Game streaming services like Twitch are bigger than ever. If you want your friends to watch you play or try to build a larger audience, streaming is easy.
Twitch.tv only supports public streams. If you want to stream a private stream to a few friends, you can try using Steam’s built-in broadcast feature, which allows you to restrict game streams to your Steam friends.
- Get a Twitch stream key from your Twitch.tv profile
- Download Open Broadcaster Software and set up Game Capture mode
- Add your Twitch button to OBS ‘Stream Settings
- Click “Start Streaming” and play your game
If you’ve chosen Twitch, check out the game you want to stream before going through this guide. Some PC games have Twitch support built in. But, for most games, you’ll need a third-party streaming program to stream your gameplay such as Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). Here’s what we’re going to install today.
Finally, Twitch recommends hardware powerful enough for streaming. Twitch itself recommends using an Intel Core i5-4670 or equivalent AMD CPU, at least 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM, and Windows 7 or later. If your stream isn’t running smoothly, you probably need a faster CPU and possibly more RAM. The upload bandwidth of your internet connection is also a factory. High-quality streams require more upload bandwidth.
You understand everything? Well, here’s what you need to do.
Step One: Get a Twitch.tv stream button
We are streaming using Twitch because it is the most popular option. Sure, you could host your stream and stream directly to your viewers, but it takes a lot less bandwidth to upload a game to a site like Twitch and allow that site to relay it back to your viewers. You could also use other websites, such as YouTube Gaming.
First, you’ll need to create a free Twitch account to stream the game with. Just visit Twitch.tv and create an account. Once you have created an account, click on the account name in the upper right corner of the Twitch home page, select “Dashboard” and click on the “Stream Key” header. Click the “Show Key” button to get your private key.
You will need this key to stream on your channel. Anyone with the key can broadcast to your channel, so don’t share it with anyone else.
Step Two: Set the OBS Game Capture Mode
Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free open source video recording and streaming application ideal for streaming on Twitch. OBS can record a screencast and save it to a local video file, but it can also stream to a service like Twitch or YouTube Gaming. OBS also allows you to add additional elements to your stream, so you can add live video from your webcam, image overlays, and other visual elements.
Download Open Broadcaster Software here, install and turn it on. OBS organizes your screencast into “scenes” and “sources”. The scene is the final video or stream, what your viewers see. Sources are what that video comprises. You may have a scene showing the content of a game window, or a scene showing the content of a game window and your webcam superimposed on it. You can set up separate scenes for each game you want to play and switch between them.
For our purposes right now, the default scene will work fine.
Add a game capture source
The first thing you need to do is add a game capture source to your scene. Right-click in the Sources box and select Add> Game Capture.
Select “Create New”, give the capture the name you want to call, then click “OK”.
In “Mode”, select “Capture any full screen application” and OBS will automatically detect and capture the full screen games you play. If you’re playing a windowed game, select “Capture specific window” in the mode box and select the application. Make sure the game is running so that it appears in the list here.
You can change the other options here or change them later. Just click on the game capture source in the Sources list and select “Properties” to access the same options.
Click “OK” to exit this window.
Now start a full screen game. If you use Alt + Tab (or if you have multiple monitors), you should see its preview in the main OBS window. If you don’t see a preview, try right-clicking in the middle of the window and make sure “Enable Preview” is enabled.
Some games may not show a preview when Alt + TAB. In some cases this is normal, you may want to test it with a local recording to see if your current settings work with the game in question. Click “Start Recording”, play the game for a few seconds, then stop recording to see if the resulting video file worked.
If Game Capture doesn’t work: Try display capture mode
Game Capture mode unfortunately does not work with all games. If you can’t get OBS to record or stream a specific game, you can try the display capture mode. It captures the entire screen, including the Windows desktop and any open windows, and cast it.
To use the display capture mode, first make sure OBS is not set to show the game capture source. To do this, you can right-click on the game’s capture source and select “Remove” to remove it from the list, or left-click on the eye icon on the left to hide it.
Now, add a new source as you added the game capture source. Right-click in the “Sources” box and select Add> Show Capture. Name the source as you like and click “OK”.
Choose the display you want to add – there will only be one display if you only have one computer monitor – and click “OK”.
A preview of the desktop will appear in the main OBS window. OBS will broadcast what you see on the screen. If Game Capture doesn’t work, this might work better.
Choose which audio you want to broadcast
By default, OBS captures desktop audio, everything that plays on your PC, including any game sounds, and audio from your microphone. It will include these with your stream.
To change these settings, use the Mixer panel that appears at the bottom of the OBS window. For example, to mute both types of audio, click the speaker icon. To adjust the volume, drag the slider left or right. To choose the audio device, click on the gear icon and select “Properties”.
Add video from your webcam
If you’d like to include a small video of your webcam at the top of the game stream, add it as another source to your scene. Right-click inside the Sources box and click Add> Video Capture Device. Name your video capture device and click “OK”.
OBS should automatically find your webcam if you have one. Select the webcam device you want to use and configure the settings you want to change here. The default settings should work correctly. Click “OK” when done.
Your webcam video will be superimposed on your game or desktop in the OBS preview window. Use the mouse to drag and drop the video to the desired location and click and drag the corners to resize the webcam frame to the desired size.
If you don’t see your webcam video, make sure the video capture device appears above the main game or display capture source in the Sources box. The sources that are on top of each other in the list are on top of each other in your live video. So if you move your video capture device to the bottom of the source list, it will be under your game stream and no one will see it. Drag and drop sources to rearrange them in the list.
Step three: set up Twitch streaming
Once you’ve set up streaming the way you want, you need to link OBS to your Twitch channel. Click the “Settings” button in the lower right corner of the OBS screen or click File> Settings to access the OBS settings window.
Click the “Stream” category, select “Streaming Services” as the stream type and select “Twitch” “As your service. Copy and paste the stream key for your account from the Twitch website into the” Stream key “box. Select the server closest to your location in the “Server” box Click “OK” to save the settings when you are done.
If you want to stream to another service, such as YouTube Gaming or Facebook Live, you need to select it in the “Service” box here and enter the required details.
You can also adjust the streaming settings from this window. Select the “Output” icon here and use the options under “Streaming” to choose your bitrate and encoder. You’ll probably want to try streaming with the default settings to see how they work.
If it’s not smooth, try lowering the video bitrate here. The optimal setting depends on your computer and Internet connection. OBS recommends experimenting with different settings until you find the ideal one for your system.
Step 4: Start Streaming!
Now that OBS is connected to Twitch, all you need to do is click the “Start Streaming” button on the lower right corner of the OBS window.
While streaming, you can preview your stream, provide a title, and set “Now Playing” status on the Twitch.tv dashboard page. Click on your username in the upper right corner of the Twitch page and select “Dashboard” to log in.
To share your stream with other people, you just need to point it to your channel page. It is twitch.tv/user, where “user” is your Twitch username.
