Ask HN: Video chat tool with low CPU usage?

1 point·cloogshicer··5 comments

I've tried Google Meet, Hangouts, Zoom, Jitsi meet. All of them hover at around 100% CPU usage for me, especially when there are multiple participants. I teach programming via screen sharing, so it makes my job very difficult. Any alternatives?

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Answering your question properly requires more details about your platform (CPU, GPU, resolution, operating system, etc.). If your hardware can offload video encoding from the CPU, that would probably be your best strategy. I would suggest experimenting with OBS Studio to create an CPU-friendly encoded stream from your screen, then exposing that to conferencing software using something like OBS-VirtualCam on Windows or ffmpeg+v4l2loopback on Linux.

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately, if the answer requires such detailed knowledge, it won't be a viable solution, since I can't expect my participants to have such in-depth knowledge. It would have to be a low-friction solution. As far as I can tell, OBS is only one directional video (I can't see the participants), or no?

Your question sounded like you were concerned about CPU utilization on your own computer as a broadcaster. Solving for multi-party video chat is harder. Have you tried Discord?

Discord is a good idea, we'll try that! Thanks :)

Discord for video chat? We use it all the time for text and voice chat in the RPG circles I’m in, but I don’t think we ever do video chat with Discord.

How do you do video chat with Discord?

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