# Gaming & streaming: 3900X or a 2-build solution??



## wheresmycar (Oct 27, 2019)

Hi,

The idea is to game (1080p 144hz) and live stream (1080p 60fps). 

Are there any benefits going with 2 dedicated builds? Or would a single build with a 3900X deliver the same performance without having to worry about latency issues, games not achieving their max/min FPS potential, memory latency, etc etc. I understand the 2 build arrangement will be more expensive (also incl. capture card) and less efficient but are there any benefits in terms of raw gaming performance?


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## Agret (Oct 28, 2019)

Well the obvious benefit is that the games you are playing on your gaming PC aren't fighting for resources with the streaming program. You don't have to waste processor cycles/graphics card usage on encoding or disk i/o on streaming. You can also use QoS to give higher priority to your gaming PC than your streaming PC to reduce the latency slightly.


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## wheresmycar (Oct 28, 2019)

Agret said:


> Well the obvious benefit is that the games you are playing on your gaming PC aren't fighting for resources with the streaming program. You don't have to waste processor cycles/graphics card usage on encoding or disk i/o on streaming.



In other words regardless of how many cores a single build carries, the 2 build solution is always best. Is this correct?

Would you know how much of an impact a single build is likely to have with gaming performance when compared to a dual-PC arrangement? If it helps,

1. The single build would consist of: Ryzen 3900X, 32GB 3200/3600Mhz memory, RTX 2070 SUPER, 1TB Fast SSD​​2. Dual build:​A. GAMING: Ryzen 3600X, 16GB 3200/3600Mhz memory, RTX 2070 SUPER, 1TB Fast SSD​​B. STREAMING: Ryzen 2600, 8GB RAM, SSD, etc (if i go for the 2 build solution, I can pick up entry level SSD and a GT 1030 GPU free of charge from my brothers office)​​


Agret said:


> You can also use QoS to give higher priority to your gaming PC than your streaming PC to reduce the latency slightly.



Are these configurations network related? For example, allocating bandwidth to each computer in measure of kbps/mbps? I feel so much smarter  (actually had to google that)


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## Khonjel (Oct 28, 2019)

Just get the RTX card and use the newer updated NVENC hardware encoder. Hardware encoder streaming is at a point where it can rival software (CPU) encode quality, at least on Nvidia side. Stupid AMD is missing out by not focusing on the market. Even Intel QuickSync (via iGPU) has better quality and less headache than AMD's VCE. I have no doubt Nvidia and Intel's discreet GPUs (when they come out) are gonna dominate streaming market.


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## cucker tarlson (Oct 28, 2019)

Khonjel said:


> Just get the RTX card and use the newer updated NVENC hardware encoder. Hardware encoder streaming is at a point where it can rival software (CPU) encode quality, at least on Nvidia side. Stupid AMD is missing out by not focusing on the market. Even Intel QuickSync (via iGPU) has better quality and less headache than AMD's VCE. I have no doubt Nvidia and Intel's discreet GPUs (when they come out) are gonna dominate streaming market.


yup.
ryzen  3000 + turing card,no need for 2 builds.
may wanna check 2nd hand 8700k,they for about 3600x price.


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## TheLostSwede (Oct 28, 2019)

Or, you get something like this. Either would be cheaper than a second PC.








						HD60 X | elgato.com
					

HD60 X lets you capture PS5 or Xbox gameplay like a pro. Stream or record high resolution content for audiences on any platform. No subscriptions. Zero limitations.




					www.elgato.com
				











						4K60 PRO | elgato.com
					

A state of the art capture solution that takes production quality to the extreme, 4K60 Pro supports crystal clear 4K resolution at 60 fps, and vibrant HDR10 imaging.




					www.elgato.com
				











						Live Gamer ULTRA - GC553 | AVerMedia
					

Enjoy ULTRA 4K HDR gameplay at 60 FPS with its lag-less pass-through and record 4Kp30 video with virtually zero latency!




					www.avermedia.com
				











						Live Gamer 4K - GC573 | AVerMedia
					

Record 4K HDR 60 FPS and high refresh rates of up to 240 FPS and with its RGB lighting your rig will shine a new light!




					www.avermedia.com


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## phanbuey (Oct 28, 2019)

Remember the whole "You should game and stream off of your high core count CPU" was an AMD marketing thing.  Just because you _can _doesn't necessarily mean you should or that this is the best way to do it.






Even at the crappiest settings CPU streaming is a massive dip in performance vs not.  Yeah the 3900x drops 'less', but it still drops 20fps at the best case (worst encode setting).  You're better off getting a 3600 and then using the saved money to buy a nice capture card or just a faster RTX card as suggested above.


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## cucker tarlson (Oct 28, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> Remember the whole "You should game and stream off of your high core count CPU" was an AMD marketing thing.  Just because you _can _doesn't necessarily mean you should or that this is the best way to do it.
> 
> View attachment 135052
> 
> Even at the crappiest settings CPU streaming is a massive dip in performance vs not.  Yeah the 3900x drops 'less', but it still drops 20fps at the best case (worst encode setting).  You're better off getting a 3600 and then using the saved money to buy a nice capture card or just a faster RTX card as suggested above.


High core cunt cpus are for video and rendering.
I'm all for buying hardware designed for specific purposes,not most cores per dollar.
Nevertheless,3600 beats Intel in value hands down so unless he can spend premium,he should get one.


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## wheresmycar (Oct 28, 2019)

TheLostSwede said:


> Or, you get something like this. Either would be cheaper than a second PC.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



With these devices, wouldn't I need a second PC for encoding the captured raw footage and streaming. From my understanding, these devices only capture the video and then pass it on to the second system for encoding and streaming. 

Apologies i'm a little new to the gaming and streaming world.



Khonjel said:


> Just get the RTX card and use the newer updated NVENC hardware encoder. Hardware encoder streaming is at a point where it can rival software (CPU) encode quality, at least on Nvidia side. Stupid AMD is missing out by not focusing on the market. Even Intel QuickSync (via iGPU) has better quality and less headache than AMD's VCE. I have no doubt Nvidia and Intel's discreet GPUs (when they come out) are gonna dominate streaming market.



I've done quite a bit reading online about nvenc on the newer RTX cards. From my understanding NVENC works great but is limited to 1080p 60fps on moderate quality settings. From what I understand, 
higher bitrate streams struggle and it doesn't scale well with higher resolution streaming (something i'd want the system to be open to). I also keep hearing CPU encoding is still the best option providing there is plenty of processing power without robbing too many resources from the CPU. Because of the higher performance hit in gaming compared to nvenc, it's got me on the dual-system bandwagon.

If I want something to run seamlessly for several years, would it be better if I just take the plunge for a dual-build? Apologies i'm still new to all of this and any type of advice would be welcome. 

ACTUALLY, it just occured to me, I can just purchase the gaming build and try out NVENC and if that's not pulling in the desired performance on the streaming side of things, I can just grab a second machine with a capture card. Let me know your thoughts.



cucker tarlson said:


> yup.
> ryzen  3000 + turing card,no need for 2 builds.
> may wanna check 2nd hand 8700k,they for about 3600x price.



I've done quite a bit reading online about nvenc on the newer RTX cards. From my understanding NVENC works great but is limited to 1080p 60fps on moderate quality settings. From what I understand,
higher bitrate streams struggle and it doesn't scale well with higher resolution streaming (something i'd want the system to be open to). I also keep hearing CPU encoding is still the best option providing there is plenty of processing power without robbing too many resources from the CPU. Because of the higher performance hit in gaming compared to nvenc, it's got me on the dual-system bandwagon.

If I want something to run seamlessly for several years, would it be better if I just take the plunge for a dual-build? Apologies i'm still new to all of this and any type of advice would be welcome.

ACTUALLY, it just occured to me, I can just purchase the gaming build and try out NVENC and if that's not pulling in the desired performance on the streaming side of things, I can just grab a second machine with a capture card. Let me know your thoughts.


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## TheLostSwede (Oct 28, 2019)

wheresmycar said:


> With these devices, wouldn't I need a second PC for encoding the captured raw footage and streaming. From my understanding, these devices only capture the video and then pass it on to the second system for encoding and streaming.
> 
> Apologies i'm a little new to the gaming and streaming world.



My bad, those aren't hardware encoders.
So what you'd need is something like this





						Amazon.com: URayCoder HDMI Video Encoder IPTV HD Video Audio to RTMP YouTube Facebook Live Broadcast Streaming Encoder for IPYV, Live Broadcast Support HTTP RTSP RTMP HLS M3U8 ONVIF etc: Home Audio & Theater
					

Amazon.com: URayCoder HDMI Video Encoder IPTV HD Video Audio to RTMP YouTube Facebook Live Broadcast Streaming Encoder for IPYV, Live Broadcast Support HTTP RTSP RTMP HLS M3U8 ONVIF etc: Home Audio & Theater



					www.amazon.com
				



or this





						Amazon.com: Magewell Pro Capture HDMI Video Capture Card: Computers & Accessories
					

Amazon.com: Magewell Pro Capture HDMI Video Capture Card: Computers & Accessories



					www.amazon.com


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## wheresmycar (Oct 28, 2019)

phanbuey said:


> Remember the whole "You should game and stream off of your high core count CPU" was an AMD marketing thing.  Just because you _can _doesn't necessarily mean you should or that this is the best way to do it.
> 
> View attachment 135052
> 
> Even at the crappiest settings CPU streaming is a massive dip in performance vs not.  Yeah the 3900x drops 'less', but it still drops 20fps at the best case (worst encode setting).  You're better off getting a 3600 and then using the saved money to buy a nice capture card or just a faster RTX card as suggested above.



I have looked under every table, behind every door, climbed the tallest of mountains and dived into the deepest of oceans but could not find a CPU benched analysis as the one you've linked up above. This is massively appreciated and answers a couple of questions when comparing the 9900K/3900X. 

Is there a link to the source? If there's more info by the reviewer i would love a quick read or any other similar charts for higher resolution gaming or alternative configurations for comparisons. 

Thanks again


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## ShurikN (Oct 28, 2019)

EposVox
					

The ORIGINAL content creator and streaming focused tech education channel. EposVox, the Stream Professor, is here to give you how to videos, tutorials, tips ...




					m.youtube.com
				




Watch this guy, he'll explain everything.


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## phanbuey (Oct 28, 2019)

EDIT: see video below.


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## Khonjel (Oct 28, 2019)

You know what. Just buy your primary gaming PC and use the NVENC encoder of whatever RTX card you're buying.

If you need a secondary PC then buy it at a later date.

Just start streaming and learn the nuances and ins and outs first. Like setting up custom banners, animations and shit.

Lol you're in luck. Came out only a few hours ago.


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## phanbuey (Oct 28, 2019)

Khonjel said:


> You know what. Just buy your primary gaming PC and use the NVENC encoder of whatever RTX card you're buying.
> 
> If you need a secondary PC then buy it at a later date.
> 
> ...



That is awesome... i can now stream!  I don't... but I could....


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## moproblems99 (Oct 28, 2019)

wheresmycar said:


> Apologies i'm a little new to the gaming and streaming world.



Just curious, but what is the end goal here?  Why game and Stream?


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## wheresmycar (Oct 28, 2019)

Khonjel said:


> You know what. Just buy your primary gaming PC and use the NVENC encoder of whatever RTX card you're buying.
> 
> If you need a secondary PC then buy it at a later date.
> 
> ...



PERFECT!! A straight cut info vid served on a golden plate 

That's it, i'm going with a gaming platform with a RTX card and if NVENC sucks i'll grab a second build for dedicated streams. I guess the important aspect of it all was not regretting my initial purchase and i've punished myself enough not to consider the initial NVENC trial approach. Thats what happens when i'm overthinking, i miss the bigger picture.


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## PerfectWave (Oct 28, 2019)

Khonjel said:


> You know what. Just buy your primary gaming PC and use the NVENC encoder of whatever RTX card you're buying.
> 
> If you need a secondary PC then buy it at a later date.
> 
> ...


is this guy on NVIDIA payroll? see some nvidia cardbox XD


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## wheresmycar (Oct 28, 2019)

moproblems99 said:


> Just curious, but what is the end goal here?  Why game and Stream?



Honestly, there's no condition set for the absolute requirement other than streaming for fun and sharing game experience with friends and the wider community. I'm already amongst circles of mates on social live forums whilst playing FPS multiplayer games. Only one of us is currently streaming with a poorer build configuration which at times sucks. It's a great place for interaction with mates, viewing streamed content, chat integration (social content), webcam video feeds, etc etc. Externally, having others join up and key in and building team alliances is equally beneficial. 

Although some are targeting this sort of thing to reel in huge followings for instant gratification or more invested in earning cash (Ads, sponsorships, donations, etc), this is not something i'm paying attention to. If i'm honest i'm a little too laid back for my own good to bring anything excitingly valuable to keep followers intrigued. If i'm even more honest, my mates are louder then me and I prefer keeping things on point with game interaction as if we're fighting for our lives for that more immersive gaming experience. Follower interaction is just not my thing unless who knows, if there is potential to reel in some earnings, I can't say no to that - money is honey and me like HONEY.


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## moproblems99 (Oct 28, 2019)

wheresmycar said:


> Although some are targeting this sort of thing to reel in huge followings for instant gratification or more invested in earning cash (Ads, sponsorships, donations, etc), this is not something i'm paying attention to. If i'm honest i'm a little too laid back for my own good to bring anything excitingly valuable to keep followers intrigued. If i'm even more honest, my mates are louder then me and I prefer keeping things on point with game interaction as if we're fighting for our lives for that more immersive gaming experience. Follower interaction is just not my thing unless who knows, if there is potential to reel in some earnings, I can't say no to that - money is honey and me like HONEY.



The reason I asked is that if you were going to focus on viewers and earnings then I was going to suggest buying whatever gives the best quality.

I have done some basic testing with OBS and NvENC and didn't think quality was poor or spectacular. It was good enough.  That said, I didn't notice any specific loss in performance with other settings either.

If you do go the single rig route, I would be skeptical of anything with less than 6c/12t.  One I get my virtual machines setup, I really test my 3900x but I basically don't worry about what I have open anymore.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 28, 2019)

Just an FYI, I game and stream on 1 machine with my setup and i have 0 issues with performance.

If you get an elgato capture card and youre not doing 1080p streaming, get the elgato 4k60 pro mk2. It's cheaper and smaller than the original while offering a little more.


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## hat (Oct 28, 2019)

Just go with one build unless you're huge like Ninja or something.


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## Khonjel (Oct 29, 2019)

PerfectWave said:


> is this guy on NVIDIA payroll? see some nvidia cardbox XD


Call me a conspiracy theorist but I'm almost susceptible enough to believe it. Maybe it's the high contrast color scheme Nvidia uses on their boxes (compared to AMD's dark red at least), maybe it's because high profile techtubers almost exclusively use Nvidia hardware, or that Nvidia is very generous to give free handouts to even smaller starting out techtubers it's not false that Nvidia boxes almost exclusively pop up behind the shelf. I can forgive Jay who is self-admitted Nvidia fan or Linus who always gets hooked up by Nvidia or one of their partners but yeah I kinda suspect that news piece some nugget of truth to it.


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

hat said:


> Just go with one build unless you're huge like Ninja or something.



haha, Huge like ninja!! 

1x 3900X + 2 GPUs and done.


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## hat (Oct 29, 2019)

Well, now that I'm on my PC and not a phone, I can elaborate a little more. The message I was trying to get across there was that unless you're a big streamer and you earn your livelihood that way, I don't think it's necessary to build a whole separate PC to do the streaming for you. The 3900x is a 12 core processor and it doesn't exactly have a slow clockspeed. I stream 720p60 with my ancient quad core 2600k (which is clocked even slower than the 3900x) and that only seems to use around 30% of my CPU. I'm sure the 3900x, with triple the cores, higher clockspeed and better IPC can juggle 1080p60 and a game. If not, there's always NVENC. It takes next to nothing to run NVENC.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 29, 2019)

ShrimpBrime said:


> haha, Huge like ninja!!
> 
> 1x 3900X + 2 GPUs and done.


Why 2 gpus? Dual GPU gaming is basically dead.


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Why 2 gpus? Dual GPU gaming is basically dead.



For


CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Why 2 gpus? Dual GPU gaming is basically dead.


 Why 2 rigs to play a game and then watch a video??

Not all things make sense!


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 29, 2019)

ShrimpBrime said:


> For
> 
> Why 2 rigs to play a game and then watch a video??
> 
> Not all things make sense!


What the hell are you talking about?


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

*



			Gaming & streaming: 3900X or a 2-build solution??
		
Click to expand...


something about title 2 rigs for streaming and gaming.... Would need 2 gpus any ways??

what are you talking about?*


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 29, 2019)

wheresmycar said:


> Hi,
> 
> The idea is to game (1080p 144hz) and live stream (1080p 60fps).
> 
> Are there any benefits going with 2 dedicated builds? Or would a single build with a 3900X deliver the same performance without having to worry about latency issues, games not achieving their max/min FPS potential, memory latency, etc etc. I understand the 2 build arrangement will be more expensive (also incl. capture card) and less efficient but are there any benefits in terms of raw gaming performance?


Here is what you do. Build a beefy computer. 3900X, 32GB of ram (slight overkill but could help if doing video editing as well and a 2080 maybe even a 2080TI. Get your capture card. If gaming at 4k, get the elgato 4k60 pro mk2. Connect the HDMI cable from GPU to the IN port on capture card. Then HDMI from the OUT port on capture card to your monitor. Duplicate your displays, go into your streaming software. Base canvas is your monitors native res. Output is 1080p and you should be good. (minus some capture card tweaks in the source. And use hardware encoding not software.

If you really wanted to, you could assign affinity to OBS and give it 2 cores (say cores 0 & 1) and make the rest of the cores for gameplay.



ShrimpBrime said:


> *something about title 2 rigs for streaming and gaming.... Would need 2 gpus any ways??
> 
> what are you talking about?*


@ShrimpBrime Maybe if you actually wrote your sentences with better English rather than typing like youre having a txt conversation, id be able to better understand. Increasing font and bolding it just makes you look childish and I have ignored you.


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

Sry 4 caps lock, that was a copy paste issue on my phone.

Apoligies.


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## hat (Oct 29, 2019)

@CrAsHnBuRnXp Why would you use a capture card like that? OBS already has options such as window capture, game capture, or even capturing the entire display if you're gaming and streaming on the same system.


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## Calmmo (Oct 29, 2019)

With a 3900x/3950x you wont need to be shackled by nvenc quality is kinda the whole point. And 2 GPU's are pointless. They were bad in the days of "peak" (lets pretend its a technology that at some point peaked) SLI, they are a non option now that it's not even supported by nvidia (same for crossfire/amd)


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## hat (Oct 29, 2019)

I'm guessing the reason for 2 GPUs would be to game on one and stream on the other? Even though the hit from doing both on the same card would be negligible... also, NVENC quality isn't _bad_, per se... it's slightly worse quality for slightly more bitrate, but it's at the point where anyone watching the stream wouldn't be able to tell if it's NVENC or x264. You would have to sit there and compare still images and look for the differences. I wouldn't transcode my media library with it, where I have plenty of time to complete an encode that only has to happen once and it's done forever, and the best quality at the smallest bitrate is preferred, but for streaming a game on Twitch, the minimal quality hit and slightly larger bitrate takes a backseat to the performance advantage... unless you have a beastly CPU that can do both. I think the 3900x can cut it.


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

Calmmo said:


> With a 3900x/3950x you wont need to be shackled by nvenc quality is kinda the whole point. And 2 GPU's are pointless. They were bad in the days of "peak" (lets pretend its a technology that at some point peaked) SLI, they are a non option now that it's not even supported by nvidia (same for crossfire/amd)



Still supported but not called SLI but NVLink which is some ways is better than SLI where the paired cards work more so as a single unit.









						NVLink & NVSwitch for Advanced Multi-GPU Communication
					

The Most Powerful End-to-End AI and HPC Data Center Platform.



					www.nvidia.com


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## Calmmo (Oct 29, 2019)

I'll rephrase, I hope the OP doesn't get misled down a multi gpu purchase.


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## ShrimpBrime (Oct 29, 2019)

Calmmo said:


> I'll rephrase, I hope the OP doesn't get misled down a multi gpu purchase.



Hope so too! I don't see the need to build 2 rigs. 



> I'm guessing the reason for 2 GPUs would be to game on one and stream on the other?


That's actually what I meant.....


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Oct 30, 2019)

hat said:


> @CrAsHnBuRnXp Why would you use a capture card like that? OBS already has options such as window capture, game capture, or even capturing the entire display if you're gaming and streaming on the same system.


If youre streaming in 4k and want to output in 1080p, the capture card allows you to run the monitor at the native resolution effectively making the capture card another "monitor" and when you duplicate the displays in Windows, the capture card is seen as a 1080p and streaming to twitch is a little easier.


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