what kind of upload speeds are you looking at?
basic suggestions for OBS settings:
VIDEO
Set your base resolution to 1280x720. It is slightly less than the entire screen on your laptop, but it will put less stress on your CPU and allow it to perform other functions better. Also remember to set your games to this resolution as well. Then, downscale it 1.25 to 1024x576, or one more further at 1.5. Play around with these two options and determine if it's better to run 576 at higher "detail" (36 samples) or just bileaner, or if downscaling further to 480 and running high samples is better. Downscaling will make it much easier for your CPU to stream clearly. Showing a 576 or 480 resolution at higher sampling is going to look a lot cleaner than trying to force 720. If your computer can't handle it, or your internet can't, then your viewers are going to see a ton of latency, lag, and complete frame drops.
ENCODING
Audio bitrate should be at 128. The important thing to change here is the max bitrate (which should also change the buffer size. Keep the box marked "Use Custom Buffer size" unchecked) and this is mostly based on your internet speed. Think of it this way: if you have 3 mbps upload, then your absolute max for streaming is 3000 kbps. Twitch suggests a max of 3500. IMPORTANT: If you make this too high, viewers will not be able to watch you. This number is also the amount of download that viewers need to use to watch your stream without problems. If you are not a partner, they will not have the options to watch you at anything other than "source." I suggest putting this number at around 1600-1800. Never use more than 75% of your total upload speed for this number.
ADVANCED
Here are a few good things to apply in advanced that will help out the stream.
- Set your scene buffering to 2000. It will take a tiny bit longer for people to start viewing the stream, but will greatly help out the buffering process.
- Under Video, set the Encoding Profile to "main" instead of high.
- Set Keyframe Interval to 2.
- Make sure CFR is checked.
That should be it. If you have any issues, there are lots of sources on the forums for dealing with latency, skipped frames, black screens, etc. Good luck!
-K-
