Last Updated on August 20, 2020
Summary
It’s important to be realistic about the RPI4. I never expected it to be able to stream gaming video at 60fps. RPI4 definitely doesn’t have the horsepower to perform that function. However, I hoped performance would be better capturing the desktop at much lower resolutions. However, from my testing, I wasn’t satisfied with the recordings. Far too few frames per second however much I tweaked settings. In the absence of hardware encoding, it’s frankly a non-starter. The RPI4 has a VideoCore VI GPU, but this isn’t being used by OBS Studio. Direct encoder support would offer much better performance.
The situation is much better with Window Capture. For example, capturing a specific window using Xcomposite at 30 fps only took 20-30% CPU (of all 4 cores). Fluid performance.
OBS Studio accepts other sources such as video capture devices. Sadly, I haven’t got a functioning webcam at the moment working, so I haven’t been able to test that yet.
I’d love to hear your experience of running OBS Studio on the RPI4. Share away below!
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – Installation
Page 3 – In Operation
Page 4 – Summary
Read all my blog posts about the RPI4.
| Raspberry Pi 4 Blog | |
|---|---|
| Week 36 | Manage your personal collections on the RPI4 |
| Week 35 | Survey of terminal emulators |
| Week 34 | Search the desktop with the latest version of Recoll |
| Week 33 | Personal Information Managers on the RPI4 |
| Week 32 | Keep a diary with the RPI4 |
| Week 31 | Process complex mathematical functions, plot 2D and 3D graphs with calculators |
| Week 30 | Internet radio on this tiny computer. A detailed survey of open source software |
| Week 29 | Professionally manage your photo collection with digiKam |
| Week 28 | Typeset beautifully with LyX |
| Week 27 | Software that teaches young people how to learn basic computing skills and beyond |
| Week 26 | Firefox revisited - Raspbian now offers a real alternative to Chromium |
| Week 25 | Turn the Raspberry Pi 4 into a low power writing machine |
| Week 24 | Keep the kids learning and having fun |
| Week 23 | Lots of choices to view images |
| Week 22 | Listening to podcasts on the RPI4 |
| Week 21 | File management on the RPI4 |
| Week 20 | Open Broadcaster Software (OBS Studio) on the RPI4 |
| Week 19 | Keep up-to-date with these news aggregators |
| Week 18 | Web Browsers Again: Firefox |
| Week 17 | Retro gaming on the RPI4 |
| Week 16 | Screen capturing with the RPI4 |
| Week 15 | Emulate the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari ST on the RPI4 |
| Week 14 | Choose the right model of the RPI4 for your desktop needs |
| Week 13 | Using the RPI4 as a screencaster |
| Week 12 | Have fun reading comics on the RPI4 with YACReader, MComix, and more |
| Week 11 | Turn the RPI4 into a complete home theater |
| Week 10 | Watching locally stored video with VLC, OMXPlayer, and others |
| Week 9 | PDF viewing on the RPI4 |
| Week 8 | Access the RPI4 remotely running GUI apps |
| Week 7 | e-book tools are put under the microscope |
| Week 6 | The office suite is the archetypal business software. LibreOffice is tested |
| Week 5 | Managing your email box with the RPI4 |
| Week 4 | Web surfing on the RPI4 looking at Chromium, Vivaldi, Firefox, and Midori |
| Week 3 | Video streaming with Chromium & omxplayerGUI as well as streamlink |
| Week 2 | A survey of open source music players on the RPI4 including Tauon Music Box |
| Week 1 | An introduction to the world of the RPI4 looking at musikcube and PiPackages |
This blog is written on the RPI4.
I’m really enjoying this series. It seems that OBS Studio is out of RPI4’s capabilities. At least until the GPU is used.
I’d like to see coverage of productivity apps on the RPI4 – things like Evernote clients covered. Any plans?
Thanks for the feedback. I’m really impressed with the RPI4 as a desktop replacement.
I’m currently testing a good spread of productivity apps on the RPI4. I’ll be reporting my findings over the next few blog articles.
Looks like obs is using software encoder although rpi4 can do fullhd HARDWARE encoding. Too bad.
You’re just repeating what Luke says in his Summary — “The RPI4 has a VideoCore VI GPU, but this isn’t being used by OBS Studio. Direct encoder support would offer much better performance.”
Some things are worth repeating
Problems installing OBS-studio on pi4
CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-3.16/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:146 (message):
Could NOT find Wayland (missing: WAYLAND_LIBRARIES WAYLAND_INCLUDE_DIRS)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/share/cmake-3.16/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:393 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
cmake/Modules/FindWayland.cmake:76 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
libobs-opengl/CMakeLists.txt:55 (find_package)
— Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also “/home/pi/Downloads/obs-studio/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log”.
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi/Downloads/obs-studio/build# make -j4
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi/Downloads/obs-studio/build#
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi/Downloads/obs-studio/build#