If you are a console streamer on Xbox Series X or PS5 you now will be able to play at 120 fps and stream at 1080p 60fps with VRR Variable Refresh Rate enabled! I say about damn time!
We couldn’t play and capture
Before this capture card came out the ElGato HD60S and HD60S+ where the only external capture cards from ElGato that we console streamers could use to stream from our Mac or PC. We were limited to playing our games on our TVs or Monitors at 60 FPS tops with 1080p or 4k respectively. The recorded footage was also limited to those numbers and our actual stream was kept at a good rate of 1080p 60fps, but with our tv or monitor being limited we were stuck with 60 fps on our actual performance.
This wouldn’t be a problem for stable games and older Xbox One or PlayStation 4 users. The issue would arise with games that dropped frames like Warzone from which having the ability to use VRR – Variable Refresh Rate – was a life savior, yet, with the older ElGato external capture cards we weren’t able to make use of VRR.
If you are a next gen or better said current gen consoles like the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S you can play a lot of competitive video games at 120 fps, but the older ElGato capture cards didn’t support that higher refresh rates when passing the single over to the tv or monitor that you were playing on, leaving you stuck with lower frame rates and keeping you at a disadvantage in the competitive scene.
I personally quit streaming due to this issue, but not until exhausting all options. The guys over at Lightstream did a great job at providing a good alternative by getting you to stream from your console to their server than mirroring it to Twitch. This method of mirroring allowed me to play my games at a 120 fps and have the layouts and themes that a typical streamer would have, but at a cost of stability and functionality.
Now it just works
The Lightstream shortcomings made it so I did not want to invest my time and efforts into streaming since recording or capturing footage was not high quality for post productions. The audio managing was limited and when it worked it was great, but when you encountered a scenario that did not follow the typical methods you were stuck without any remedies.
Passthrough devices were supposed to eventually catch up, but they never did, they got stuck at the none VRR 4k 60 fps barrier. It took ElGato
I’m really excited to be able to capture, play and stream with no hassless thanks to the fact that Finally The Elgato HD60X is Here! I have an Xbox Series S that I use to play games for streams and now that I can play at 120fps with VRR enabled while streaming gets me excited to get back in the game of streaming.
Are you ready?
Finally The Elgato HD60X is Here so we won’t have to be paying monthly charges that in about a year or two cost as much as this card and if you know a thing or two about streaming wireless things are not the way to go. The more failure points you have the riskier it is and the trade off is not worth it.
I will be getting this card and testing it once I get other content creation projects stable or finalized. If you have any questions on the matter do not forget to give us a comment here or on our socials. You can find me under RichieRichLabs on all platforms!
If you are itching to get some streaming done ASAP don’t you worry cause I got this article made just for your kind
