And oh boy did I get dissapointed.
Short version – it doesnt work.
Long version – It semi-works, but not quite. Either way, it’s annoying as heck.
So, the idea is that you have one computer that you stream from – which handles the programs that make sure that whatever you want internet to see, they see – and something that you play your games on, a PS4, Switch, XBox or another computer.
You do this by putting an HDMI cable from whatever you play on, to your capture card (in my case, the Ripsaw), and then a cable from your capture card to your monitor. Voila, you see an image of whatever your game shows. This works for me.
Then you put an USB cable from your capture card to the computer that you want to stream on. This will let your streaming software see what you see on your monitor. That means, that your game that you see on your monitor is what you let internet see when you start streaming. This works for me.
Now, the issue is that you dont just want people to see, you want them to hear as well. Normally, this should work just like plug-and-play, but sometimes there’s settings you need to fix. Once set, everything is done, you’re good to go and stream, as long as your streaming settings themselves are set. This doesnt work for me.
Normally, capture cards dont include 3.5mm jacks, but this one did. If I put audio output on my speakers, the gaming pc can let me listen to sound. If I put this as my headphones, I can hear sounds. My monitor has built-in speakers – I can listen to the sound through there as well, which means that the Ripsaw does output sound. I also tried using a monitor without built-in speakers, the results were the same, so it wasnt because of the built-in speakers. If I plug my headphones into the Ripsaw itself, I can also hear game-pc audio.
Now, the Ripsaw does not output audio to the stream. I’ve tried several types of streaming software, SLObs, OBS and Xsplit for instance, but none of them captures the audio from the Ripsaw, no matter how I put the settings. I’ve googled this issue on both the software sites as well as official Razer, but any and all solutions doesnt work. The best I can have is in OBS, where the audio meters does give a bit of reaction, but all they output is white noise. Very loud white noise. The “funny” thing is, if I start something like foobar on my streaming computer and start a song, it streams the song without issues.
So, my first thought was that there was a settings issue somewhere, where I had told the streaming softwares to pick up and stream out the streaming pc’s audio, and not the Ripsaw’s audio. But no, every setting there was told me that Ripsaw’s audio was picked up and streamed. In fact, when I put the setting that the streaming software should pick up the pc’s audio it immediately made the bars on the audio mixer flat out – since it didnt pick up the Ripsaw-audio anymore.
So, the image goes through fine, everywhere. The audio, however, only goes through “everywhere” locally, meaning anywhere I can sit in my own home and listen to it on speakers or headphones. But I cannot make the Ripsaw find and stream out the audio anywhere.
Now, you could think that this is easily solved by changing computer to stream from, that the streaming PC is too old or too bad or something. What if I told you that this was the third PC I had tried? Now, first I tried to hook up my Switch and PS4, through my gaming PC, which is a mastodont to say the least. i7-9700 CPU, 32GB RAM, RTX 2070, just under a year old. Same thing there. I could see an image everywhere, and hear the sounds everywhere as long as it wasnt through the stream. I thought to myself that “that sucked, but fine, the PS4 has its own streaming setup anyway and I’m not really interested in streaming Switch games anyway. It would’ve been nice if it worked, but hey, it’s not a BIG deal.
Then I tried my laptop as a streaming PC, just to have my gaming PC being what is captured. The laptop isnt an ideal solution either, but it’s what I had – Ryzen 5, Radeon Vega 8, 8GB RAM; I expected it to not be too good, but I had to make an attempt. While the laptop did get hot, it surprisingly worked. Video everywhere, audio everywhere “local” and nothing in OBS/SLObs/Xsplit/OBSlive/Player.me or the stream itself. So I sighed and decided to try out the “super computer” we bought like 7 or 8 years ago, which surprisingly for its age, but not surprisingly for how good it was supposed to be for the time, did have all the requirements necessary to use the Ripsaw; Windows 10 64-bit, 8GB RAM, i7-3820 (which isnt too far off the requirements), and a GTX 1060. The issue I have and described above is what I had on the PC-to-PC streaming setup. Which is when I realized there was something wrong with the Ripsaw itself.
I am now in the talks with the company I ordered it from, not even a day after I recieved it, to see if I can refund it and perhaps just exchange it for a better card if I just pay the difference between the two cards (roughly ~$20). I still havent heard back from them though, but since they claim to have a one year open policy for refunds and exchanges, I kind of expect them to take it back and, if nothing else, give me a new Ripsaw (so I can see if the next card have the same issues) or refund me the money. If they refund me the money, I’ll just send it back along with +$20, so I can have that better card. I say “better”, even though I dont know, mostly because it’s apparently much easier in setup. Whereas the Ripsaw is “basically” plug-and-play (+fix some settings), apparently the Elgato HD 60S+ really is plug-and-play. And I dont need fancy features right now – I want to plug-and-play and play in 1080p60, with audio and lagfree. That’s all I want.