NVIDIA Launches Broadcast 1.3 Streaming Tool With Enhanced Camera And Effects Support

Since its release, NVIDIA's Broadcast effects suite has been enhancing camera video and microphone audio for streams and teleconferencing tools using the company's machine learning hardware baked into the GeForce RTX series of graphics cards. Back when it was just RTX Voice, we found the AI-assisted cleanup tools did a nice job of stripping out room audio and boosting the volume so we could be heard. The full-fledged suite focuses on webcams and audio alike. Today, the company released an update that should go much easier on the PC's hardware. 

NVIDIA Broadcast version 1.3 has three big headlining features that can help bring broadcasts to the next level. First up is a pretty big bug fix for vocal noise removal. On occasion, the AI cleanup routines would accidentally remove the speaker entirely, especially if they get emotional. There's not much worse for a broadcast than when a streamer gets excited and their voice gets louder or higher pitched, and it's removed entirely. NVIDIA says that was a pretty rare occurrence, but Broadcast 1.3 should fix it entirely. 


Next up is enhanced support for effects stacking. In version 1.2 of Broadcast, NVIDIA allowed users to add multiple effects to the same device. For example, the room echo removal and noise cancelation features are separate effects, and both can be added in Broadcast. That was stressful on VRAM in particular, and cards with less memory would struggle to keep up with both effects and gaming at the same time. With NVIDIA Broadcast 1.3, the company says VRAM usage is down over 40 percent compared to the previous. That should free up more memory for the game that's running and improve framerates overall. 

Finally, NVIDIA Broadcast now supports a virtual camera options. The tool has video enhancement effects like auto-center or background blurring and removal, but the previous version of the software didn't work with everything. Adding support for virtual cameras opens up Broadcast to a host of webcam utilities for high-end cameras, including webcam utilities from Sony, Canon, and Nikon. That also allows OBS's virtual camera to work with Broadcast's webcam effects. 

All of the AI-assisted features and NVIDIA's own NVENC built into GeForce RTX cards make it more feasible than ever to game and stream from the same PC. However, that's not a requirement, as gamers can use a webcam, microphone, and capture card to stream from a PC with GeForce graphics with Broadcast. The system requirements haven't changed with this update, as Broadcast still requires a GeForce RTX 2060 or better to make use of its Tensor cores for effects processing. Interested streamers can head on over to NVIDIA's site to grab the latest update.