
Ask HN: Video chat tool with low CPU usage? - cloogshicer
I&#x27;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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GiHe
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.

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cloogshicer
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?

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GiHe
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?

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bradknowles
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?

