Should I make the switch to Windows?

[Therealcm]

I’m a Mac guy through and through.

This weekend, I had a big live stream, and I made the mistake of adding some elements to the broadcast. OBS did not handle it well, and crashed over time.

I have a pretty big and complicated setup at this point, running four cameras on NDI, doing the switching on one Mac mini, and feeding the main output to a streaming Mac mini over NDI. The streaming Mac mini is an M1, with solid specs, and handles most of the graphics. I was using a lot of plugins, CPU went through the roof, and everything fell apart.

Bottom line, I’m gonna upgrade my firepower and buy new hardware. I’m not leaving OBS. But at this point…. Should I bite the bullet and make the switch to windows? Will the arm vs Intel issues continue to haunt this software on Mac? Am I always gonna be behind the 8 ball playing on Mac?

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I'm a Windows guy through and through... for historical and philosophical reasons
Understand that Apple's initial M1/M2 chips were fine for their intended use cases, of which, complex real-time rendering with lots of filters and effects was NOT one of them. With the Apple chips get better? yes. However, for now, their focus is on power efficiency (ie battery life and thermals), NOT outright performance. I have no inside info as to if/when Apple plans to outright compete on flexible (not walled garden limited) performance capabilities
Even on Windows, do you need to be careful, have hardware resource utilization monitoring, testing of new setups, etc? Yes
And be it a Macbook, or Mac Mini, or a Windows laptop, you'll want to be attentive to thermal throttling. For example, did you just slightly exceed performance capability of streaming Mac Mini? would some better CPU/GPU cooling have fixed your problems?

You recognize your mistake. Same can happen on either OS. So, to me the question is more about your priorities, budget, and access to (real) Windows OS expertise.
- It comes down to how much time and energy you have to optimize both MacOS and OBS Studio for your available performance envelope, vs spending money and learning something new. And whether your requirements simply outright exceed M1/M2 system capabilities ... at which point do you back off your resource demands, or getting something more powerful?
Most Mac people I know, have no idea what it even means to optimize their Operating System setup, background processes, etc, much less be able to make appropriate adjustments for a given workload
- do you prioritize (and have budget to support) immediate need for from complex OBS Studio setup? if yes, and you have Windows expertise to lean on (not YT video from folks who have NO idea what they are talking about), then getting a Streaming Windows OS computer might make sense. But I'd advise that as a least desirable option. Why put yourself through learning a new OS, its quirks, slightly different applications, etc.
Instead, I'd stick with what you know, don't make the same (or similar) mistake, and get your setup stabilized & reliable. And you may need a more powerful system (M2, etc). And be attentive to your plugins and their CPU utilization. There are some really poorly written plugins (functional but hardware inefficient), and/or some settings can change from reasonable (/tolerable for your system) CPU impact to 'Uh Oh'.

Do I know who to build and operate a top-performing x86 Windows desktop OS system? absolutely.
But, in your case, as you know MacOS, I'd be inclined, if you must, to only get a Windows Streaming computer, with sufficient resources for your current and upcoming needs. And then account for expected changes like your plans to upgrade to AV1 encoding, 4K streaming, etc

 

[AaronD]

I grew up on Windows, and started playing with Linux in college. Dual-booted for a while, exclusively Linux for a while, then back to Windows, and finally back to all-Linux again when Windows 10 refused to update on my 2015 Dell laptop.

I really like Ubuntu Studio Linux for OBS, and media in general!

Ubuntu Studio – A free and open operating system for creative people.

ubuntustudio.org

If you're going to switch away from what you know anyway, then you might as well give that a shot too. It runs on the same hardware that Windows does, but Windows is nowhere to be found.

And, since both Linux and Mac (for a while at least) are based on Unix, you might be at least somewhat more familiar with the stuff under the hood if you go with Linux instead of Windows. Windows is completely different...in some ways more than others. But even the similarities are enough different to throw you off. Once you're past the "click here, get app" stage, you're almost starting over from scratch, going either direction between Windows and something else.

 

[Therealcm]

wow thank you guys, really thoughtful replies.

I didn’t do a good job of explaining preferences/experiences. I grew up on windows, I have some OLD SCHOOL programming experience, I use it at work.

I just prefer Mac. Outside of OBS, I prefer the reliability and uniformity of Mac. Linux would be starting from scratch.

It feels like OBS is handled on Windows better. Most pro-level OBS streamers appear to be working off Windows. Mac users have been reporting issues with hotkeys for six months, and it was a problem for me as well. It affected my broadcast.

I would spend as much as $2000 for an out-of-box windows or mac solution that could handle everything that I could throw at it in OBS. I’m never gonna fail at this again, it very much hurt my rep with my audience.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

The issue is how new the Apple CPUs are, and associated 3rd party code optimization learning curve. Over time, I'm sure we'll get closer to parity. But today, yea... x86 is the route to go for outright performance in a general sense. Linux is great if you REALLY like and are competent at working under the hood, so-to-speak... otherwise, typical user often better suited elsewhere... though Aaron's comments in other posts about Windows Audio sub-system are not wrong... but as he has noted, there are work-arounds.
In my case, I am the IT guy, and the Media person. so I don't have any conflicts ;^)

I recommend sticking to OS you are comfortable with. As an example, during a service livestream, our NDI to USB webcam driver (Tier 1 camera vendor) crashed and video stopped. I knew how to stop/restart related services and got video back without having to restart computer (which would have dropped/ended livestream in our case). A driver update resolved issue with OS. but the reality is that there are multiple moving parts. a Typical OBS Studio operator doesn't need to know underlying OS details... until something goes wrong. And it's when things go sideways while live that having the expertise to quickly resolve is important. So if this is important to address now, and using Windows is something you are ok with, and can focus your effort on your own content, not optimizing computer and OBS, then not a bad call.

Presuming using a KVM solution, so only needing computer, not monitor, etc, US$2,000 would be a more than powerful enough Windows PC to handle 4K video switching and streaming (1 box)... assuming not also doing heavy workload (gaming, real-time video editing, etc) on same system at same time. But you have NOT mentioned framerate, resolution, bit rate, recording color depth, etc, or base workload (if anything other than OBS Studio and related) on streaming computer(s). so ymmv

 

[AaronD]

Ah yes! Things going sideways while live. THAT'S always fun! :-/

And it's practically guaranteed too, no matter how well you've planned. Sooner or later, it happens to all of us. So there's still no substitute for the ability to rebuild some random part of it on the fly with no warning. It might not be the final solution, but it gets you through this session. Then once you're offline, you can take the band-aids back off, undo the half-baked kludges, and do it right, before the next one.

 

[Talonis]

I'm on Mac, and have been since 1989, save for a period of poor performance from Apple during the late 1990s. My performance issues were resolved when the ARM64 version of OBS Studio came out.

Yours sounds like very demanding usage, in which case you may want to investigate "Pro" hardware systems. Faster and far, far more reliable.

The other potential issue is that your set-up could be too complicated? The leaner you can run OBS the better it will be. I run with only two simple plugins and one additional script, and that's it. I've not experienced a crash or slow down since. Many people have too many programming bells and whistles when they should be spending more time on audio, lighting, and media assets.

If you think Windows could be your answer go for it. You owe no loyalty to the computer companies (they give none to you).

 

[Talonis]

Oh, and hot keys have been borked on OBS Mac since forever.

Just forget them, get a Stream Deck and use Bitfocus Companion.

 

[KUCTech]

I have already made the decision to switch from MacOS to Windows for our OBS live streaming operation. I am a volunteer at a local church and for the last 2 years I have been running the live streams for Sunday Services, Memorial Services and other events. I am using a Mac computer that was already installed, but it is to be reallocated and I need to find a replacement. There is no dependency that the replacement should be another Mac, and my preference is to go with Windows.

There are a number of smaller individual reasons for switching to Windows, but the single biggest reason is that I prefer the wider availability of computers, manufacturers and associated software that comes with Windows - my feeling is that more choice and more options is better than being dependent on a single manufacturer. OBS on the Mac has been OK, other than frustrations with some plugins not being available for MacOS and other UI/windowing problems. And while I think we could continue with OBS on Windows, I would like to explore commercial streaming software, mainly to have contractual recourse for the resolution of problems.

So that's my story - at the moment I am looking for Windows/PC configurations that will suit our needs.

Regards,
Tony N

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

So that's my story - at the moment I am looking for Windows/PC configurations that will suit our needs.

Tony
there are some other threads in the Windows forum on PC config at the moment. I set up our church OBS livestream setup3+ years ago, and am an IT infrastructure professional. I've helped out a numbers of Houses of Worship on requirements, specs, setup, etc. Feel free to DM me if you'd like some help/input

 

[DRI374]

Should I bite the bullet and make the switch to windows?

I'm curious to what you ended up doing? I've been on Windows for a few years now as my "main" setup and gradually started doing minor work on Mac and it has worked surprisingly well, but like you, I had that one "big" thing where everything just fell apart for who knows what reason. In my case I could flick the replay buffer on and off at times to take the load off to stop the stutter but it was a disaster in my opinion, especially when I've had a Razer laptop being rock solid for years running circles around the production I'm doing. I'm 100% Mac now and I don't feel confident at all this is reliable enough to run 10+ hour broadcasts.