Avermedia Live Gamer
Catherine Rubeo
LGP is a capture card that accompanies you to battles at home, or on the road. Never miss another opportunity to record and share your awesome road games, tournaments, or friendly matches.
Live Gamer Portable (LGP) packs all the essentials a gamer needs in its sleek body. HDMI or component inputs for all mainstream consoles*, an SD card slot for capturing without a PC, and a hot button that activates 1080p recording with a single click.
* To record PlayStation4, upgrade your system software to version 1.7 or later. Click here for more information on how to disable HDCP on PS4.
LGP simplifies live streaming so much you almost forgot how much trouble it used to be. You can even record and stream your gameplay simultaneously, with voice commentary. The H.264 hardware encoder ensures top quality video without overloading your CPU.
LGP works with any DirectShow compliant streaming application such as XSplit or OBS, and broadcasts to YouTube, Twitch, or Ustream right out of the box.
You also have the privilege to stream with the user-friendly RECentral.
Business or pleasure? - Yes, please. Professional live studio quality for both work and home. Cover tournaments and events live or just level-up your personal streams. In any case, the Live Gamer BOLT is the perfect tool for the job.
All PC gamers know that victory or defeat can be decided in a fraction of a second, keep that competitive edge while playing and record those precious frames for your highlight reel. Record and passthrough Full HD 240 FPS, the Live Gamer BOLT can do both.
We are keen on providing an immersive and unforgettable gaming experience even while you're creating. With 7.1 surround sound passthrough, you will feel as though you're right in the middle of your game.
Because LIVE matters, regardless of what streaming software you use, the Live Gamer BOLT is ready to go. Give your viewers what they crave, the highest video quality possible and the opportunity to interact with you here and now.
In 2018, 4K video is hard. More pixels mean more power to process them, whether you're playing a game or rendering a video. For gamers, even playing a game at 4K resolution requires serious GPU power. Microsoft has changed the game with the Xbox One X, a console that costs less than a high-end graphics card and that is capable of delivering games natively at 4K at 60 frames per second (4K60).
Despite AVerMedia only specifying Intel CPUs, this is apparently because the Live Gamer 4K works "better" with Intel. For the purposes of this review, the capture card was in my own PC running a Ryzen 7 2700X, 16GB of RAM and NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti. I had no compatibility issues with Ryzen.
What first struck me about the Live Gamer 4K is how well thought out the hardware is. Internal capture cards get warm, but AVerMedia has covered this one entirely in mesh panels, with the end being completely open. There's no fan, so it's not sucking in dust or expelling heat from the rear, but there's still a sizeable heatsink visible, so assuming your PC has its cooling in order there are no worries at all. And despite all the mesh, there's still space for an RGB strip.
Getting set up takes no time at all. The card simply slots into a vacant PCIe slot on your motherboard, you attach the HDMI cables at the back of the PC and download the AVerMedia software to make sure you've got the latest drivers.
The Live Gamer 4K is thoughtfully designed while also maintaining a striking presence in your PC build. And I've had absolutely zero issues in setting up and using the capture card with either the RECentral companion application or other software such as OBS and XSplit.
This was recording at 1440p60 from my Xbox One X at 114Mbps bitrate. Using the GPU to encode naturally reduces the load on the CPU, in my case dropping to 4 percent, while GPU usage on my GTX 1080 Ti stayed pretty steady at around 23 percent.
While streaming, the software performs similarly well, though to Mixer it will only allow you to use a 4Mbps bitrate as the upper limit. Resource usage varies when using other software with the Live Gamer 4K, but for the most part, it's very efficient.
The footage looks amazing, too, with up to 140Mbps bitrate all the way up to 4K resolution. If you have the storage available, that is, to be able to save the massive files. An eight-minute 1440p capture at the settings I mentioned above is over 6GB in size.
Like the Elgato 4K60 Pro, the Live Gamer 4K also offers support for 240 FPS video at 1080p, perfect for PC gamers playing esports titles like CS:GO and League of Legends, as well as its support of HDR. In addition to pass through, the Live Gamer 4K can also capture HDR. Your Xbox One X will still need to detect a 4K HDR display on the output, so this capture card won't trick the console into allowing either of those without it, but if you do you'll be capturing game footage like never before.
The samples below are taken directly from the capture card using the RECentral app and uploaded to YouTube. HDR was enabled in games that support it, but one of the biggest issues is how you share that video with the world. YouTube is pretty picky, though on a non-HDR display you only get served an SDR copy regardless.
While streamers will most likely use XSplit, OBS or Streamlabs OBS in conjunction with the Live Gamer 4K, for just capturing footage straight from the console the RECentral companion app is your best bet. There's a one-click way to enable or disable HDR capture, as well, if your game and output support it. If HDR isn't in the game, the button won't activate.
Visually, it's a little dated, but unlike the main competitor, Elgato, AVerMedia hasn't split off its 4K capture from its regular software. That means it's packed with all the features users of the company's other cards have become used to, including the ability to stream. The latency offered up by the capture card is so low that while I'm not necessarily recommending it, it's perfectly possible to use a single screen to capture and play your games with RECentral.
Everything is really easy to set up. There are some pre-installed settings you can use, or you can set up a custom profile with your desired resolution, frame rate, and bitrate, along with which piece of hardware you want to encode with (default seems to always be the GPU) and how good you want the audio.
Getting ready to stream is equally straightforward. RECentral supports Twitch and Mixer along with a host of other services, including Facebook, YouTube, and anything that supports RTMP as long as you have a stream key and URL. In the case of Mixer, FTL is also supported.
And whether you're capturing or streaming, RECentral offers either a simple, single input capture from your console, or it allows you to add multiple sources like webcams, images, web URLs, videos and screen capture from your PC.
While streamers will still ultimately have more control using the popular software, RECentral is surprisingly good. With the URL source, you can add in your favorite overlay with interactive alerts from sources such as player.me and Streamlabs, and you can add multiple scenes. Coupled with solid performance and not being too thirsty with system resources, folks new to streaming are in good hands.
The only real criticism I can direct towards RECentral is that it's sluggish at times when you're switching between recording and streaming setups. Otherwise, it's a great tool for beginners to stream with, and for anyone using the Live Gamer 4K to capture with.
For the best consumer-level game capture right now you're looking at one of two products. The Live Gamer 4K is one, the Elgato 4K60 Pro is the other. I recommend the AVerMedia card over the Elgato. If you have an Xbox One X and you want high-resolution capture, you should buy a Live Gamer 4K. Period.
There are many things it has in its favor, but at the top of the list is price. At about $300, it's close to $100 cheaper than the 4K60 Pro, and it also handles HDR, something the Elgato does not. The Elgato Stream Link feature is the biggest advantage the 4K60 Pro has over the Live Gamer 4K, but for most people, that's not likely enough to warrant the extra spend.
This is a truly fantastic product from AVerMedia. It just works, there's no setup fuss, the companion app is full-featured and friendly to both newcomers and more experienced folks, you get a pretty decent video editor thrown in for free, and it lights up with RGB inside your system.
Richard Devine is a Managing Editor at Windows Central with over a decade of experience. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been found on Android Central and iMore as well as Windows Central. Currently, you'll find him steering the site's coverage of all manner of PC hardware and reviews. Find him on Mastodon at mstdn.social\/@richdevine"}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Richard DevineSocial Links NavigationManaging Editor - Tech, ReviewsRichard Devine is a Managing Editor at Windows Central with over a decade of experience. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been found on Android Central and iMore as well as Windows Central. Currently, you'll find him steering the site's coverage of all manner of PC hardware and reviews. Find him on Mastodon at mstdn.social/@richdevine
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