Computer Setup

My setup has gotten pretty convoluted now, so it’s formatted as several sections.

Linux Machine

OS: Arch Linux
DE: KDE Plasma
Case: Rosewill THOR V2 Black Edition
PSU: SeaSonic X-1250 1250W Fully Modular
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z270 Mark 1
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K
RAM: G.SKILL Aegis 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 2400MHz
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD (boot drive), WD VelociRaptor 500GB 10000 RPM HDD, WD RE 4TB 7200 RPM HDD
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Windows Machine

OS: Windows 10 Pro
Case: lol
PSU: Corsair RM650x 650W Fully Modular
Motherboard: MSI MPG B550 GAMING PLUS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz
GPU: ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB
Storage: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD (boot drive), Samsung 970 EVO 2TB NVMe SSD, Seagate BarraCuda 4TB 5400PM HDD
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Peripherals & Misc

Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K70 (Cherry MX Blue)
Mouse: Logitech G502 Proteus Core
Sound: AKG M220 Pro Stylist Headphones, Behringer Q802USB
Microphones: Audio‑Technica AT2020 (via Behringer Q802USB), Antlion ModMic 5 (for Vive)
Monitors: Acer XF240H 24″ 1920×1080 144Hz, 2x ASUS VE247 23.6″ 1920×1080 60Hz, TCL 49S405 49″ 3840×2160 60Hz
Virtual Reality: HTC Vive w/ Deluxe Audio Strap & Valve Index Controllers
Capture Card: Magewell Pro Capture HDMI
Controllers: DualShock 4, GameCube Adapter (for Dolphin), DolphinBar (for Wiimotes)
Misc: Logitech G13, Sabrent USB Audio Adapter (for ModMic)
Game Consoles: Wii, Switch, PS3
External Storage: 10TB NAS (4x4TB RAIDZ)

Useful Software

Open Broadcaster Software:
Great free software for streaming, a lot better than several alternatives. Has many features including scenes, game capture, audio and video effects, plugins, and even replay buffer. Works great for both recording and streaming. I can’t overstate how excellent OBS is, and it’s always getting better with more features added in every release. There’s far too many at this point for me to even begin to list here. Even professional big-budget productions use it, that should tell you how good it is. Did I mention it’s free? As in free speech. Open source software. You can do basically whatever you want with it.

DaVinci Resolve:
Switched to this from Adobe Premiere, as it seems to work more reliably and is easier to edit in, not to mention it’s free (with essentially no strings attached, aside from some niche features, though not open source). Haven’t messed with it too much, but it seems really powerful. I use it on Windows, even though it technically runs on Linux, because there it currently only supports audio through some stupid expensive DeckLink card. No open source video editor for Linux supports multiple-audio-track video files yet, so I would have to demux which is simply too much extra effort.

JACK Audio Connection Kit:
An audio subsystem with limitless audio routing capabilities. Works great on Linux, not so much on Windows though. All my audio runs through this, allowing me to pipe it anywhere I want, especially into the next piece of software…

Ardour:
Great DAW for Linux, has lots of plugin support and uses JACK. It’s the main workhorse of my audio setup; everything is piped through it, including system audio. This allows me to use audio effects in any which way I please, to torture both myself and others.

Audacity:
Great for recording audio in post and anything else audio-related. Also good for editing audio, it has several useful effects, including noise removal and reverb. Mostly used to convert dumb audio clips to OGG for my soundboard.

ocenaudio:
A neat program for recording quick audio clips, with support for JACK. I honestly don’t use it much, but it’s a thing.

Barrier:
A fork of Synergy which is completely free and open source. Allows sharing mouse and keyboard with multiple machines. Not a perfect piece of software, it has some issues where the clipboard just stops working and key repeat causes “bouncing” of held keys (I disabled key repeat as a workaround), but overall it works really well for my uses and introduces no noticeable latency or lag to my inputs.

Adobe Photoshop:
I use this to make video thumbnails, graphics, and various other images. It can do quite a lot and I’ve barely scratched the surface of it. It’s kind of a clunky pile of crap, but there isn’t anything else quite as powerful. GIMP is a nightmare, though Krita is getting pretty good, but I’m still just too comfortable with Photoshop to move away from it.