AVerMedia Live Gamer Duo review

Avermedia Live Gamer Duo capture card

AVerMedia's Live Gamer Duo effortlessly streamlines multiple HD input streaming into one device.

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AVerMedia might not be a household name yet when it comes to capture cards and streaming devices, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t turning heads. Its capture cards in particular always seem to come with an interesting innovation—and the AVerMedia Live Gamer Duo doesn't buck the trend.

Avermedia Live Gamer Duo

That’s what impresses me about the Live Gamer Duo the most. It does everything it advertises with relatively low effort. The full HD recording and high-enough-frame rate streaming just works and is immediately recognisable by third party software.

Video processing, such as downscaling or frame rate conversion, is all done on the card itself, and I believe it. My PC is unbothered while the card is operating, though it still takes the usual hit from my streaming software. Meanwhile, the 4K passthrough has remained unhindered entirely by the process, though it would be nice to have passthrough options for both inputs rather than solely HDMI1.

I even plugged my old DSLR camera into the Live Gamer Duo via a HDMI mini to standard cable and that works brilliantly too. The image passed through is exactly what my camera sees without any other software or fiddling about. This means streamers and content creators wanting to use a better quality camera while streaming games through a capture card may only need the one device that plugs directly into a single PCIe slot. It really does feel like a device that streamlines the whole process.

Of course, it’s not without sacrifice. If you want to be able to record in 4K or higher than 60 fps this quite simply isn’t the device. What you get with AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Duo is a single one-time set-up unit that’s largely plug and play. It has especially made streaming easier by having a setup that simply works, and one which I can mostly leave in place. For anyone looking to include multiple sources for minimal hassle, AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Duo is a really smart choice that lives up to all its promises.