Video Game Broadcasting, Part 2: How To Stream From Home

This article is part 2 in a series on web broadcasting and game streaming. See part 1 here. This entry is about getting started with minimum setup, so we’ll stream games from the same PC you’re playing on.

Preparations

Broadcasting doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby. You can start today with just the PC you’re using to read this article and a little free software!

You’ll Need

• A PC — I’m using Windows 10, but OSX and Linux also support the software we’ll use.
• A microphone — you can use anything attached to your PC; in this article, I use my laptop mic.
• A YouTube account — they’re free to make, and once you’re logged in, you can create your own channel. If you don’t have one, keep your phone handy for account verification.
• Open Broadcast Software — OBS is one of the most widely used suites for PC recording and streaming. I wrote this article using version 17.0.2.

Why These Selections

• We’re playing on PC because recording from a console would require additional hardware. We’ll cover capture devices in the next article.
• I picked YouTube for this article for its ubiquity. Alternatives — like Twitch or Beam — are also great platforms.
• I use OBS because it’s free, open source, and has a large user base with robust community support. Xsplit is the favorite of the fighting game community, but I ruled it out for its costly premium license.

YouTube Setup

Before we configure our streaming encoder (i.e. OBS), we’ll set up YouTube to host our stream.

1. Create or log into a Google account, then visit the YouTube Live Dashboard page. The Live Dashboard page is also listed as the “Stream Now” option under the “Live Streaming” section.
2. If you have not already created a YouTube channel, YouTube will ask you to create one before continuing on to the Stream Now page. Once on the Live Dashboard Splash page, click the “Get Started” button and follow the instructions.
3. Find the “Stream name/key” in the “Encoder Setup” section at the bottom of the center column. Copy it for later use in OBS. You should also fill out the info in the “Live Streaming Checklist” before going public, but you only need the stream key to get streaming.

OBS Configuration

Download and install OBS.

We’ll set up OBS in four areas: Profiles, Scene Collections, Scenes, and Sources. Each one is a prerequisite for the next, so approach them in that order.

Profiles

The OBS File -> Settings menu contains configuration options for streaming services, audio, and video. Adjusting those settings every time you change games would be a pain. Instead, OBS provides Profiles, which are collections of settings that you can easily swap in and out or save to files.

1. Create a new Profile by clicking on Profile -> New.
2. In the “Add Profile” dialog box, enter the name “1080p60”. I name my profiles after their resolutions; we’ll capture 1920x1080 progressive scan at 60 frames per second.

While this new profile is selected, any changes to settings are automatically stored in it. Next time you need them, just select this profile from the Profile menu.

Settings

The settings you need depend on your input and output. For this article, our goal is to input a 1080p stream of Cook, Serve, Delicious and output to a YouTube live stream.

File -> Settings -> Stream

1. Set the “Service” to “YouTube / YouTube Gaming”
2. Paste in the “Stream name/key” that you copied from YouTube earlier.

Stream Settings

File -> Settings -> Output

1. For this article, keep “Output Mode” set to “Simple”.
2. Set the “Video Bitrate” to “5000”. YouTube recommends 4,500–9,000 Kbps for 1080p @ 60fps.
3. Set “Encoder” to “Hardware (NVENC)”
4. Set the “Audio Bitrate” to “128”

Output Settings For Streaming

File -> Settings -> Audio

1. Set “Sample Rate” to “44.1khz”

Audio Settings

File -> Settings -> Video

1. Set both “Base (Canvas) Resolution” and “Output (Scaled) Resolution” to “1920x1080”. We set Base Resolution to match our source (Cook, Serve, Delicious fullscreen). We set Output Resolution to the same value to avoid the overhead of scaling to a different resolution.
2. Set “Downscale Filter” to “Bilinear (Fastest, but blurry if scaling)”, since we will not use scaling.
3. Set “Common FPS Values” to “60”.

Video Settings

Scene Collections

In OBS, each screen composition is called a “Scene”. To avoid shuffling through dozens of scenes for different shows, we group our scenes into “Scene Collections” for each show. Changing the collection changes which scenes show up in the “Scenes” list in the bottom left.

The Scenes list.

1. Click Scene Collection -> New to create a new Scene Collection.
2. Name your new collection “Article” in the “Add Scene Collection” dialog box. I typically name the collection after the YouTube “show” I’ll use it on.

Adding A Scene Collection

Scenes

As described above, each Scene is a different “screen”. For our shows, I set up one “Live” scene and one “Idle” scene.

1. Click the “+” button on the bottom of the “Scenes” list.
2. Enter the name “Live” in the “Add Scene” dialog box.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to add a scene named “Idle”.

Sources

In OBS, Sources are all the content in a scene. Static images, music files, mic audio, game streams: these are all sources that compose a scene. This is where you’ll do the bulk of your production work.

Sources: Live Scene

1. Click on the “Live” scene to make sure you’re adding your sources there.
2. Start the PC game you want to capture. I’m using Cook, Serve, Delicious.

Now, let’s add a “Game Capture” source to capture the video.

1. Click the “+” button on the bottom of the “Sources” list.
2. Click “Game Capture” from the pop-up menu
3. Click “OK” to accept the default name “Game Capture”.

Add Game Capture Source

1. Set “Mode” to “Capture specific window”.
2. Set “Window” to the window of your running game. I set mine to “[CSDSteamBuild.exe]: Cook, Serve, Delicious!”
3. Click “OK” to accept the defaults for the remaining options.

Game Capture Source Settings

1. Right-click on “Game Capture” in the “Sources” list and click on “Transform -> Fit to screen”. This will expand your video source to fit your stream resolution, if it doesn’t already.

Fit To Screen. Please forgive the slowdown; ShareX, CSD, and OBS didn’t cooperate!

Now we’re getting video from the “Game Capture” source, but OBS isn’t getting the sound. Next, we’ll add an “Audio Output Capture” source.

1. Click the “+” button on the bottom of the “Sources” list.
2. Click “Audio Output Capture”
3. Click “OK” to accept the default name “Audio Output Capture”.
4. Set the “Device” drop-down menu to the Windows device that will play your game’s audio. In my case, that’s “Default”.
5. Click “OK” to accept your settings. The “Mixer” list will now display an audio level meter for the “Audio Output Capture” source.

Now the Live scene only needs to capture our own commentary on top of the game. We’ll add a source to capture the input from the mic.

1. Click the “+” button on the bottom of the “Sources” list.
2. Click “Audio Input Capture”
3. Click “OK” to accept the default name “Audio Input Capture”.
4. Set “Device” to the Windows device that captures your voice. I’m using my laptop mic named “Microphone (Realtek High Definition Audio)”.
5. Click “OK” to accept your settings. You’ll see this audio source in the “Mixer” list as well.

Sources: Idle Scene

Now we’ll set up our “Idle” scene. We can switch to this to take a break without taking the whole stream offline.

1. Click on the “Idle” scene to make sure we add sources there instead of “Live”.

Let’s add a background image.

1. Click the “+” button on the bottom of the “Sources” list.
2. Click “Image”
3. Browse for an image at least 1920x1080, so that it can cover the background of your Idle scene. I used this image by NicolasVisceglio licensed under CreativeCommons 3.0
4. Right-click on “Image” in the “Sources” list, then click on “Transform -> Stretch to screen”.

Add a “Text (GDI+)” source.

1. Click on the “+” button under the “Sources” list
2. Click on “Text (GDI+)”.
3. Click on “OK” to accept the default name “Text (GDI+)”.
4. Add some text to let new viewers know that your stream will be up soon. Adjust text settings to your liking. I set “Alignment” to “Center”, checked the “Outline” checkbox, with “Outline Size” 5, “Outline Color” #00000000 and “Outline Opacity” 70.
5. Right-click the source “Text (GDI+)”, then click “Transform -> Fit to screen”.

Start Your Stream!

With everything set, you’re ready to stream.

1. Click the “Idle” scene in the “Scenes” list so that your mic doesn’t go live before you’re ready.
2. Click the “Start Streaming” button on the right side of the OBS window.
3. Check the YouTube “Live Dashboard” page in your browser. When it receives your stream, the stream status above the video will display a green dot and the word “LIVE”.
4. When you’re ready to talk to your audience, click on the “Live” scene. You’ll see OBS switch scenes, and your mic is now live!

Tips And Troubleshooting

• If your game’s window does not appear in the list of windows in the Game Capture source’s settings, try closing the settings window and waiting a few moments. The list of windows it can capture occasionally needs a minute to catch up.
• If your game capture source only displays a black screen, try enabling “Multi-adapter compatibility” in the Game Capture source settings. Most PCs now have an extra graphical renderer built in to the CPU, and enabling this helps OBS find which hardware is rendering your game video.
• If your game plays fine, but the video on YouTube is stuttering, your Internet connection may not have the bandwidth for that resolution. Try setting the “Output (Scaled) Resolution” to a lower resolution. Scaling puts extra strain on your PC, so be on the lookout for dropped frames.
• If your game slows down with scaling enabled, you may need to set your game’s display settings to a lower resolution, then change “Base (Canvas) Resolution)” and “Output (Scaled) Resolution” to the game’s new resolution.
• Generally, stream at the highest bitrate that your connection and PC can handle. YouTube automatically creates videos at lower resolutions, but it can never create higher resolutions out of blurry video.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You just started your very own stream. Since I only covered the basics to get you going immediately, I’ll bring you audio balancing, console capture, and post processing in the next article. Until then, get streaming and show us what you can do!

References

• YouTube’s Recommended Encoder Settings
• YouTube’s Streaming Instructions
• An Explanation of bitrate calculations
• OBS Guide To YouTube