My Insane 3DS/DS Capture Setup

[Da12thKind]

Hey y'all!

I just wanted to share with y'all how I figured out the best way to record using the 3DS and DS capture boards I bought from Loopy.

So, for context, I work off an iMac and have a dedicated mini gaming PC for, well, Windows only games and apps.

Oddly enough, I've found that Cute Capture DS/3DS gives me the best maximum quality to record with, but its major weakness is the lack of support for audio. Side note: That doesn't really go against the DS software because last I checked the DS boards (even the latest versions) don't support audio over USB?

Regardless, we're moving on.

My solution is to use a TRS 3.5mm cable, ending with a TRS-TRRS adapter for a mic input, to feed the audio into my windows computer and into Audacity. From there, I turn on live monitoring while recording, and that enables me to hear what is being captured.

Back on the iMac, I set up QuickTime to make a new screen recording with the audio source being the capture card that all of my other devices (PC, consoles, etc) feed through.

I then open up Garageband and record my commentary with that.

On a scale of 1-10 how unnecessarily complicated do you think this is? I sure had a blast getting it to work this way though!

[KingdomXIII]

So you’re saying that you somehow connect your iMac to your Windows machine? It does sound pretty complicated, but at the same time if that’s what you have to do to get it fully functioning on Mac, then I fully understand and believe you. Throughout college I relied on my Macbook and I used that to dabble in streaming for the first time. I ended up running into issue after issue that seemed to all lead to an alternate (more complicated) path to get something to work, while on Windows it was much more simple. That led me to buying parts to build my own windows machine.

[Da12thKind]

Yep! The way I have the two connected is that my Windows computer's HDMI is fed into an HDMI switcher with the output of that feeding into a capture card that's plugged into my iMac via USB!

So it's like

3DS audio -> aux cord -> mic converter -> windows mic port -> audacity -> capture card -> iMac/QuickTime

3DS video -> Cute Capture 3DS -> iMac/QuickTime

If I could get my 3DS audio to get captured on my iMac directly, I would, but, on the bright side, it does force me to remember that my windows computer exists and that I need to use it! (It's such a small thing that easily gets buried)

[Chroma]

Yeah, congrats on a successful setup, good to see other Mac users out there.

I just couldn't do it. The amount of cables that ran through my floor drove me up the wall. I ended up pulling out a micro PC I had collecting dust just to run the capture on. The problem is that Windows and I have a mutual disgust between each other and I can never get anything to work reliably on it. I pop the capture into Windows OBS and the preview is so choppy I can never tell if it's actually streaming correctly or not.

Mac just never has this problem. 100% smooth preview, never drops frames, don't have to faff about with thousands of changing drivers and issues, it's really nice. Just nobody is interested in developing for it.

[Da12thKind]

Yeah I get that! I have a love hate relationship with Windows, too. It’s the default platform for games to be on but the brands that make windows based computers are getting worse.

For you, I’d recommend getting a capture card that plugs into your Mac via USB so you can still use your Windows computer for the software but get a better capture

[Chroma]

Yeah I get that! I have a love hate relationship with Windows, too. It’s the default platform for games to be on but the brands that make windows based computers are getting worse.

For you, I’d recommend getting a capture card that plugs into your Mac via USB so you can still use your Windows computer for the software but get a better capture

Crystal ball of sorts, this is already kind of how I'm doing it.

I have the spare PC (amongst other game consoles) hooked up to an HDMI switcher, all going into an Elgato HD60S+ that connects to my M1 Pro MBP. It all works nicely, but the one limitation has been that I can't play a console game and capture a necessary Windows app like LiveSplit or my N64 through GV-USB2 at the same time, since you can't output out of 2 HDMI feeds on the splitter at once. If you're at all confused at what this means, that just proves how hopelessly complicated the setup has to be.

That's why I've been trying to be as proactive as possible in asking developers (persistently) to possibly look into developing drivers or plugins at least for OBS or Mac as a whole. Even with less overall capability, the more tethers I can chop away from Windows, the better.