Capture Card with no preview lag?

[HappehLemons]

I'm in the market for a capture card that has no preview lag, or sub-frame is any. It would be mainly used for HDMI, so using other video sources wouldn't be very important. Does such a card exist?

I'm currently using an XCapture-1 (Which is USB 3.0, would switching the the PCI-E version reduce lag?) and it's got around 50ms frames of lag from my very unscientific testing.
(PS4 on the right, AmaRec preview on the left)

[Thrill]

This is why passthrough exists.

If you really want to try and get the preview lower you can enable Use only Overlay in the renderer of AmaRec. This saves about a frame.

[HappehLemons]

This is why passthrough exists.

If you really want to try and get the preview lower you can enable Use only Overlay in the renderer of AmaRec. This saves about a frame.

Thanks for the replay, but I still get 50ms with that.

For the purposes of the project I'm working on it has to be done within a preview window on my PC and sadly passthru isn't an option. I understand it's unconventional, but I'm hoping I can somehow come to a solution with some help.

[BuckoA51]

Try "disable desktop composition" if you are on Windows 7 (on 8 and above there's a way to do it too, but it's fiddly and I can't remember how).

[Ji-L87]

Wouldn't it be possible to use any HDMI capture card along with a cheap, basic HDMI splitter and not have to worry about the pass-through quality?
One cable to the capture card, the other to a display for monitoring or gaming purposes.

[BONKERS]

This is why passthrough exists.

If you really want to try and get the preview lower you can enable Use only Overlay in the renderer of AmaRec. This saves about a frame.

Thanks for the replay, but I still get 50ms with that.

For the purposes of the project I'm working on it has to be done within a preview window on my PC and sadly passthru isn't an option. I understand it's unconventional, but I'm hoping I can somehow come to a solution with some help.

Have you thought about an HDMI amp/splitter? Play on another monitor while recording

[HappehLemons]

Hey everyone, thanks for the help so far but I feel like there's a bit of a misunderstanding. I've already got a dual monitor setup and I'm not looking for a way to use my PC while record gameplay or play games or anything like that. This has nothing to do with passthru or using splitters.

To reiterate I am looking for a solution to get a lagless preview window of other HDMI video sources (Such as my PS4) on my PC, and not to split my signal.

My project is to stream my home console games onto my tablet devices, and in order to do this the video stream preview must by on my PC in order to send over my network.

I've already got it working well, but I want to shave down on the lag by finding a solution that processes and sends video over to my PC a bit quicker then the current 50ms delay I have with the XCapture-1.

[BuckoA51]

50ms would make Onlive look good

[Pasky]

Check out the datapath VisionRGB cards, but they aren't cheap.

[blizzz]

I don't think you can get sub 1 frame delay without screen tearing. But if you find something tell us.

[alamone]

Besides, the framerate is not going to exactly match whatever the refresh rate of your monitor and it's going to stutter.
Plus since the preview is running on your PC it'll probably drop frames once in a while and tear, etc.
As everyone said you shouldn't really be worried about the latency of the capture card but should use
the passthrough or a splitter to monitor the signal on another display.

[bobrocks95]

I don't think you can get sub 1 frame delay without screen tearing. But if you find something tell us.

Sub 1 frame will be impossible probably, but s/he's just looking to lower the current 3-4 frame number.

[beatsgo]

I don't think you can get sub 1 frame delay without screen tearing. But if you find something tell us.

Sub 1 frame will be impossible probably, but s/he's just looking to lower the current 3-4 frame number.

At this point, the best option for HappehLemons is the Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/SC-500N1/Startech PEXHDCAP. 20-100ms is the best you can get out of it for non-passthrough feed.