My "Final" Computer Upgrades :D

You may recall that I put together a new computer last year.  When I bought the parts for it, I figured it'd serve it's purpose for just basic, middle-of-the-road gaming.  It was very good in doing just that, being able to play games at a decent graphics level and at 144 FPS (frames per second).

I eventually got back into streaming and started to notice how much of a CPU/GPU hog my streaming encoding software was in order produce an average looking stream.  I was pretty happy with an average stream because I didn't have much of a following...maybe averaging 5-7 viewers on Twitch on a monthly basis.

One day in October, I got hosted by a professional Fortnite player on Twitch and saw my view count go from about 11 up to 9,000 and eventually level out at 2,000 viewers for the rest of the night.  I reflect back on that point as the day I realized, man people are going to see my stream and I don't want it to look terrible.  I saw a spike in followers that day, 250 right off the bat and up to 500 total followers after that host.  People actually liked me and my content and wanted to come back and watch.  And so began my path down the road of trying to be the best streamer I can be.  Of course, gameplay and personality is always going to be one of my caps, but certainly I could at least try to make the stream look better...that was something I could control.

The first thing I did was get a new camera.  While the C920 looks fine, I noticed all the big streamers were using a digital camera and not a webcam.  After much research, I decided the camera to get was the Sony Alpha 6000.  It's not Sony's highest end camera, but a very good one and still not cheap by any means.  Paired with an Elgato 4K Cam Link, the new camera setup would cost me $700.

After the camera was added, I felt like it looked good on stream, but could still look better.  My old computer setup was pretty low-to-mid range and I was unable to stream at 1080p or at a decent encoding level.  Ten days later, I figured it was time for another upgrade.  This time I chose to upgrade the CPU to the i9-9900K, one of Intel's flagship processors at the time.  I also decided since I was going into the computer anyway, I might as well pick up one of those fancy NVMe M.2 drives as well.  My SSD space was starting to get low having only 384GB worth, so I went for the 1TB Samsung 970 EVO.  Got the CPU for $485 and the new SSD for $170.

The new CPU was blazing fast compared to my old one. Makes sense, I was going from six cores to eight cores with multi-threading.  I was now able to get that 1080p stream with a decent x264 level using the "Fast" preset.  The camera looked good and I even saved the old C920 to use on my cats....basically enabling the ability to have two cameras on stream.  However, I would notice that my Fortnite game still wasn't holding 144 FPS consistently.  The frames would constantly drop below 100 during gameplay even though my CPU was far from bottlenecked.  I then decided it was time to get a big-boy GPU.  I ended up getting a RTX 2080 for $660 right before Thanksgiving, which was a very good price at the time.  I also picked up a HD60 Pro capture card for $160, because I wanted to start streaming other games including those on my PS4 and Switch.

With the new GPU in my computer, I never saw my FPS drop under 144 anymore during a game of Fortnite while on stream.  I was very satisfied with the new graphics card!  I then began to wonder, just how much FPS can I actually push out of this thing?  I did a test with Fortnite and was able to max out around 500 FPS and holding 240 FPS was absolutely no problem.  In addition, I switched over to the NVENC encoder on Streamlabs OBS after hearing it had comparable or better visual quality to that of the x264 "Medium" preset.  I was finally at a point where I was very happy with the way my stream looked and I have zero issues running any game anymore at high quality and FPS.  It was now a legit, high-end gaming PC.  However, there was still one thing missing...a monitor that could refresh those 240 frames fast enough.

I'm a loyal fan of ViewSonic monitors and it just so happened that they released a new 240Hz monitor out this year.  I expected all 240Hz monitors to be around $500, so when this one was priced at $430, I bought it pretty quickly.  When the new monitor arrived, I now had 3 monitors, but that was hardly a problem.  I installed the 3rd one on a desk mount and it now sits above my gaming monitor, so I now have a wonderful 3-monitor setup. :)

My setup is complete and I don't think I'll be needing anymore major upgrades anytime soon.  Although we'll see, I thought I said that months ago when all I got was the camera at first and well here we are some $2500 later.  My rig is now valued at over $4,400 and I'm very happy with the beast I've put together.  You can see the entire listing and cost in the spreadsheet below...

My goal now is to just be the best streamer I can be and I'm still shocked that I actually have a following and community...it's still kind of crazy to me.  But I'm having a lot of fun with this hobby and it's worth all the time and money I'm invested into it.

Here's to my future Twitch career wherever it may lead.  Happy Holidays and see ya next stream! :)

Dual 70" TV's!?!?

We live in an era where everyone is and should be running on dual monitors whenever they're on a computer.  But why don't we do the same with our TV watching experience?  I've had the vision of adding a second TV to my great room and last month I finally made it happen. :)

Below is the Before picture.  I have a 70" Sharp HDTV that I put on that side of the house because that's where the coaxial cable jack was located.

There were two choices when it came to adding a second 70" TV when it came to location.  Side-by-side or one on top of the other.  Side-by-side did not offer enough room for my house, so one on top of the other was the target.  However, the wall on the north side of the house is shorter because I have a slanted roof and there was no way I could mount a TV over there.  So I had to put the wall mount on the large wall where the picture is hung in the photo above.

Installing the mount was not as bad as I imagined it would be.  I used a studfinder to help me located the studs on that wall and easily drilled into it to place the mount.  The next step was getting the Sharp TV up there, so I definitely needed a friend's help on that part.

I then ordered my new 70" Sony 4KTV off Amazon for just $1,200 at the time.  When it arrived, it unfortunately wouldn't fit on that stand you see in the picture above...the legs were positioned too wide by just enough.  So I had to buy a new stand for the new TV.

I looked online for several stands and went with a Mainstays stand from Walmart that looked nice and got decent reviews

I quickly assembled it (with the help of my kitty Ember apparently) and finally my new dual TV setup was complete.  I got rid of cable, so having two TVs on that side of the house without a coax jack is no problem, since I stream everything now via Chromecast or the smart TV apps.

The After picture is above. It's all about improving the quality of life for me!  I love being able to watch sports on two big screens simultaneously, or I'll often play on my console on one and have a Twitch stream loaded on the other.  The only other person I know to have a multi-TV setup is my friend Jeff, who has 3 TV's!!! :O Life is good and I hope yours is as well!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

TC19 and San Diego

Last month, I attended my second Twitchcon, this time in San Diego.  You may recall that I went to my first Twitchcon in San Jose in 2018.  This year was interesting, as I had expected more people to be going, but several backed out as the event drew closer.  It was not a complete loss, as I still knew 4 other streamer friends that I wanted to see and hang out with out there.

I got in on a Thursday night and already the experience started out far better than last year.  It took me less than 5 minutes to get my badge the night before the first day, whereas it took me 4 hours of waiting in line in the hot San Jose sun last year.  After I got my badge, I met up with my friend Termi0099 for dinner and drinks.  We didn't really know where to go, but I was feeling like pasta at the time and found this gem of a chain called Old Spaghetti Factory.  They had some amazeballs garlic shrimp fettucini alfredo!  My friend Stapus (who I met last year at TC18 and who introduced me to Termi) also met up, and she brought her friend arritia, who I also now follow.  Termi had invited his friend Fivesisalive, which I now follow and occasionally play Fortnite with, so the first night at Twitchcon already created new friendships!

The first day of Twitchcon, I mostly hung out with Stapus and her friends.  I did get a chance to meet Pinghajen and Gotch, two other streamer friends I knew were going and had made plans to see, but those were pretty brief visits.  I did get recognized by another streamer CrankyKahn, which was pretty amazing because I wear glasses on stream and contacts when I'm out and about.  He basically knew it was me because he said he recognized those "guns", LOL.

That night, I met up with my friend Jenny and we had dinner at this restaurant called Rustic Root.  There was an item on the menu called "Table-Smoked Tomahawk".  I had heard of tomahawk steak before, so I really wanted to try it, even though it ran for $55.  It did not disappoint one bit!  An amazing steak that gets served under a glass cover and you can see all the smoke release when they unveil it.  It was absolutely delicious and cooked perfectly (you know I always ask for rare when it comes to steak).  Since Twitchcon will be in San Diego again next week, I will definitely be going back here.

I returned to Twitchcon on Saturday, not having any plans to attend on Sunday.  Since I was also visiting my friend Jenny that weekend, I wanted to make sure I had a day to hang out with her.  I returned to the convention but only for a few hours in the afternoon.  Honestly, this year's convention had far less to see and do in my opinion.  I was also out of friends to meet up with and when it comes to Twitchcon, it's more about the company than the exhibits.

Later that night, Jenny and I found a pool hall to play at since she used to play APA for one of my teams when she used to live in Tucson.  We played for hours and it was a lot of fun playing her friend, who provided some solid competition.

On Sunday, I spent a little time in the morning watching football and then Jenny and I headed to Mission Bay to do some kayaking.  I had always seen so many pictures of Jenny kayaking in San Diego and wanted to try it myself, since I had never been.  She goes like very other week and is very experienced.  It was funny because she called me out for not really paddling (since I didn't really know how), but once she taught me to dig into the water, we could travel quickly and really get a workout in. :D  It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I got to try it.

That night, I met up with my friend Sarah, who also used to live in Tucson.  I had not seen her in over 5 years, so it was refreshing to have a drink with her and catch up.  On Monday, my flight wasn't until a little later, so I hit up the local dispensary and purchased some gummies for Jenny to bring back to me the next time she came back to Tucson. :P

Overall, I would say Twitchcon was kind of a letdown this year, but I did meet some new people and established some new Twitch connections, so that was worth it.  However, next year I'd only go if I had more friends going.  As for San Diego, it was fun to visit Jenny and I don't think I had been since Kyle's bachelor party, which was over 7 years ago! :O Damn how the time flies...

Anyway, until next time and have a Happy Halloween!

PAX West 2019: Seattle, WA

I was invited to attend PAX West in Seattle this year.  I had always heard about attending one of the PAX conventions, so it was something I eventually wanted to see.  The friend who invited me was someone I met through an online Twitch community and I had friends who live in Seattle who were interested in going, so there were additional reasons to go check it out!

I arrived in Seattle on Saturday night with plans to attend the convention on Sunday and Monday.  The friend who invited me to go, nicknamed Corbz on Twitch, had been there since Friday and was staying until Sunday evening.  I had met him through Stapus, a Twitch streamer that I met at last year's Twitchcon.  Saturday night we met up and hit up the bars in Fremont, which was a chill time getting to know him in person since we had only gamed online before this. :)

Sunday morning got a bit interesting.  I walked to a local Starbucks, ordered a coffee, and called an Uber.  The car pulled over to the sidewalk and as I approached to open the door, the driver immediately sped off.  He drove off so fast as if he had just robbed a bank.  I didn't even have a chance to enter the vehicle or communicate with them.  This had never happened to me before and I began to wonder what set him off.  Was it because I had a cup of coffee that he didn't want spilled in the car?  Perhaps he was racist?  It would've been pretty funny if he was racist because he was also Asian, albeit and an older man, possibly racist against his own kind.  Regardless, I had to call for a Lyft instead to get to the convention.  I then reported the driver to Uber and they awarded me $3 in credits for his behavior and hopefully he will not be working for them much longer.  Still a pretty crazy start to the day.

I finally made it to PAX and I spent most of the day checking out the two main halls that feature all the big gaming companies.  It was a lot like being at E3, but a little more organized and less fancy of exhibits.  The highlight of the day was seeing the playable demo for Final Fantasy 7: Remake!  There were a limited amount of tickets per day for people to try the game, but I was able to watch everything from the side.  I am super excited again, as this has been a game I've been waiting for ever since E3 2017.

On Monday, I met up with my former roommate Ben and his fiance Mel who were attending PAX West just for Monday.  They spent a little time checking out the same two video game halls I saw the previous day, but then it was off to check out the board games!  This is a nice change of pace that comes with PAX and there were so many board games on display.  They even had ones you could check out and play if you had enough time.

Overall, I felt like PAX was a better experience than E3 and definitely more organized.  I can't really compare it to Twitchcon because that is more for the social-networking aspect.  Speaking of which, Twitchcon is coming up at the end of September and is my final out-of-state planned trip for the year for the time being.  I want to thank Corbz for inviting me to PAX West in Seattle and it was really good to see Ben, who I'll be seeing next year again when him and Mel get married. :)