Best OBS Settings for Streaming

Video game streaming has grown into a broad new profession with impressive speeds. However, a streaming program is a necessary requirement alongside a powerful PC. For most gamers, an Open Broadcasting Software Studio (OBS) is the best option when it comes to live streaming of gameplay since its free and highly functional. This article will walk you through the best settings while setting up your OBS for twitch or youtube streaming.

General Stream Settings in OBS

Once OBS is running, you will need to change some general settings. Open the settings page by clicking on its button on the lower right corner. Under the General tab, you can set your preferred language and you can also create a settings profile if you feel like it. Here you can manipulate settings such as notification ones to avoid interruption while streaming. If you are a first timer, you can leave the default settings and change them later if you want to.
Stream.

First and foremost, you have to choose the platform to use of your own choice as well as the server to use, preferably the one closest to you. Then you will require a stream key, this key is on the Twitch “Dashboard” which is under settings button. Under Encoding, where there is Video Encoding, select CBR which will control the quality of stream. With this function in play, the bit rate and quality of video stream are kept constant. You should also ‘Enable CBR padding’ and the Max Bitrate should be 3500 as the maximum value in the case where the internet connection is high. However, for those users with slow internet connection, a bitrate of 2200-2500 is recommended but this will give a low display of quality. For the buffer size, the recommended value should be the same as that you set for your bitrate. Always ensure that 80% of the upload is reserved for streaming since the game requires some bandwidth too.

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Audio Settings in OBS

In the audio encoding section, the recommended settings are use an AAC codec. The bitrate should be that of 64 to 128 kbps.

Video Settings in OBS

Video adapter should be set to the default graphics card of your PC. Basic resolution should be the native resolution of your PC’s monitor. This will eliminate the unwanted edges in the live stream. In OBS studio, there is a setting that determines the resolution to stream the game on that enables OBS Studio to runefficiently and less bandwidth is consumed. Scaling filter improves the stream’s quality. The most iconic filter setting is the ‘bicubic’ but you can also try the ‘lanczos’ setting if your PC and Internet connection are powerful and fast. FPS rate of 30 is enough to get a high quality stream but you can go upto 60 FPS to increase the quality however it is not recommended.

Scene and Gaming Source in OBS

Creating a game scene is esay since all you will require is to click on the scenes box and click on Add Scene, name it then click OK to complete it. After creating the scene, you will require a gaming source. The gaming source will be the where the game will be displayed and there are three sources for this; the Window capture, Game capture and Monitor capture. To add a source, select the scene to create the source, then right click on the Sources box. Click Add and follow by choosing type of source, name it and click OK. After adding the sources, you can a webcam source too by going to Sources, click Add –> Video Capture Device and type the name of source. Choose the device from the dialog box that appears and tweak setting to fit your streaming preference.

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Upon completion of these steps, you can preview the stream and see how everything will look when you start streaming. You can edit your scene here by moving and resizing elements until you are satisfied with the look of your stream. When you are done, exit the editing mode by clicking Edit Scene and now you can enjoy twitch streaming on OBS studio.

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