Use a USB Headset with AverMedia Live Gamer HD on another PC
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Many gamers have experienced a road block when using an AverMedia Live Gamer HD capture card in a dedicated streaming computer to capture game footage on another computer while using a USB Headset. The main problem is capturing both the game audio and the audio from the microphone on the USB Headset.
Well, I have a solution that works. It works for Open Broadcaster Software and more than likely works with any other similar capture software. (Please respond in comments if you have had luck with other software using this method so I can update the article!)
I bring you… How To Use a USB Headset with AverMedia Live Gamer HD on another PC
For the duration of this article I will refer to the computer that is playing the game that is being recorded as the gaming computer. The computer that has the capture card in it and is running the stream will be referred to as the streaming computer.
This guide assumes that you have the AverMedia Live Gamer HD capture card installed into the streaming computer – one that is used to capture the footage on another computer and handle the stream so the other computer does not take a performance hit at all. It also assumes that you have a USB headset with a microphone installed on the gaming computer that the footage is being captured from. It also assumes that both the streaming computer and the gaming computer have working sound cards with 3.5mm audio out and audio in ports (besides the capture card and the USB headset) and that you are using purely HDMI between the gaming computer and streaming computer. This guide assumes you already have Open Broadcaster Software installed. This guide also assumes that the AverMedia RECentral software is already installed. This guide also assumes that all of the above hardware and software is installed properly, has all of the necessary drivers and supporting software installed and is generally at a default configuration.
This guide was written with Windows 7 64-bit as the operating system. Different versions of windows will have slightly different procedures. Adjust accordingly. Your mileage my vary.
Running wires
You will need both the HDMI cord and the 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable that came with the capture card.
Run the HDMI cord from the gaming computer to the HDMI in on the capture card in the streaming computer.
Run the audio cable from the line out on the sound card on the gaming computer to the line in on the sound card on the streaming computer. (Not to the audio in on the capture card!)
Configuring the Gaming Computer
Right click on the speaker icon in your system tray (bottom right hand corner of the window’s desktop near the clock). Select Playback Devices.
Right-click on the audio device that is your onboard sound card and select Set as Default Device – if this option does not display, then it is already the default device. In my case it is Realtek High Definition Audio that has been labeled Speakers. NOTE: I renamed my headset accordingly to make identification easier. See the image below as a reference. The green circle with a white check mark over it is the indicator of which device is my default device. You can ignore the default communications device as it does not apply to this situation.
If you do not see a device named AVERMEDIA_HD-1 right-click in the list and select Show Disabled Devices.
Right-click on AVERMEDIA_HD-1 and click Enable. If you do not see enable, then the device is already enabled and you can move on.
Click the Recording tab at the top of this window.
Right-click in the area below and check Show Disabled Devices if it does not already have a check.
Right-click on Stereo Mix in the list and click Enable. If it says Disable then do not click on it as it is already enabled!
Right-click on Stereo Mix and click Set as default device. If you do not see the option, it is already the default. (It should not be because it was just disabled.) The green circle with the check mark above it indicates that you have it set as the default device.
See the image below as a reference.
Double-click on Stereo Mix. This will open the stereo mix properties window. Click the Listen tab. Check the box next to Listen to this device. In the drop-down box below, select your USB Headset. In this case it is my Logitech G930 Headset. See the image below as a reference.
Double-click on the microphone device that is a part of your headset. In my case it is labeled Headset and the second line says Logitech G930 Headset. This will open the microphone properties window.
Click on the Listen tab at the top. Check the box next to Listen to this Device. In the drop-down menu below the check box select AVERMEDIA_HD-1.
Close the properties window. This completes the configuration of the gaming computer.
Configuring the Streaming Computer
Run Open Broadcaster Software. Click Settings. Select Audio on the left selection pane.
Check the box next to Use Input device for desktop audio. Set Desktop Audio Device to Line In. Set Microphone/Auxiliary Audio Device to Disable. Click Apply and then OK. Use the image below as a reference.
On the main OBS window, create a new scene by right-clicking on the white area under Scenes and clicking Add Scene. Give it a label – this can be whatever you want to identify it as.
Right-click in the sources white space and click Add -> Video Capture Device. Give it a label – this can be whatever you want to identify it as.
Set Device to AVerMedia HD Capture – depending on what card you have and its version this may have additional nomenclature to the name or may be somewhat different.
Ensure that under the Audio section (Use Device Audio) is selected in the drop-down menu. Configure any other additional options you might have and click OK. Use the image below as a reference.
Run the AverMedia RECentral software.
Click Stream and on the circle to the right, select Pro. Use the image below as a reference.
Under Audio Source select HDMI from the first drop-down menu. Click the Save button at the top right . Click OK on the pop-up window and you can close RECentral. See the image below as a reference.
ENJOY!
Concept of the Operation (For tech savvy people)
The capture device itself has an audio capture capability inherently. We leverage that capability to provide the audio from the USB Headset’s microphone over the HDMI audio channel. This is recorded by the device capture on OBS. The rest of the audio – game audio and anything else played over the onboard sound card on the gaming computer is transported to the streaming box via the 3.5mm audio cable and picked up via the line-in capture option in OBS. Fairly simple.
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Hey,
This is exactly what i was looking for, the only problem with listening is that there is a small delay in sound. The speakers are in before the USB headset.
Are there any other solutions to getting my USB headset sound over to another computer. Purchasing anything, using software.
I have tried VAC/Airfoil/Other software and all have failed me.
Please assist if you know of another way.
Thank You.
Arthur,
It sounds like there is a software processor along the way that is causing the delay. Do you know how long the delay is?
I haven’t found any sort of software or hardware that could handle this issue besides the way I configured it. I did look for alternative and more simple solutions.
You might try the audio delay configurations found in Settings under both Audio and Advanced. I have not played with them before and cannot offer any direct input on how to properly configure those settings.
Thanks for this guide, everything works fine except I can’t seem to hear anyone in Teamspeak or Ventrilo on the streaming PC. I’m using a logitech G35 USB headset. I kind of understand from googling that it’s because the headset acts as an external sound card and etc., but is there any software I could use or settings to change so I could still hear Ventrilo and Teamspeak on my USB headset and have the sound also transferred to the streaming PC?
On a side note, I have had an issue to where the sound completely goes away for some reason. After googling some more someone says to disable the mixer and onboard speakers, restart and then enable again making sure the setting are set as the guide states, that worked and got my sound back. Thanks
To solve your problem you must determine why the streaming PC is not hearing voices on teamspeak. It sounds like you may have the G930 set to be the playback device for Teamspeak and/or ventrilo. If you followed the steps in this article, then you should set it to your onboard sound card. The stereo mix will pick up the audio from teamspeak and ventrilo and put them onto your G930 and push the audio by way of line-in to your streaming PC.
If there was software to handle this without a delay, then we wouldn’t need the steps above. It can be done over Teamspeak or ventrilo using a local voice server, but then one would have to mess with the audio delay, calculate how much it is and then delay the video by that much. Doable but it could easily create extra problems down the road.
On your side note: Do you lose audio entirely or just over the headset or just on the streaming box? I restart my streaming box and gaming computer before I sit down for each streaming session to make sure all of the devices and software are running fresh.
On my previous side note: I was losing audio on my whole PC except the headset. As if the onboard audio wasn’t working.
As far as Ventrilo and Teamspeak, I must have missed where I had to set the output as the onboard audio. After doing that on both programs, I could hear everything from Teamspeak or Ventrilo on the stream, thanks!
I’m glad I could provide some useful insight. Thanks for stopping by! Share the wealth of knowledge you have gained with others!
Just came across this article, and its the same exact setup im running, realtek audio, G930, and an avermedia c985 on a 2 pc setup . Problem im having is the version of OBS that’s current (the one im running) version .64 no longer has the ‘Use Input device for desktop audio’ option. Any advice on how to get the same results with out being able to use input device as desktop audio???
I noticed the same change as well.
OBS Settings
Audio -> Desktop Audio Device: Speakers default sound device.
Windows Settings
Recording Devices – Line In – Properties – Listen tab – Check “Listen to this device” – Playback through Speakers (or whatever your default sound device is called)
This will play the settings coming in from the audio-in (line-in) from the gaming PC to play over the speakers on the streaming or capture PC.
I hope this helps!
They changed it in a couple of patches ago, you can turn it on again by configure your .ini file.
* Remove ‘use input devices for desktop audio’ and make it so it can only be used via ini file. If you need to use it, then enable it in your profile ini file in %appdata%obsprofiles, under [Audio], InputDevicesForDesktopSound=1 — we are not going to provide an option in the UI for this because people kept enabling it without know what they were doing.
Thanks for an awesome guide!
Thanks for that great info. I didn’t catch that in the patch notes when I glanced over them.
Came across this article, and I’m setting up the same exact hardware. My problem is the most up-to-date version of OBS no longer has the option to ‘Use Input device for desktop audio’. Is there any way to achieve the same results with out that option??
I’ve been tinkering for days. I can’t for the life of me figure this out whether through 3.5mm or optical. Nothing works.
My dilemma. I can get audio and mic to the stream pc, but, then I can’t actually listen to it, because the default playback device is set to speakers (sound card), which outputs to the other stream pc, and nothing ever outputs the sound back to or through to the headset, everything takes from and listens from the headset but no sound is ever sent to it. Game out to sound card, mic out to capture card. Where is the out to the headset so I can hear the game I’m playing. Thus, I either stream/broadcast games with no mic and a headset with sound so I can hear the game, or I have a mic and game sound to the stream, but I can’t hear any of it in the headset, but can through my TV (capture card video out) avermedia device to which, would playback through the mic and loop over and over. This article is great but not finished. Please explain what I’m missing. Everyone else seems to be able to send audio to both the headset and stream PC, I, however am only getting one or the other. Thanks. Been down from streaming on Twitch for nearly 2 weeks getting a stream PC ready to come to this minor problem and have it cost me days of frustration. P.S. Stereo mix works but doesn’t play sound, should it? You don’t explain why or what stereo mix does, since when I have it play through the headset I get blank noise or very stable static, but clean static, more of a hum I guess.
Stereo Mix should play audio on your headset. I’m sorry you are having issues with this type of configuration, but let’s see if we can get it working properly. It sounds like you are very close to getting it to work and that your primary problem is no audio on the headset.
Stereo Mix is the output audio stream of your onboard sound card – whatever is being played over it, will also be played over stereo mix. In this configuration it is essentially a virtual audio cable that is plugged into the Line-out of your sound card and into a virtual line-in port of your headset.
I would go back to the listen tab in the Stereo mix properties and check “listen to this device” and set the output device to your headset.
Then check volume settings for your headset. See mine here:
The separate volume setting is really a nice side-effect. I can adjust the volume level for the stream and never touch it again. Then I just adjust the volume of my headset to whatever is comfortable for me. Standardization with audio levels is key. Always check your audio levels and channels before going live!
If that doesn’t work for you, come back and let me know and we’ll go further. If we are both available at the same time, we can hop onto The Lone Gamers’ Teamspeak server and I’ll help you get it sorted out.
UPDATE: About the loop back you are experiencing. Have you thought about not running your monitor for your gaming computer off of the HDMI out on the streaming computer and instead running it right off of your video card while having a second output run to your streaming computer? I have my video card set to duplicate the image on two outputs and it solves a few problems:
1. Depending on the configuration, the HDMI capture card CAN limit frame rate. I was limited to 30 FPS on my gaming computer’s monitor.
2. You don’t need the streaming computer up and running to view the display of your gaming computer. Nice for when you are not streaming and don’t need the streaming computer running.
3. You don’t have to worry about audio output. Although you could just as easily mute the audio playing over the TV/monitor.
Alrighty. Here is an update. Im using 2 sound cards using optical out from gaming pc to optical in on streaming pc. So there is no use for the Stereo mix, I use “What u Hear” which is the same thing. When setting this to listen and playback through the headset I get sound, but nothing is being sent to the optical in of the streaming pc’s sound card. If I have it playback through SPDIF out, I have mic and now game sound to the stream pc, but because of this, I no longer hear anything on the headset. I tried with 3.5mm and got static no matter which out or in I used. So I stuck with optical since it worked right away. Please, I want to talk on teamspeak, something more live. Even email.
So you are using optical, as in a digital fiber optic, instead of a traditional “analog” audio cable. I gather from this comment that you DO NOT have static with optical but you have static with the 3.5mm analog cable. That leads me to believe that there is either EMI, a bad analog cable or a bad 3.5mm jack on either end causing static. The optical is digital so it will either be a clean audio stream or it won’t work – there is no inbetween.
If you set the “What U Hear”, which tells me you are running a sound blaster card, if I remember correctly, digital optical stops working?
Sorry, apparently I HAVE to use onboard. Anyway everything is working as it should now. Game sound and mic are being sent over, but with absolute horrible quality. If this is what others users are using to stream, I feel bad for their viewers. TOO much bass, too much treble, way too much noise when things go silent. I can fix the bass and treble sort of. Even with bass removed completely the bass is still way too high. If this is sound card related, no wonder I always hated sound cards. They always sound like garbage and now that I’m working with 2, I verify it s true. Sounds cards as noise as well as delay, no matter the case, onboard is superior. The background noise is there and not going away. Unfortunately the static or noise I hear from the stereo mix is quite annoying. I’d like to lower this as much as possible. What am I looking to adjust to get rid of this noise? Or is this simply a cheap cable being interrupted? Or somehow cheap ($100 is cheap these days?) sound cards. Still would like to speak one to one.
Are you by chance plugging into the microphone jack on the streaming PC instead of the line in? That would cause severe audio quality problems because the resistance (ohms) for the microphone input is different than the line-in.
I hope you’re sleeping. This is getting ridiculous. Alright, I had it all working, started tweaking enhancements in the sound card software to get rid of the extreme bass and treble and the sound cut from the headset. I reverted the software back to defaults and still no sound. I reverted all back to defaults, restarted both computers and STILL no longer receiving sound to the headset. Now back to square one. No sound to the headset but sound to the stream PC is happening. Stereo mix isn’t working anymore? By not working I mean, it’s enabled, defaulted and listened to playing back through the headset yet nothing. What setting would cause stereo mix to stop playing sound, and then when defaulted back would also need to be re-enabled to get sound to go back through to the stereo mix so I can have it send sound to the headset.
P.S. This doesn’t sound like a very feasible way to do things. For all those reading from now on PLEASE DO NOT use this article as a means to an end. Please find a better Mic and Headset combo. This is more work than is needed especially if you have an Intel system capable of doing the stream and game on one computer. This will be my end game. Having a streaming PC is for those who can’t afford a whole new gaming computer and just need to offload some resources. Please spend the money, but a good Intel i5 or i7 and bang away, single system, less problems.
P.S.S. Lastly, the .ini setting mentioned above does nothing. Or is no longer an addable property. I used it but didn’t need it, removed it and all was still fine. It wasn’t until I turned off enhancements in the sound card software that I lost sound to stereo mix, and now once again, back to sound on the stream PC but not through the headset.
I’m on the lone gamers teamspeak server right now. Connect to ts.thelonegamers.com
Confirm that the headset is able to play some audio. I don’t know what software you have on the gaming PC but you can test it by setting an application to use the headset instead of the default audio device. I know teamspeak makes this easy. You don’t want to set the headset as the default audio device to test this, just a single piece of audio-capable software. I usually use VLC to test this.
While it may be more complicated for an actual studio production of live stream, where you have someone gaming and someone else that is monitoring the stream and performing live editing/manipulating of the OBS scene, this is ideal – that editor/producer can’t do shit with the gaming stream if it’s on the same box…. You are the first person of thousands that have read this article that I have known to have such massive issues.
It honestly seems like you are causing more problems than necessary by changing all sorts of settings all over the place instead of narrowing it down and eliminating problems systematically. Stop frantically changing settings. You shouldn’t have to go into that ini to change anything. You had audio going to the streaming PC but not to the headset and the audio to the streaming PC was poor quality. Two problems there: 1) no audio to headset and 2) poor quality of audio to the streaming PC. Focus on those two problems individually and you will resolve it. I’ll get you started. Just be sure to take it slow, go through things completely and thoroughly, don’t get frustrated and if you do, take a few minutes away from the problem.
Problem #1: No audio to headset
This will more than likely be a configuration setting for listen to. Like I said, check to see that the headset can still output with the current configuration by setting an audio-capable application such as VLC, TeamSpeak, a game that has the option to select the audio device to use or Winamp to use the headset instead of the default device. If it still works then we know the headset is good in the current configuration and we move onto the next diagnostic step.
Check volume settings and that “Stereo Mix” or “What U Hear” isn’t turned all of the way down on the volume control panel for the headset. If that is good, as in turned up to a reasonable volume, then look at the audio settings for the sound card you have set as the default playback device. Play music in a player set to use the default audio device as that is a nice test bed. We are trying to find where the audio stops. In recording devices, if “Stereo Mix” is receiving audio, then you’ll see the level indicator go up and down with the beat of the music. If that’s the case, I’ve seen this a few times, it is just bugged. Try disabling stereo mix. Unchecking “Listen to this device”. Unsetting it as the default recording device (set the mic as that). Any combination of the three. Windows seems to have an issue sometimes with the stereo mix device. I can’t explain it and I have never found a go-to fix for it, but I have also NEVER seen it completely stop working never to work again. It always resolves by toggling those three options around until it works. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you, but neither does the internet from my searching around on the subject.
Problem #2: Poor audio quality to streaming PC
Verify for me that you are sending your mic audio over your HDMI input. If you are, is that of poor quality to the streaming PC? If you getting clear voice from the headset microphone but poor quality from the audio channel on the 3.5mm then I would consider the 3.5mm and connections related to it highly suspect. It could be a poorly shielded 3.5mm audio cable or bad line-out jack (should be green on most cards) or a bad line-in jack (should be blue on most cards). If you are plugging it into the microphone port (pink on most sound cards) then that is definitely your problem due to different resistance/impedance on the microphone jacks.
You mentioned using optical, which should produce static-free and clear audio because it is a digital audio channel compared to the analog channel on the 3.5mm. That would be ideal to use over the 3.5mm.
Follow those steps and get back to me. I’ll be on teamspeak for the next 45 minutes.
I would just like to say a big thank you for your guide. I have spent hours trying to get my audio from the line out using this method to a decent sound quality.
I would just make one small change that I have found takes care of the poor sound quality from the line. Instead of using the microphone to listen to the HDMI on a capture card. download Voicemeeter (Free) and under record set this new record port to listen your HDMI capture feed. This has worked a treat. Just one other tip on the line-in sometimes you get a recording volume and a playback volume (mute) the playback option. You will find this in the sound manager with your soundcard eg Realtek.
Thank you so much again for a great guide a little gem. I also have a review site and we would like to place your guide in our guides section. If you want the details just leave a comment. I did not want just to post links.
All the best
I’m glad you found this guide useful. Please post the link to your review site!
And if you ever get the urge to do technical writing or the other types of articles related to gaming that you see here, send me an email and I’ll publish under your name as a guest writer here and plug your site. I’m always looking for guest writers!
Hi peter – I am having a lot of ‘static / humming’ when using the microphone listening to the hdmi. I downloaded the software you mentioned but cant seem to get it to work. Could you go into a bit more detail possibly on how to set it up ?
Hi Yuka, Your website is a WordPress site so if you want to use any articles on our site then you can just use the press this feature under tools. Just place on your browser and press article directly into one of your post.
http://www.visual-i.co.uk
Hi
First off nice article Yuka its helped me a bunch! However im having some teething problems and im wondering if i have done something wrong. I have managed to get all the sound working (headset/streamingpc) etc. However im having a lot of static which seems to be worse whenever i load up a game. I uploaded a short video as an example
A problem i had was getting the sound from my gaming pc to transmit to OBS on the streaming pc. It seems i could either have the mic or the game sounds but not both. I finally overcome this by going to (Stream pc) Recording device > Line in > listen to this device > Default device. I dont believe you had to do this or mention this in your article. However if i followed your article to the letter when it came to the obs settings and picking the desktop audio device, Line in is not listed. I wonder if i have done something the wrong way around here ? Any help would be awesome cheers!
Sounds like you have figured it out! Line in is key there and you stumbled upon one of the few alternate solutions to this problem.
OBS has changed a few things and the best attitude to have when working with this already crazy workaround for a glaring problem that Logitech and OBS should look into is an attitude that is flexible.
If you are still having problems, shoot me an email @ [email protected] and we’ll organize a time to link up for some live troubleshooting via a chat protocol or on TheLoneGamers.com’s teamspeak server.
I have this set up the way you said but during stream I was listening and it seems like I have buzzing in my headset and a loop going on. I’ll say something and it just repeat on stream. Not sure if its because of the set up and I shouldn’t listen to stream to test or it’s the loop.
Make sure you are using purely line in and not microphone.
Listening to the stream would definitely cause a loop.
I cant get my mic to work. It works on my gaming computer, but does not work on my streaming computer. I’d done verything you said, and converted that from OBS to xsplit. (except for the device selection, which I cant find). I really need your help.
Confirm for me that you aren’t getting audio from the microphone on your streaming computer so I know I’m understanding your issue.
As for device selection, please be more clear. Are you talking about device selection in recording/audio devices within windows or within OBS?
Hello, I hope you still check up on these replies as you have been very helpful! Through 8 hours of googling and frustration, I decided to post on the forums of OBS (thats what I use to stream) and also leave a reply here. Here’s the thread I made on the forums if you would like to see people’s feedback as well, and also I’ll post what I posted on the forums here as well.
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/2-pc-setup-audio-problem-with-steam-steam-games-only.48180/
“I am using a 2 PC setup, one gaming, one streaming obviously. Everything works fine and audio is all dandy until I decided to talk in-game in CSGO. It only outputted the sounds that I hear! So the problem I have is that steam is letting me use various sources for my recording (audio input) device such as my microphone for Logitech G930 or stereo mix, the problem is that when i test the microphone on steam (and in game), it literally plays what I hear on my headphones (for example I had voice_loopback 1 in game and held my mic down, and I shot my gun and literally head the gun echo a million times because it basically looped)? I follow this guide https://www.thelonegamers.com/2014/…amer-hd-another-pc-open-broadcaster-software/ as I have a Logitech G930 Gaming Headset that is a usb headset.
tl:dr for the guide for audio is basically this:
Playback device: Speakers (realtek high definition audio)
Recording devices:
1. Stereo mix (which is my onboard sound card set up like this https://gyazo.com/a620780780531afc114d8dd5d1d2bc0a )
2. Microphone (Logitech G930 Gaming Headset set up like this https://gyazo.com/4b250bb0848e3e09afa513bfae712434 )
I also use a 3.5mm audio cable that came with the avermedia live gamer HD which is used on OBS as a line-in capture.
Gaming PC-> sends Audio over HDMI -> HDMI connected to Live Gamer HD (you have to clone the Sound on your gaming pc to still hear it on your speakers)
The weird part is that my microphone works in-game for H1Z1 but not CSGO, even though they are both controlled through steams settings>voice>recording devices. I am very confused and have been googling for the past 8 hours or so and finally decided to post about it. I am aware about choosing your default communications device and have tried all mic options on steam, but regardless of what I choose, only the output still plays through my microphone on CSGO. My microphone DOES work on skype/discord/teamspeak/mumble basically anything that doesn’t have to do with steam, but it is very stubborn when dealing with steam. Help would be such a stress relief !!”
Thanks for sharing.
This problem has only gotten worse as more and more streamers are going to a dual PC set up to offload some of the load from streaming. I really wish companies like AverMedia would come up with some hardware to help. Maybe a USB splitter that puts the USB headset onto both computers or something that allows better capture of audio from the gaming PC. Even a simple software solution would help – something that quickly streams the audio channels desired over the local network to the streaming PC – chances are they are on the same network.