Capturing your own gameplay has always been one of the biggest obstacles when it comes to streaming and content creation. It used to take quite a bit of money, equipment and knowledge to even have a fairly low-quality recording setup, and that probably only worked for one of your gaming devices. I remember paying hundreds of dollars for a solution that I still had to fight to get working every time I turned it on.
It's fun to see how far we've come, illustrated with Avermedia's portable small capture card, the Live Gamer Mini (GC311).
As far as capture cards go, the Live Gamer Mini has slightly lower specs than others on the market, but it has a profile and price to match. It's not the card you buy if you want the highest possible resolution for game recording or passthrough, as it's limited to a maximum of 1080p at 60fps for both. But considering that these are still the settings used by the vast majority of streamers and content creators, it's a card that's probably still worth a look for many purposes.
Just having 1080p 60fps passthrough means you have to suck it up and play with visuals that might not be up to your usual standard. While I didn't notice any latency, I've been living in 4K, HDR, and 120fps for a while now, so it felt like a significant step back for some games. In the case of a twitchy first person shooter, this can really affect your skills.
Live Gamer Mini Specifications
Couple: USB 2.0 (USB micro)
Video input: HDMI
Audio input: HDMI
Maximum throughput resolution: 1080p 60
Maximum recording resolution: 1080p 60
Recording format: MPEG 4 (H.264+AAC) / supports hardware encoding
Dimensions: 100 x 57 x 18.8 mm (3.93 x 2.24 x 0.74 in)
Weight: 74.5g (2.63oz)
Price: $80 | £70 | $116 Australian dollars
The Live Gamer Mini from Avermedia is not designed for that. Instead, it is a highly portable and versatile device, a Jack of all, as opposed to a master of one.
The box is only slightly bigger than a credit card and weighs just 75 grams - about the same as the lighter gaming mice currently available. It also only goes a finger deep, which outlines the fairly simple system with just three ports needed for use: HDMI in, for whatever device is hosting what you want to capture; HDMI output, so you can display your passthrough on a screen; and Micro USB, heading to the computer to handle recording and possible streaming. Somehow this thing can run just fine on USB 2.0, although the included USB cable is a nice long braided Micro to A cable, giving you a ton of space to work with.
This setup allows it to work fairly seamlessly with all kinds of modern devices. I've tried it with Switch, PS5, Xbox One Sometimes there was an odd setting to configure, like disabling HDCP on my PlayStation, or finding the competing pre-installed program trying to steal my source, but that would be standard regardless of recording device.
With the idea of a portable capture card in mind, I tested it in a variety of situations. On my laptop I made sure that only OBS was installed without Avermedia's own software - how I might use it if I brought this card to a streamer friend's house and planned to use their hardware - and it immediately recognized the input of the connected device into the card on the first attempt. I'm not sure if I've just had too much technical trauma surrounding capture cards in my past, but this actually made me tear up a bit.
This card also has the ability to use Avermedia's Stream Engine to essentially force the card to process video recording and keep your CPU free. It is not difficult to install and use, but it is not easy and obvious either. Once you have it working, you can use it in programs like OBS by choosing the Stream Engine source. I tried it when my laptop was glitching because it wasn't plugged in and I went from recording choppy video to something much smoother with no noticeable change in my CPU usage.
Buy as...
✅ You want a reasonably priced and portable capture card that can work with everything HDMI: This little beast is perfect for throwing in your pocket and taking with you, so you can stream at friends' houses or on the go from your laptop. It's also very easy to simply move around the house for different setups, as long as the connection you're plugging into offers HDMI.
Don't buy if...
❌ If you want to pass 4K or high refresh rate: This is limited to 1080p at 60 fps for both passthrough and capture. If you need 120fps to shoot the gaming content you want to record, or you're trying to show off UHD HDR visuals, you're out of luck here.
❌ You want to be future-proof: Just having a USB 2.0 connection and lower spec HDMI ports doesn't really matter for streaming right now, but technology is moving fast and these old protocols will become obsolete sooner or later.
Since the passthrough and capture both have the same visual fidelity, it was quite easy to notice lag on the capture side, which was interesting to compare. With my Switch plugged in, for example, it was fairly negligible. I was able to play Hades quite well just by looking at the OBS window while using it to stream to Twitch, which is pretty impressive. However, when I tried to play SpiderHeck on my PC, the slowdown was much more noticeable. There's no way I could handle the fast-paced 2D combat without using the passthrough monitor, and thankfully I didn't experience any issues there when using both PC monitors and TVs as tests.
The hardest part about recommending this card is that the NZXT Signal HD60 exists, and it's our current pick for the best budget capture card. It offers much better throughput, with support for 4K. On the other hand, you don't get that Stream Engine for video recording, or the rest of the Avermedia software.
The ease of use and versatility of the Live Gamer Mini are truly impressive, especially considering its size and price. I wouldn't recommend this card to someone who wants it as their main PC to log hours of high-level Valorant play, but that's just not what this card is for. Instead, this is a great choice for a diverse streamer looking for a highly portable card that should work with most modern devices at a modest price. Or maybe a new content creator who wants to try out some ideas without spending a lot of money.
