AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 review — 4K/60 capture, unparalleled passthru

It used to be incredibly difficult to capture from a game console. I can remember hooking up a component cable to my AVerMedia GameCapture HD, running five wires of component cable to the Gamecube connector, another five wires to my TV, a power plug to the wall, and a USB-A connection to my PC or an external hard drive. Cables everywhere, I then prayed I could get a stable 1080p at 30fps. We’ve come a long way. I reviewed the Live Gamer Ultra back in 2018 and found it to be a rock solid device for the PlayStation 4, but we are onto the next generation. While the newest consoles have internal capture, to say it’s problematic would be an understatement. We need an update from AVerMedia, and wow have they delivered. A quantum leap over its predecessor, let’s take a look at the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra 2.1.

If you’ve captured video on the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S then you’ve found the limitations. .webm is a terrible format for editing, the .mp4 option is limited to an hour, is compressed, is framerate limited, and worst of all, may suddenly cut out with a “This scene cannot be captured” without warning. Both consoles are also limited to an hour, regardless of how much storage space you’ve got. Streaming directly has just as many limitations – didn’t I just say this is easier nowadays? Well, that’s where an external capture device comes in.

In stark contrast to capture devices of the past, connecting the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 is remarkably simple. Merely connect the included USB-C cable to a PC or laptop, connect an HDMI cable to the console, and optionally the other end to a monitor, and you’re done. If you are inclined, you can connect that second HDMI cable, as well as a headset/mic and to capture those audio sources for any livecasting you might want to do. From that you can use RECentral 4, or OBS if you are so inclined, to capture the output.

Before we jump into frame rates, refresh rates, and capture specifications, we’ve got to talk about the most important thing – RGB! The Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 has baked in support for Windows Dynamic Lighting (at least on Windows 11), ASRock Polychrome Sync, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0. The grill that runs the entirety of the front of the unit jumps and dances with whatever you’re playing, bathing the space with all the color you could want. Or you can turn it off if you’re the grumpy type.

You should know that, with the right games, the PlayStation 5 is capable of 4K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, variable refresh rate (VRR), and high dynamic range lighting (HDR). The Xbox Series X bumps up a little bit higher, hitting a refresh rate of 144Hz. It’s also very likely that the upcoming pro version of the PlayStation 5 will be easily able to hit those numbers (and possibly 144Hz if rumors prove to be true), provided you’ve got the rest of the parts in that chain. You see, it’s right there in the device name – AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra 2.1. In this case, the 2.1 stands for HDMI 2.1, so let’s dig into that.

HDMI 2.1 is a fairly recent advancement in the HDMI standard. Just like USB, the powers that be have made the naming convention needlessly complicated. HDMI 2.0 gave us 4K resolution at 60fps over the wire. HDMI 2.0b provided the same frame rate and resolution, or 120 Hz and 144 Hz refresh rates, but at 1080p. It wasn’t until we got HDMI 2.1 that we finally achieved 4K resolution at 144 Hz, or 8K at 60 Hz, and even 10K resolution at 30 Hz. It’s important to know, however, that everything in your chain has to be compatible. This means if you are using a TV and receiver, as well as a console, your display, the receiver, the cables, and the console will all need to be able to hit whatever console and resolution you want. I personally like these JSAUX cables as they are inexpensive, hit all the specs, and are from a company we know and trust.

Now that we’ve got a lesson in HDMI specs, it’s fair to say that capture systems have been lagging behind consoles for a while. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S launched four years ago, but got 120Hz support in April of 2021. Until capture units embraced HDMI 2.1, however, 4K/60 was the best you can do. Now, that’s no slouch, as you’ll see in the capture below, but being able to capture it as the developer intended is a whole different story. Let’s look at what this little tiny capture unit is capable of delivering at on PS5. Before we do, I’m double-capturing, showing the game in motion, while also showing the process of capturing it – essentially capturing the capture of the capture. I sincerely doubt that it’ll affect anything as my PC has more than enough horsepower to process the capture but what you’re seeing is AVerMedia’s RECentral 4 running to capture the output from the PS5, with NVIDIA’s FrameView displaying frame rate in the corner, and the output of all of that being captured by NVIDIA’s capture app.

The first test I wanted to check was the unit’s ability to capture in 120Hz mode – the highest setting Sony supports for the PlayStation 5. It’s a short list of games with 120hz support, but they are titles that benefit greatly from extra frames. Games like God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West, the Nioh Collection, Hogwarts Legacy, Gran Turismo 7, Dying Light 2, DOOM Eternal, Dirt 5, and Atomic Heart. The way that higher refresh rating is achieved is most often by lowering the resolution a bit. In the case of Devil May Cry V: Special Edition, it drops the resolution to 1080p. The same can be said for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. DOOM Eternal has to be weird about it, supporting 120 Hz at 1584p resolution. On the Xbox Series X side you get Dirt 4, Battlefield 1, 4, and V (c’mon with this naming folks…), Mad Max, the whole Metro series, both Star Wars Battlefront games as well as Squadrons, both Titanfall titles, just about every Call of Duty game, Resident Evil 7, Sea of Thieves, WRC 9 and 10, XDefiant, and much more. I chose one of Sony’s best looking titles on the platform, God of War: Ragnarok. Pardon the rust – it’s been a minute.

God of War “Prioritizing Performance” mode makes for a stable and smooth framerate in that game, and we see it reflected in the capture perfectly. The Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 has no trouble not only capturing the footage perfectly, it also passes it to me without latency – perfect for a game that’s all about perfect parries and counter attacks. If the capture unit introduced any latency whatsoever I’d have immediately seen it here.

The other thing you might give up in the exchange for better framerates is image quality. Guerilla and Sony worked hard to clean up the image quality issues on Horizon: Forbidden West that cropped up when that first launched. Thankfully that’s been fixed, but you should know that sometimes there is a trade-off. The other thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between “supported” and “capable”. While a game might support a certain refresh rate, that doesn’t mean that the device that powers it can handle it. In God of War: Ragnarok we see the game hovering around 90 fps most of the time, with the ability to punch all the way up to 120. Achieving the higher frame frame rates are achieved by turning off VSync and allowing it to pop up above the 60 Hz lock. In many places we see frame rates pushing upwards and occasionally hitting 120 FPS. While on the ground, where draw distance is highest, it can meander anywhere between 70 and 80 FPS on average, provided your TV and potentially receiver, are able to support VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate. The same VRR support and 120 Hz option is available on the Xbox Series X, so some of their titles go with a “best effort” unlocked option rather than attempting to lock the framerate.

Given that voice flows through the controller on the PlayStation and Xbox platforms, capturing these things is crucial to the overall package. As such, there are two ports on the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 for precisely that purpose. Connecting these 3.5mm connections to the same port type on your controller will allow you to collect voice and any in-game audio chirps, squawks, or voice that comes through the controller speaker.  Other capture units require convoluted connection configurations (say that 10 times fast), require an additional cable, or simply cannot capture party chat at all.  Here it’s incredibly simple — plug in a standard 3.5mm cable.  It doesn’t get easier than that.

With the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1, you can capture at 4K/60, but enjoy the full benefits of a higher frame rate with passthrough of up to 144 Hz. A great example of when you’d use this is Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. The game settles in at around 100 fps and holds to it pretty cleanly. The Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 allows you to play the game at 100 fps, while capturing at 4K / 60 fps. In fact, you can push it far further if you tweak the resolution – the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 is capable of passthrough at 4K144, 4K120, 1440p240, and 1080p360, provided you’ve got a monitor to support it, such as the MSI Oculux NXG253R eSports Gaming Monitor we reviewed in 2022. That makes it perfect for eSports which often use a lower resolution in favor of a far higher framerate. Let’s check out Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition.

Unlocked frame rates are fairly new to consoles, as is VRR support on televisions. Thankfully both are now possible, and with HDMI 2.1 becoming more common, we are reaping the benefits. With the previous generation of capture units, and even the previous version of the Live Gamer Ultra, you’d have to set your source to 60 Hz, locking out the ability to enjoy unbound framerates. As someone who captures frequently, I’d have to reconfigure my entire setup when I wasn’t capturing. Now, both Sony and Microsoft are inviting you to enjoy unlocked frame rates on your favorite games, and now with the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1, it’s possible to enjoy the best of both worlds.

The last thing we always cover in hardware reviews is warranty and price. Since this is a multi-generational upgrade, we’ve got some data on failure rates of previous capture units. I’ve been using one, and several of our staff have them as well. So far, over the course of half a decade or more, that failure rate is zero. AVerMedia offers up a 3 year warranty for peace of mind that it’ll serve your purpose for years to come. Better still, AVerMedia uses a unified software package for all of their devices, so you can expect software support for quite a while into the future. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a device fall off the list to date. For price, it’s $249 at the time of writing, which feels about right for the capabilities of this device. There are certainly cheaper options out there, but none that have the passthrough capabilities of the Live Gamer Ultra 2.1. It can handle all of the current-gen consoles, and will very likely work well on whatever comes next. You just have to decide if that’s worth the extra cost.

If I had one complaint, it’d be incredibly minor: it’s the dinky included cables. The HDMI is rather short, as is the USB-C cable. Thankfully both are labeled, and I have a deep appreciation for that, but it doesn’t give you a lot of distance between your capture PC and the device itself. Longer cables aren’t that expensive, just make sure you pick cables suited to the task like the JSAUX ones I linked to above.

Ultimately, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 is an excellent generational improvement that takes what worked with the previous model and embraces the needs of the newest consoles. It combines simplicity and portability into an incredibly compact tool that’s sure to bring your footage to life and looking its very best, all without compromising the visuals of your non-captured fun.

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