Lagging cam on Streamate. Laptop specs?

Hey there,

I'm camming on Streamate! Very excited. Though, there is one more snag to overcome: my cam is lagging like crazy.

I had a friend log in a watch my room, and she said I'm at, like, 2 or 3 frames per second, which is also how it looks in my screen. I've only had two paying customers so far (both on my first night). One put up with the lagging but made constant reference to it. The other person got upset and left after trying to reload the room a few times. My second night, I just had a steady current of people popping into the room and popping out right back out. So, unless I'm considerably uglier than my profile pic ;) , my stream must look terrible.

On top of that, I keep seeing the 3...2...1...CAM countdown every 30 seconds or so. And the CAM icon doesn't stay lit for more than a few seconds. Does that mean I'm not visible to people?

What's going wrong?

CONNECTION:
My internet connection is fantastic. ~10 mbps upload speed on speedtest.net.
I tried both direct connect and wifi. No difference in the lag.
I cammed at 128k (second lowest setting) using the regular (i.e., not external HD) encoder.
I have tried both Chrome and Firefox. Chrome was marginally less terrible, but they're both very bad.
My version of Flash is the most recent.

HARDWARE: (I think the problem lies here)
I've got a Logitech 9000 cam, like everyone recommends (and love it)
**My laptop, however, is 10 years old.**
Its processor is an Intel Duo Core T5700 CPU (1.73 gHz) that is COMPLETELY maxed out whenever I'm camming. In the task manager performance window, it pins at 100% the whole time.
2GB of RAM. Windows XP.

Can a maxed out CPU make my feed look unwatchably terrible? And cause my connection to continually drop? (Assuming that is happening when the CAM icon disappears) Is a hardware upgrade the only way around this problem? That would mean a whole new laptop, as my motherboard doesn't give me much headroom as far upgrading my processor.

I will have to get a secondhand laptop, so a specific recommendation about a particular processor, brand, etc. wouldn't help me much. I'm going to take the best that I can find out there for a reasonable price. What are some good rules of thumb to have in hand when I go into the used laptop market in order to get one that is good enough for Streamate camming?

Thanks in advance, lovelies,
:h:
 

babyliss

Jr. Member
Yes, a maxed out cpu can really mess with your stream. When mine goes above 45%, I have a lot of cam degradation issues.

Are you using the encoder? If so, try lower settings as that's less stressful on your computer.
Can you try manually ending tasks to lower your cpu?


As far as people popping in and out immediately, you'll experience that even when your stream is perfect, that's just how it is on SM.
 
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