kevbot.xyz — Streaming a Super Smash Bros. Melee Tournament on a Steam Deck

Streaming a Super Smash Bros. Melee Tournament on a Steam Deck

by Kevin Leutzinger on May 7, 2023

Link to the gameplay stream (youtube)
Link to the bracket to see tournament results (start.gg)
How the stream looked like while broadcasting, running at 720p60.

Overall Context

This past Saturday in San Jose, California, there was a large in-person tournament for Super Smash Brothers Melee. Over 150 players duked it out in a double elimination bracket over the course of about 6 hours, with one player crowned as the champion. The game in question is a 1 on 1 fighting game played on a console (GameCube) released in 2001. Because the game and console are over two decades old, there is only support for analog video output to connect the console to the TV*. Modern capture cards generally only support digital inputs (like HDMI), this makes streaming analog devices, such as older consoles, more difficult. We have workarounds, however, which I will outline in this blog post.

- The hardware used to play the game. Notice that we use big old CRT TVs. The Steam Deck is in the bottom left, which I use for my stream.

Note: All gameplay is happening on the original GameCube hardware; the Steam Deck is used as a video capture device, not an emulator.

What is a Steam Deck?

Released on February 2022 The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer developed by Valve. It has a builtin controller and is great for playing PC games. Launching the device in "Desktop Mode" makes it behave as a small-footprint Arch Linux laptop. I use it here in lieu of a laptop because it is easier to squeeze onto a crowded table. And it looks cool.

Streaming Setup

Here is the full list of parts:

A summary of how I connect all these parts:

From the GameCube, I split the video out in two using the y-splitter. One feeds directly into the TV, the other feeds into the composite to HDMI powered converter. I then feed the HDMI signal into my AverMedia capture card. I connect the capture card to my Steam Deck which, and boom I have a stream. For audio, I used the Steam Deck's built in microphone to capture both the audio in the room and in turn, the TV. I find capturing the room audio to provide good atmosphere to the live stream. I also used a webcam to capture the players as they played.

The Steam deck is seated into a usb-c dock. This gives me three usb-A ports, which I use to plug in the capture card, the webcam, and a microphone (optional). I powered the composite to HDMI converter via the extra usb cable on my Steam Deck charger.

Using Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), I both live streamed to my youtube channel and locally recorded a VOD to the Steam Deck simultaneously. The venue didn't have perfect wifi, so my local recording reupload has a more consistent frame rate than the original live stream.

Conclusion

Competitors in melee put their entire selves into every tournament set they play. The highs and lows of competing light fires inside each player — I capture and share these story lines.

Tidbits

I found that this capture card works quite well with the Steam Deck when others don't. It just worked out of the box, while many others only support Windows.
For next time to improve the stream, I want to use two webcams at once. Sometimes I could only see one player.
I didn't update the stream overlay at all during the tournament (usually video overalys have info like player names, or the current round). I just set it up and let it run (for over 9.5 hours!).
I've made many different streaming / local recording setups for tournaments before and I've made a spreadsheet comparing the advantages / disadvantages of each as both a competitor and a streamer. See spreadsheet here
My stream was not the main stream, but rather a side stream. The main stream was here on twitch. I streamed to my youtube channel rather than my personal twitch.
Slippi Console Mirroring is another cool way to get a melee stream going. I haven't tried this yet with a Steam Deck, and instead opted for the capture card route.
I am also a player myself known as Kevbot
* Technically some models of GameCubes support digital video output. Read more here. I have never seen these in use at a tournament because most TVs don't support it as an input.