---
title: 'Building the Ultimate Budget Laptop Stream Setup for PS5'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=7k1BNcoEsjw'
video_id: '7k1BNcoEsjw'
date: 2026-08-01
duration_sec: 946
---

# Building the Ultimate Budget Laptop Stream Setup for PS5

> Source: [Building the Ultimate Budget Laptop Stream Setup for PS5](https://youtube.com/watch?v=7k1BNcoEsjw)

## Summary

This video demonstrates how to build a complete PS5 streaming setup using a budget laptop under $300. The host walks through every component — from an Acer Aspire 3 and a $30 capture card to a USB mic, webcam, and ring light — then shows the OBS settings needed for crisp 1080p60 output.

### Key Points

- **Budget streaming premise** [00:02] — Questions whether sub-$300 laptops can produce professional stream quality and promises to show a full PS5 setup.
- **Acer Aspire 3 laptop** [00:34] — AMD Ryzen 3 quad-core CPU, integrated Radeon graphics, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, priced at $280.
- **Console and display** [01:30] — PlayStation 5 paired with a Pixio 27-inch 2K monitor capable of 120Hz output.
- **Rybozen capture card** [01:57] — Captures 4K30 or 1080p60 and passes through up to 1080p120; costs $30 and remains a favorite budget pick.
- **Capture card wiring** [02:23] — Unplug monitor HDMI from PS5, connect PS5 to HDMI-in, monitor to HDMI-out, then USB cable to the laptop.
- **Chat Link for audio** [03:18] — A $20 Chat Link cable pulls audio from the PS5 controller into the capture card, solving game/party audio routing.
- **Headset mic limitation** [04:30] — The Fifine H9 headset mic only carries PS5 party chat; stream commentary needs a separate USB mic.
- **Tonor USB mic** [04:43] — Cardioid condenser USB mic with RGB lighting and quick mute; priced at $25.
- **EM4K webcam** [05:23] — 8-megapixel autofocus webcam that captures 4K30 or 1080p60; plug-and-play and priced at $40.
- **Port expansion** [05:53] — A Mochen USB-C dongle adds extra ports so all devices can connect to the slim laptop.
- **Ring light for facecam** [06:20] — A UBeesize 12-inch ring light, bought for about $35, lifts the webcam image quality.
- **Windows S Mode blocker** [06:47] — The laptop ships in Windows 11 S Mode, which blocks OBS; you must switch out of S Mode before installing.
- **OBS gameplay scene** [08:11] — Rename scene to Gameplay, add Video Capture Device, choose USB 3.0 video (capture card), and set 1080p60.
- **Facecam source** [09:20] — Add EM SmartCam C950 as Video Capture Device, adjust resolution/FPS, and crop/size using the Alt key.
- **Streamlabs alerts** [10:31] — Copy the Alert Box widget URL from Streamlabs, paste into an OBS Browser Source, and test with a fake Super Chat.
- **OBS audio routing** [11:54] — Set Mic/Aux 1 to the Tonor TC310 USB mic and Mic/Aux 2 to the capture card (Digital Audio Interface USB 3.0).
- **Final OBS output settings** [14:27] — Simple output, 1920x1080 at 60 FPS, 12,000 bitrate with hardware AMD H.264 encoder; Twitch/Kick cap at 6,000.

### Conclusion

With the right capture card, audio routing, and OBS encoder settings, even a low-cost laptop with integrated graphics can deliver a professional-looking live stream. Budget gear is enough if you prioritize the components that matter for streaming performance.

## Transcript

guys probably know those two terms just don't go together in the streaming and I'm going to be showing you guys how you can stream in great quality using a laptop that's under $300 but Midnight Man since the
equipment is so cheap won't my quality be absolutely no if that were the case I with that being said let me show you guys how you can build a professional guys how you can build a professional stream setup all on a budget
is of course going to be the laptop and I know you guys are itching for what computer could this possibly be well this is the Acer Aspire 3 this is the Acer Aspire 3 a315 Slim laptop it has an AMD ryzen 3
quad core processor AMD radon Graphics which are integrated Graphics not dedicated and we'll see how that plays an effect with our setup later it also an effect with our setup later it also comes with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of
solid state storage drive space now how much is this budget laptop going to set you back well it's going to set you back $280 which is not a bad price considering the specs that this laptop
considering the specs that this laptop has unlike using a Mini PC you at least have your keyboard and screen already a part of the configuration so that you components the next thing we're going to add to the mix here is our PlayStation 5
console along with our gaming monitor or TV of choice I'm using this pixio 27 in TV of choice I'm using this pixio 27 in 2K monitor that can output up to 120 HZ on the PlayStation 5 now I'm sure many of you guys already have your
PlayStation in monitor or TV hooked up how you would normally play but now when we mix in the laptop there's going to be one critical device that needs to intersect between these two systems and that's going to be our capture card and
that's going to be our capture card and this is the ribo Zen 4 K Ultra HD Capture card this device still holds as my favorite budget friendly capture card and I have two primary reasons for this number one you can capture up to 4K 30
number one you can capture up to 4K 30 or 1080p60 in very solid quality the second reason is the fact that you can pass up to 1080p at pass up to 1080p at 120 htz using this capture card to set
want to unplug the HDMI cable coming from the monitor from your PlayStation 5 you're then going to want to take the HDMI cable that came in the box with your capture card and plug that into the PlayStation 5 instead and the other end
of that HDMI cable you're going to want to plug into the HDMI in slot of the capture card then you can take that other HDMI cable that was coming from the Monitor and plug that into the HDMI outs slaught of the device after that
you just need to plug in the USB cable into the capture card and the other end laptop now if you guys want to pick up this capture card it's only going to set you back $30 which is an incredible deal I
wouldn't recommend trying to find something cheaper especially something because you're either going to be getting a capture card that is just a splitter to actually make it work with streaming and recording from your
capture card that only has the HDMI in and out slots along with the USB connector and it's going to be missing something very critical if you want to use it with an a chatlink cable this cost $20 to pick up but it will solve
your audio problems by plugging the single connecting in into this capture card and then the Dual connecting side into the PlayStation controller you'll be pulling your audio from here the PlayStation 5 controller into the
capture card now to listen to that audio back to you you can pick up a pair of headphones that you might have that are wired that can plug directly into the chat Link cable in the email connector the pair I have here is the H9 headset
from fifine I got the ones in white they're pretty comfortable and there's they're pretty comfortable and there's also a microphone input right here which will flow back through the capture card into the PlayStation 5 controller so
that you can be heard this gaming headset by the way is also budget friendly coming in at $35 so something important to note here is that that microphone on that headset will not deliver the commentary on audio to your
stream that headset microphone is specifically for people on the PlayStation 5 in your party chat or game chat to be able to hear you if you want to get that commentary audio there's an additional device we're going to need to
connect and that's a standalone USB microphone the one that you guys see here is from toner this is a cardioid condenser microphone that has a game control d a quick mute function if you don't want to stick with one style of
RGB colors well you're in luck because this thing has has multiple RGB modes that you can choose from and you can even control how bright those colors get this microphone cost the very generous price of
$25 you might be thinking oh boy the quality has got to be bad but we're going to mess around and we're going to find out the next part of this setup is having a way to show your face for those that want to show their face on their
live stream here we have the EM 4K webcam just like the rest of the devices that I mentioned as a part of this video it is plug and play with the slim budget laptop it has the ability to autofocus on your face has 8 megapixels and with
4K in its name you can expect to capture up to 4K 30 and even 1080p 60 using this webcam as for the pricing of this webcam you can pick it up for $40 if you guys were looking at this and wondering what am I using to extend the number of ports
with this laptop I'm using this USBC dongle from mochen they should still be selling these if not I will link a comparable alternative the important thing is just to pick up something so that you can plug in everything within
this setup now before we test this whole setup out there's one very important item that we are missing in it and I want you guys to think about what it is right now I'll give you guys 2 seconds one two well if you guess lighting you
would be correct this is a UB size 12in ring light that I got back in 2019 as my first piece of lighting equip because just like you guys I was making
a stream setup on a budget and luckily I didn't have to spend too much on this thing about $35 to pick this up at this point guys we have our setup primed and ready to go what I did next is I went ahead and downloaded OBS Studio on this
ahead and downloaded OBS Studio on this laptop now huge caveat with this laptop is that it does run in Windows 11s mode making it unable for you to download OBS studio so that we can set up all of the tech devices that we incorporated with
this computer to do a live stream so instead we're going to see an option to switch out of S Mode once you do this you can't go back but we're going to do it anyways because we need OBS Studio I know that comes with some drawbacks
regarding the performance of using this laptop but before we find that out for those of you guys out there that are struggling with editing down your live stream content into short form consumable content for Tik Tok Instagram
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free to use my link in the description below and use code midnight for 10% off okay now that I have my OBS Studio installed and launched on this laptop the first thing I'm going to do is go to my scenes click on this scene and I'm
going to rightclick rename it and we're just going to call this game play cuz this is going to be my game play scene from there I'm going to go to the right hand side where you see sources go down and select the plus button and we're
going to add a video capture device we're going to call this capture card select okay and then from here we're going to see a device drop down that we can select and then we can choose the USB 3.0 video which is our capture card
and when we do that we're going to see the gaml picture from the PlayStation 5 pop up on screen now if we want to we can scroll down here a little bit and mess with our resolution and FPS type I like to stick with the device default
and and then I could choose my resolution manually let's go with 1080p which would be 1920x 1080 and then for our FPS value we can choose up to 60
here everything else here is okay to remain as is and we can just go ahead and select okay the next Source I'm going to want to add is our face cam so I'm going to go back here to the plus button under sources we're going to add
another video capture device we're going to call this FaceCam select okay let's select the device drop down again and instead of using the webcam that is on this laptop we can actually choose the webcam that's plugged into the computer
which is this em smart cam c950 4K webcam and when we do that we're going to see it turn on right over here and same deal with this device I can manually adjust the resolution in fps type to custom if I would like and be
type to custom if I would like and be able to choose the 4K 30 resolution here able to choose the 4K 30 resolution here or I can do 2K or 1080p at 6 FPS if i' these settings I'm going to go ahead and select okay and then I'm going to go
ahead and grab the corners and just shrink this on down this is about where I'll be sitting when I'm gaming so we'll press the ALT key and bring in these sides just a smidge maybe blow it up just a little bit more I like the way
that looks put it to the side here and we're looking peachy one other thing I want to add to this setup are my overlay alerts so to do that we're going to go to our Google Chrome here and what I did here is search up streamlabs dashboard
we're going to log into streamlabs using my YouTube account and once I've accessed my dashboard if I go to the Le hand side under streaming Essentials I can go to alert box and from here I can go ahead and copy the widget URL by just
clicking it and selecting copy and then if I go back into OBS under my sources I'm going to select that plus button and then this time we're going to add a browser source so we're going to select that that we'll call this alerts okay
and then instead of the URL being the default OBS browser Source here we're going to paste in my streamlabs alerts widget URL link that we just copied from the streamlabs dashboard we can keep the width and the height the same here
select okay and you're going to see this empty transparent Box come up here on screen we can place this wherever we'd like I'll put mine somewhere in the middle and what we'll do next is actually give this a little test so back
streamlabs dashboard we're going to go to test we'll go with YouTube and we'll go with Super Chat and when we go back to our OBS project we're going to see that Kevin just donated $97 in Super Chat bro you are freaking falling
obviously that's not real but that's what it'll look like when it really does to this OBS project is our microphone and game audio so to do that go to your settings go to audio and then for one of your mic auxiliary devices you're going
to select that drop down and then you can choose the tonar TC 310 USB mic for mic auxiliary 2 we can choose the digital audio interface USB 3.0 which is
the capture card and when we choose that we can select apply okay and then you'll see in the audio mixer our audio coming through by the way it is best to have these type of microphones as close to your mouth in phe as possible so you can
while we're playing here one thing that it's important to take note of is your audio levels as you can see right now when I shoot my gun look how freaking loud that is bring this game audio on down so that it is more bearable to
listen to so at this point guys we have successfully connected and set up all of the hardware components with our OBS project to be able to stream or record our gameplay the next big thing here is putting this budget laptop to the test
to see how well it can hold up streaming or recording gameplay and make sure you guys stay in to the end as I'll show you the settings that I use to record the gameplay you're about to see all right I think my luck will be a
little bit better on this m and I can sense it usually with call usually with Call of Duty you get one bad game and then you you you get it turned around suddenly the lead look at that good start start
Destro oh I'm going to blow up I'm going to blow up I did not blow up somehow careful brother careful be patient
me [ __ ] bro what are you saying what are you saying man what are you saying
assit see what we got with this we've taken the lead stay on to brother uhoh got him I like this gun okay as
promised for those of you who stay to the very end of the video so kindly I'm going to show you my streaming and recording settings that I use within OBS Studio to get that nice crisp quality that you all just saw using OBS Studio
let's jump into our settings go to video and here you can see that my base and output canvas resolutions are set to 1920x 1080 at 60 FPS if we head over to the output tab you can see that we went with an output mode of just simple so
nothing crazy here with a bit rate of 12,000 using the hardware AMD h.264 video encoder now that streaming bit rate would have been perfectly fine if I was streaming to YouTube for example but if we were streaming to
Twitch or kick they don't allow you you to push a bit rate that high right now it's capped at 6,000 they don't want you to go higher than that but this example showcases that you can do well over 6,000 bit rate using this budget laptop
additionally if we had used the software encoder on this laptop the CPU would have shot through the roof causing the quality to be bad so there you guys have it that is the complete budget laptop streaming setup definitely let me know
section below as a reminder all of the products that I Showcase in this video are linked in the description below via my affiliate links so they do help out the channel if you do use them and I do truly appreciate it thank you guys so
the video subscribe if you're new around here and I will catch you in the next here and I will catch you in the next one peace