OBS Streaming Guide | precisiongamer

Being a better streamer on Twitch

I personally use OBSx64 broadcaster on a single system, its a bit faster than x86.

Bitrates and Types of streams

1300killabits per second - Your 1300 stream will be targeted at the lowest speed internet connections which can display live content. Your stream will be low res and blurry looking. You can drop it down to 640x360 or some multiple of that lower than 720p and is reccomended to use a lower resolution to increase image quality at the lower birate. You can additionally have a 300-900kbps version of this same stream. This is basically your Resident Evil 2, 3 and Zelda 64 type stream. Which looks okay playing these kinds of games.

2500kbps - This is your 720p 30fps stream with a good image quality. You're locked at this setting 2 keyframes and no custom buffer in my opinion this is what twitch wants you to use for high quality non-partnered streams.

3500kbps - Max bitrate for non partners I've heard. I wouldn't risk this bitrate most people can only handle a consistent 2700kbps and 2500 used be the non partner max.

Dealing with bandwidth issues

I would consider dropping your stream to 24fps and low bit rates like 500, I don't recommend even having a stream which is below 24 fps or 300 bitrate at all it will not be worth watching. Additionally if you cannot run a 2500 stream and want to but your connection wont allow it you should test each level 2400 2300 2200 until you find a good spot then work your way up by 50, 2250. Save about 50 to 300 for online gameplay and your chat ect.

Alternate framerate

Some people are now running 60fps at 2500kbps which looks okay on i7s. on I5s and AMDs it gets pretty artifacted and I don't even like the way it looks on i7s myself I prefer crisp choppier movie like image versus the smooth artifacted stream. It is a preference kind of thing. Also 30fps is much easier on older mobile devices. Adobe flash used to be buggy above 30 fps not too long ago.

Aspect Ratio and 720p for non-partnered streamers

You want everything to appear in 16:9 mode. An way of doing this is by streaming 720p windowed games. Another option is to buy a 16:9 monitor or just put your 16:10 into 16:9 mode having slightly skinnier characters while your stream gets to see the proper scale. Do not change your obs setting from the defualt of 16:9 1080p with 720p scale down or actual 720p. That's not recommened until you become a partner. You should be using the Bilinear scale down from 1080p to desired res if you have a low end stream it will give you a better image.

Follower Notifications+

TwitchAlerts - The best follower, donation and host tracker of all. Go through thier setup process it's straight forward.

Gamewisp - Sub alert, new non partner sub features

OBS Scenes

Game - Game, Overlay, Underlay, Cam ect.

Break - Break scene is where your break timer will be shown if you choose to have one and its a quick way to mute your mic and hide your cam.

Intro - Intro is important especially when you first get loyal viewers they don't want to miss the intro of your stream.

End of Stream - Music out to end the stream with quality higher than that of current over the air tv. More like what you see on DVD releases now.

Raid or Cam - Usually big webcam with your theme on it.

Desktop - If you're going to capture your desktop, I recommend it if you want to show people stuff just make sure you prepare your desktop for viewer usage.

Advanced scene hidden controls

Shift+leftclick+Mouse drag Will Stretch a object.

Alt+leftclick+mouse drag Will crop a object.

Streaming hotkeys

You'll want to set hotkets like F1-f6 for changing stream scenes.

Also a mute microphone hotkey in OBS somewhere near those.

Thirdly you want a Pause and Next song key for your music player. Both MusicBee and winamp have this feature built in.

Youll also benefit from volume hotkeys on your music player.

Your keyboard likely has hotkeys for windows sound if it's worth it's salt if not id consider getting something better.

Recommended programs;

Browser chat w/ FrankerFaceZ & BetterTTV - So you can see everyones emotes.

AnkhBotR2 - Text only chat, local hardware channel bot packed with features, highly reccomended for capable rigs.

Xchat - Chatty for low computers, you wont see any emotes at all.

Orzeks Timer - For breaks.

Twitch App Android - For having Twitch on your smartphone incase your PC, internet ect goes down also a secondary chat directly below your screen.

Streaming Composure

Be a passive friendly entertaining customer service type of person and people will have a good time in your channel. Acknowledge them by having your chat in your face. Make them interested in you and your channel. You can have opinions but remember that those can be a turn off occasionally to some while more rarely bringing others in so your opinions should be open ended and acknowledge that it's a opinion and not a fact. At the same time you should be unique interesting and sometimes funny. A relaxing vibe is fine as well you will still bring in people for the game but make sure the game audio isn't too quiet.