Open Broadcaster Software (streaming/recording)

Open Broadcasting Software (OBS) is a free open source video streaming and recording program
You can get it here: https://obsproject.com/

Its fairly easy to use but the settings might be hard to understand for noobs so heres some tips on setting it up for good quality videos

If you open the settings youll have a list of stuff to the left

General
Pretty self explanitory, doesnt need to be changed really

Encoding
This section of settings controls how the video is compressed

The x264 option uses your CPU more, the Nvidia option uses GPU more (dont bother with quick sync)
The Nvidia option is better in most cases and should be the one you use, but theres nothing wrong with the x264 option

Make sure Use CBR is checked
In Max Bitrate (kb/s) the lowest you can set it is 2000 (any lower than that and video quality starts suffering), with 5000 being the standard for 720p (1080p is 3000/8000)

In the audio section, a Bitrate of 96 is the lowest you can get away with
384 is standard but 128 is perfectly fine and what i would recommend just to cut down on the size of the video file (you can cut the size down by like 30% with 128 instead of 384 and its not even noticeable)

You can read this as a guide to what to set there to get optimal quality: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

AAC is better than MP3 in every way so just use AAC

Broadcast Settings
Set the mode to live stream (you can record without streaming so is easier just to keep it in live stream mode)

Select your streaming service (twitch is best)

Get your stream key from the profile settings of your streaming service (make sure not to give that out to anyone, if someone else gets it they can stream on your account, unless you want someone using your account to stream)

Minimize network impact should be off unless your internet is terrible

Delay should be 0 (delay controls how long it takes for your video to be live to other people, so 60 would mean that people watching see whats on your screen 1 min after it actually happened) and auto-reconnect should be checked with a timeout of 10

File path can be where ever you want

Replay buffer saves video before you even start recording, so like if something cool happened in the game and you werent recording you can start recording after it happened and it will be saved as if you were recording during it

Video
Video adapter should be w/e graphics card your monitor is using (if you only have 1 graphics card then dont worry about it)

Base resolution should be set to resolution of the game you are playing and you should set the resolution of your game to either 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080p)
Even if you dont like playing in either of those resolutions, you should use them because they work the best

I strongly dont recommend using resolution downscale, keeping it on None is best for everything

FPS should be either 30 or 60
Youtube recently added 60 fps support so if your computer doesnt lag while recording at 60fps then you should use 60fps (i think 60 works with twitch too)

Audio:
It should auto detect everything and nothing should need to be changed
You can use Mic/Aux Boost to increase the volume of your mic if it sounds too low but it shouldnt need it

Force Mic/Aux to Mono can make it sound better depending on your mic

Hotkeys:
Self explanatory, set the keys to w/e your comfortable using as long as the game doesnt also use 1 of those keys

Advanced:
You shouldnt need to change anything here, but if your comp is lagging while recording there are things here that you can change to resolve that and it has a minimal impact on the quality of the video

Faster settings are less performance intensive but make larger video files

Multithreaded Optimizations should be enabled

Process Priotiry Class Should be Normal
If it says you are dropping frames while preiview your stream or while streaming changing this to above normal should smooth that out, but it will reduce the games performance
Setting it to high will ensure no frames are dropped but the games FPS will tank so Normal is best with Above Normal being needed if you drop frames for w/e reason



Once you have that done, your about ready to go
For basic use you dont need to worry about Scenes at the bottom left of the main window
Sources are all that really matter, you can right click there to add a video source

Make sure the game you want to record is running and use the Game Capture option to select it
If its not in Game Capture make sure to run OBS as admin
And if its still not under Game Capture you have to use Window Capture

Window Capture can capture any window but isnt as efficient as game capture

Avoid using monitor capture as its the least efficient one

You can have multiple games/windows in the sources list, but make sure only 1 is checked at a time



If you want to be fancy and have overlays like you see some streamers have (like a webcam or donations) you can add scenes on top of the scene that the game is in and put images/text/window there to overlay onto the game

The rest is pretty easy to figure out on your own

This looks like some good stuff. I have questions though and i havent dled it yet, but ill get to all of that after im done with my finals. Is this what you use btw?

its been used by everyone ever since xsplit became a paid program like 3 years ago. you can also download stream privacy (doesnt work for windows 8 ) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/225200-program-stream-privacy and it can hide anything you want it from your audience (like skype, chrome, firefox, or any other window you want hidden).  its a shortcut if you dont want to deal with multiple scenes/overlays

Yeah it is what you should use, its what i linked to in chat lol, just made a larger topic about it to explain some stuff quickly for you

You shouldnt use that stream privacy thing, its terribly inefficient/outdated and really only needed for monitor capturing which you should never be using (and if you are using monitor capture for a specific reason, like showing the install process of a mod or something where you need multiple windows open you should just be sure not to have important windows open during that)

With Game Capture it will only ever capture the game so you dont need to worry about anyone seeing anything you dont want seen when using that

With Window Capture it will capture windows that are moved in front of the window that its recording too so just be sure to not move anything important over the window you are recording and its fine, no need for that program

i didnt think this needed its own topic, but steam just released its own streaming app

https://steamcommunity.com/updates/broadcasting
competition is great and im happy that twitch is finally being pushed, but im not thrilled about steam becoming even more deeply entrenched. i dont hate steam anymore but i dont really like it either. i think my main problem is it doesnt feel like you actually own anything. if its setup was more like GoG's (where the steam-like UI client was optional) i think id be happier

i imagine it takes all the work out of OBS for the streamer and then works pretty much like twitch. someone should test it with me to see what the delay is like and all that

As far as i could tell theres no way to preview your own stream without actually streaming which is annoying

Also it crashes my steam web client when i try to watch a stream in steam itself, but in chrome i can watch a stream without issue so its weird
Its happening for a bunch of people: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/0/624076851026842880/


I dont think it will replace stuff like OBS since it has less options
If it performs better than OBS then maybe but i think OBS will stay as the main streaming software

This seems better to use among a small group of friends though so i think its better to think of it not like something that replaces OBS/twitch but something that friends can use to quickly share their gameplay experience (similar to how easy it is to jump in and out of watching a hearthstone game with the spectator mode)
I was saying how spectators in hearthstone should be able to chat together and with the person playing, and this actually has that
So to me this is like steams spectator mode for friends rather than a mass streaming service thats competing with OBS/twitch
Even thinking about it like that i still perfer using OBS/twitch, mainly due to that preview thing, once this is out of beta though, with more features and less bugs, this might be better for friends