimentation between now and the summer, and will share anything I find out.

As for projecting a mirror of the stream feed to a display for in-person viewing, that's a good idea. It reminds me of something I wanted to ask though... I wonder if there should there be some degree of separation between the players and the audience/commentary, since the latter have access to the observer camera and information the players might not know otherwise. I wonder how this is handled for other games that have similar situations? Or is it just taken for granted that LAN events can lead to players overhearing things or glancing at the observer camera?

 

[Torloth]

Most of the time she I see competitive games played in a event there are sound blocking pannels between both teams. Depending on the venue. I would set the projector screen Infront of the competitors and have them either facing towards or facing backwards. So they can see the screen.
But you would need to know your venue to best lay out a floor plan.

As for the local spectators and players, I see plexiglass booths used all the time for teams. That could help (rentals might be available) every team member will be wearing headphones and have a mic line to their team. So I don't think there would be too much in the way of "cheating".

 

[remmah]

Interesting, thanks! So it's generally accepted that competitors can see the audience's stream feed at a glance? Reminds me of looking at other players' screens in Goldeneye back in the day to see where they were ^^;

 

[remmah]

For those who were able to play the testfire over the weekend using the Switch's built-in screen: Do you think it's large enough to use in a tournament setting, or is a monitor a must-have? Charging docks would be a lot cheaper than rounding up monitors, and would also reduce the number of power strips needed for a setup.

 

[aceofscarabs]

A direct HDMI pipe to your capture card is preferred, rather than a secondhand screen recording.

 

[Torloth]

I think they said you can only run LAN mode on Wired Internet. I know you can get an adapter to connect a Ethernet cable to the switch, Directly however not sure you can charge and do that. monitors might be required.

 

[RespawningJesus]

For those who were able to play the testfire over the weekend using the Switch's built-in screen: Do you think it's large enough to use in a tournament setting, or is a monitor a must-have? Charging docks would be a lot cheaper than rounding up monitors, and would also reduce the number of power strips needed for a setup.

I would say that monitors are a must after using both tabletop and monitors during the test fire. The switch screen gets the job done, but a monitor is just so much better.

 

[remmah]

Thanks all! Yeah, I keep forgetting that the Switch needs to be in its dock to use the ethernet adapter, so monitors will be required for LAN Mode setups.

Perhaps built-in screens can be used for offstream setups or pickup games, but I worry about wireless interference. With 1-2 controllers per player, that's 8-16 bluetooth radios per LAN setup. Makes me wish for GameCube adapter support so we can play hardwired!

 

[Torloth]

Thanks all! Yeah, I keep forgetting that the Switch needs to be in its dock to use the ethernet adapter, so monitors will be required for LAN Mode setups.

Perhaps built-in screens can be used for offstream setups or pickup games, but I worry about wireless interference. With 1-2 controllers per player, that's 8-16 bluetooth radios per LAN setup. Makes me wish for GameCube adapter support so we can play hardwired!

I think Hori has a wired controller. Not sure if it has Motion controls or not.
I think the majority of Splatoon players will prefer the pro controller.

I'm not sure if the pro controller can use Direct feed well plugged in or not... I know the joycon do but.... You can't play handheld mode and use the Lan adapter.

 

[remmah]

Based on Nintendo's support documents, it seems like the Pro Controller's cable is only for charging. It looks like the price for the upcoming Hori wired controller will be in the $30 range, so I doubt it will have motion controls. I haven't used motion controls for Splatoon, so the wired controller may work out for me, though I may give motion controls a try again once they're not tied to a device as large as the Wii U Gamepad.

 

[dr3am]

though I may give motion controls a try again once they're not tied to a device as large as the Wii U Gamepad.

Worth a try for sure! It's much more precise.

 

[Big Boss]

Quick heads up with the Elgato HD60 it dose not like OBS at all I could not get 1080p 60 on mine. Only Could get 720p 30. But the Elgato software I can get 1080P 60 recording, my laptop(Lenovo Thinkpad T420) struggles a lot with streaming due to no wired connection.

Would propose try Xsplit over it. Incase you wanted team cams also.
I will test Xsplit and the HD60.
From what I understand extra 2 Switchs in spectator mode can control cameras of the match. Who knows how good (or bad )Nintendo's Phone app will be for voice chat, unless it also has a LAN mode also.

I just thought of something.... So the Switch has a built in Mic port on top. Since the console must be docked to play in the tournament setup you can use the headset there. They could totally have a local voice chat built into the game..
I personally hate "gamer headsets". I use a pair for Sol Republic Master Tracks, when I game and a clip on mic. I have an adapter for separate mic and Headphone lines to a single 3.5mm jack.

I'm going to need to test a lot of stuff with the Switch before I take a firm stance on anything. But I'm excited for local tournaments

Really? That's odd I was able to easily get 1080p and 720p 60 working OBS when I had my Elgato HD60.

 

[Big Boss]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences and suggestions!

Cat5e vs Cat6: While I made sure to wire my house with Cat6, I think it's overkill for this scenario. Cat5e is rated well above the speed we need, so as long as the cable's coming from a reputable vendor I'm not too worried about it. Twitch recommends a maximum of 3-4 Mbps for uploading, and the bandwidth requirements for the LAN play itself is well within the capacity of Cat5e and a 10/100 network switch, so I think it makes sense to save money on this part of the equipment budget. I agree that Intel NICs have a reputation for reliability.

Desktop vs laptop: I appreciate the additional power desktops can provide — I have an old 6-core Xeon system with 48GB RAM myself ^^; — but I'm genuinely curious if a 3-feed stream can be handled with a laptop, if only for the convenience of carrying around less equipment. I know Quick Sync can help a lot with video encoding, but I'm not sure what its limits are (e.g. can it handle decoding 3 h264 streams along with encoding both the stream and archive video simultaneously?).

SSDs vs HDDs: I'm of two minds on this one. I understand that NAND flash has a limited number of read/write cycles, but I wonder recording/streaming a few tournaments a month would ever push that limit, especially if streaming is the primary use for the computer. Does the stream buffer ever hit storage, or is it just the higher-quality recording that gets stored? It's worth noting that I don't plan on saving or working with raw video — I'm a happy camper with encoded video so long as x264 is properly tweaked. So at least with an encoded video being saved, we'd be well within the limits of a single SATA connection. I also worry about head contention on spinning drives leading to dropped frames.

GPU power: My impression was that GPU-based encoding was falling out of favor due to lower quality and the prevalence of Quick Sync-enabled Intel chips. Is a lot of GPU power required for OBS itself?

Ever since Twitch increased their max upload speed for everyone to 6000kb/s GPU based encoding has become more viable, I did a few test encodes in XMedia Encode using x.264 VeryFast, x.264 Medium, and NVENC Low Latency - High Quality using a 720p60 20000kb/s file of Splatoon gameplay I recorded myself off an Elgato HD60, the 3 videos files looked nearly identical with Medium pulling out a negligible amount more detail. Albeit these are "simulated" tests as I'm just encoding a video so actual stream results may vary.

As for the SSD situation, modern SSDs can endure Petabytes of reads and writes these days, but I would never use my SSD as my recording drive, I have a 1TB WD Black HDD for that, but any modern hard drive should suffice.

 

[remmah]

Interesting, didn't know about the new upload speed! I was using the old 3250kbps limit on 720p and quality wasn't that good.

 

[Big Boss]

Interesting, didn't know about the new upload speed! I was using the old 3250kbps limit on 720p and quality wasn't that good.

Yeah the bitrate increase has really bumped up the image quality for Splatoon streams, most of them look better than Youtube's encodes now imo.

I notice someone already brought this up but, the quality of the network switch can have a major impact on quality of gameplay. In my past experiences I've used primarily NetGear switches, they cost a little more but I can actually find their datasheets and know their specs unlike the Monoprice ones (No datasheet) and the TP-Link ones (Promotional material only giving basic info), they're well build and have survived me many years of intensive use with no bottle-necking.

NetGear 16-port 10/100 switch ~$50 + free shipping ($40 after rebate)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...netgear_16_port_switch-_-33-122-004-_-Product

NetGear 8-port 10/100 switch ~$23 + free shipping ($12.85 after rebate)
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...=netgear_8_port_switch-_-33-122-006-_-Product

Datasheet for the both of them
http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/datasheet/en/FS105-FS108-FS116.pdf

The switches being 10/100 are a non-issue even with 8 Nintendo Switches and a PC streaming you won't really be saturating it.

 

[Big Boss]

[Deleted] Oops double post.

 

[aceofscarabs]

TP-Link isn't a good brand anyway, their products have inferior lifespan to the other stuff we got on the shelves around here.

 

[dimefox]

When I read through the gear list, I couldn't help but imagine someone buying this stuff, boxing it, and renting it to someone who needs it for, say, a weekend tournament. Not a proper streaming computer, of course, just the networking and power gear, maybe mic and webcams. That might be the only time someone would use that gear anyway, so instead of dropping a huge wad of cash for gear that would sit in a closet for years afterward, renting a lan kit could be more reasonable.
I'm not saying I'm going to do that, but it's an idea, throwing it out here.

 

[Astral]

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Snowbal...qid=1491240420&sr=1-20&keywords=blue+snowball

This is the mic I use. Godly audio, and about the same price as the one listed above. And obviously from a trusted brand

 

[remmah]

Just a heads up: the ethernet adapter on Amazon is currently on sale for $7!

I notice someone already brought this up but, the quality of the network switch can have a major impact on quality of gameplay. In my past experiences I've used primarily NetGear switches, they cost a little more but I can actually find their datasheets and know their specs unlike the Monoprice ones (No datasheet) and the TP-Link ones (Promotional material only giving basic info), they're well build and have survived me many years of intensive use with no bottle-necking.

I use a Netgear switch at home and can confirm it's been a reliable device, though I've also used TP-Link gear in the past without issue. I agree that Netgear is a more well-regarded brand in general though.

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Snowbal...qid=1491240420&sr=1-20&keywords=blue+snowball

This is the mic I use. Godly audio, and about the same price as the one listed above. And obviously from a trusted brand

The Snowball is popular, but according to a podcaster's comparison review, the Audio-Technica is better with background noise rejection. I've not had enough experience with it to say either way.