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I play games on my laptop, and they run at about 30-45 FPS, which is bearable for me. But when I try to stream, the frame rate drops to 20 or lower, which is unplayable for me.

I have a second computer, though (a Mac; the laptop is Windows 7), and I'm wondering if there is any way to stream the game content from my laptop using my Mac. To clarify, I would still have the game running on the laptop. I just want the Mac to deal with the streaming part to improve performance on the gaming computer.

Is this possible, and how would I go about doing it?

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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about generic streaming. While streaming is something that gamers do, it itself is not a gaming-specific activity, therefore does not belong here.
    – Frank
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 14:45
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    @Frank Meta disagrees with you: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/7958/…
    – user28015
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 14:57
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    @NoneOfYourBusiness "As a rule of thumb, if you can remove every mention of games or gaming from the question and have it still fully describe your problem, then it's probably off-topic". No game mentioned. Problem still exists. Off-topic.
    – Frank
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 14:58
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    @Frank ...Seriously, stop being so tight about what is off topic or not. Streaming games is a particular gaming problem. you don't just want to stream, you want to play remotely. It involves lag issues which are higher than for a regular problem. It involves porting gamepad input from one computer to the other, this kind of things. How is that not a gaming question? There is no need to be so tight about "it's too generic, not a gaming question". The only thing you achieve is scaring off a newcomer.
    – Gnoupi
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 15:11
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    Hi I am the toxic part of this website. It is me.
    – badp
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 15:46

2 Answers 2

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What you need for that is a Video Splitter Cable along with a Video Capture card to capture the video after it has "left" your gpu. You would attach it over the output of your video card. Then you could feed this image to a capture card in your Mac.

While this works, it is a pricey solution. I would rather recommend getting a real computer or to try to play those games on your Mac. If you own your games on Steam, chances are high that the games in Question have Steam Play, which makes you own them on Mac, Linux and PC at the same time.

For streaming or recording games I recommend an i5 at minimum or even an i7 along with 16GB of RAM and a fast Hard Disk with 7200 RPM in case of recording or even a SSD.

Using Tools like NVIDIA Shadowplay or AMD Gaming Evolved can significantly cut down on your frame loss while streaming/recording, so I recommend trying those too.

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    Oh, nice, I haven't thought about those options. I was going to answer that this is not possible, since the work would have to be done anyway, but indeed, such device can capture the image without the processing cost.
    – Gnoupi
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 15:48
  • I have 16gb of RAM, an 3rd gen i5, but an integrated Intel HD Mobile 4000 graphics card/chip/whatever, so that hinders performance a lot.
    – captainGeech
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 15:58
  • Can I use Shadowplay w/o an NVIDIA card?
    – captainGeech
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 16:01
  • @techgod No I don't think so. Use raptr for that, aka AMD Gaming Evolved. It comes with integrated Twitch Streaming Support.. Reason is, that AMD and NVIDIA have both different optimized frame grabbing techniques. OBS also has a AMD Version of their streaming tool: obsproject.com/forum/threads/…
    – user28015
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 16:03
  • @techgod52 Oh, you have actually no mobile dedicated GPU in there? Welp, that is an issue :D. How good is your Mac? Can you try to play on that one?
    – user28015
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 16:04
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The best way to stream is to have a two PC-setup. Streaming eats a lot of CPU power and there is no way you will have better stream quality with one PC than with a two PC setup. Unless you don't have a PC with two CPUs inside it, which is quite exotic and expensive as hell I guess. And it's not for gaming.

So you can buy an avermedia live gamer portable lite (around 150$) to save some bucks and you don't need any video splitter. Just make sure that you can use avermedia's HDMI input (check your laptop video output). And you will probably need an HDMI cable, if it doesn't come with the capture card.

The question is - is your laptop capable of sending picture simultaneously to the laptop screen and through the laptop's video output.

The difficulty about a two PC setup is sending audio to the second PC. You can resolve that with a 3.5 mm audio-cable splitters.

With the capture card, you will fit in 200$ I think, if you don't have a professional MIC with XLR or USB output. Also there are some ways to send audio through the lan.

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  • The suggested streaming device shouldn't have any issue with audio over HDMI from a laptop. The HDMI standard carries both audio and video, and the device's specs explicitly call out that it handles the audio signal.
    – T.J.L.
    Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 18:55

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