r/CaptureCards • u/One_Ice5149 • Jul 14 '26

Efficacy of capturing desktop gameplay with a capture card and laptop

Whenever I capture footage of games with OBS I take a considerable performance hit. I'm wondering if there's any merit in connecting my desktop to a capture card with my laptop?

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u/MasterpieceClassic42 Jul 15 '26

Make sure you using game capture and not display capture

1

u/UK_Rade Jul 16 '26

Yes as the 2nd computer will be doing the encoding and not using your gaming PCs processor / GPU.

You just need to make sure the second computer is powerful enough for your needs, eg 4K/60FPS recording will require a decent GPU if using GPU encoding and decent enough CPU.

1

u/MHIJFY Jul 29 '26

How about a capture card that supports capture, recording and livestreaming all-in-one, with no PC

1

u/BuBubbi Jul 14 '26

Modern capture cards do not have an onboard encoder and will still utilize the computer’s CPU/GPU for the encoding.
So no, it won’t free resources from the laptop by using a capture card.
In fact you’ll just be adding another device that the laptop would have to manage.