How To Stream On Twitch

Twitch is the most popular video streaming platform, catering to the needs of over a hundred million gamers worldwide. The platform basically showcases content related to video game walk-throughs, eSports and gaming convention broadcasts.

If you are aspiring to broadcast in-game content on Twitch then there are various applications available which you can use. Some of these include Nvidia GeForce Experience, Radeon ReLive and OBS Studio. This guide gives you a detailed walk-through of how to stream on Twitch using these applications.

Using Nvidia GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is an exclusive application for owners of Nvidia GPUs. Not only does it feature gameplay optimization tools but also utilities like ShadowPlay and Nvidia Share to record/stream gaming content on various social platforms.

With the release of the Pascal lineup of cards, GeForce Experience saw a major revamp in its UI and intuitive features. It is rather more smooth and easy to use. Make sure your application is updated before you begin broadcasting on Twitch. Below mentioned are the basic steps you need to adhere to.

1. Launch the GeForce Experience application.
2. Click on the ‘Share’ button located in the upper right corner. You shall get the UI popup as shown below.
   
3. Click on ‘Settings’, as highlighted in the above image, followed by ‘Connect’. This will lead you to a list of social platforms where you can choose to stream your gameplay.
4. Select Twitch and click on ‘Log in’. Then you just need to provide your ‘Twitch’ credentials. If you don’t have an account on Twitch, there’s a ‘Signup’ button at your disposal.
5. You shall get your username highlighted next to the Twitch icon. Click ‘Done’.
   
6. After successfully doing so, click on ‘Broadcast’, which will reveal two options, ‘Start’ and ‘Customize’. You can use the customize option to modify the video resolution and bitrate. Select ‘Start’ to finalize everything for the stream.
7. Next, you shall get a prompt, where you just need to enter the title of your stream. Click on ‘Go LIVE’ to finally broadcast your stream to Twitch.

Note: If you are new to Twitch and it’s your first time streaming, you have to verify your account on the web itself, to be able to share your stream publicly.

You can even customize your Twitch overlay. You just need to use an image editor to create one. You can upload this custom overlay using the ‘Broadcast’ option located in the Settings. If you need help in designing custom overlays, then you can rely on various online tools that let you do so.

Using Radeon ReLive

Exclusively made for AMD users, Radeon ReLive was recently launched by the company, to provide better and reliable utilities to record/broadcast gameplay footages. It has replaced its previous counterpart Gaming Evolved and tackles GeForce Experience with its dynamic and beautiful UI.

You can witness lossless quality in recording/streaming with just 3-4% resource consumption with Radeon ReLive. However, the software doesn’t support products having an older version of GCN architecture (version 1.0 and 1.1). You can refer this list of supported GPUs.

Below mentioned steps shall guide you on how to stream on Twitch using Radeon ReLive.

1. Right click on your desktop. Click on ‘Radeon Settings’. You shall get the Crimson overlay depicting various tools you can use.
2. Access the ‘ReLive’ tab and ensure that ‘ReLive feature’ is on. You can find it in the left corner of the ‘Global’
3. Select the ‘Streaming’ You shall find a list of social platforms where you can stream your content. After clicking on Twitch, it shall prompt you to provide your user credentials. Hence, now you shall remain connected to the respective social media platform.
4. You can further modify your streaming settings like bitrate, resolution, to accordingly set your stream quality. You may access the ‘Overlay’ tab as well to modify the overlay settings. It also gives you the privilege to add a custom overlay image.

You may also refer the video below to learn how to use Radeon Relive for streaming and recording.

Using OBS Studio

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is much better than GeForce Experience and Radeon ReLive in terms of utilities and customizable features. It’s a bit complicated to use but once you get a hang of it, you’ll admire its capabilities.

OBS has been recommended by most of the streamers out there. It’s a cross-platform application and works for both Nvidia and AMD cards. You can follow the basic steps below to be able to stream your content on Twitch.

1. First and foremost, you will need the ‘stream key’ from Twitch to be able to stream from this application. So, log in to Twitch from your browser. Access ‘Dashboard’ from your profile.
2. Access ‘Settings’ and hence you can find ‘Stream Key’ as highlighted in the image above. Click on it to find the ‘Show Key’ button. Pressing it shall prompt a warning message depicting not to share the key with anyone. Click ‘I Understand’ and hence you shall get your stream key.
   
3. Copy the stream key. Launch OBS Studio on your desktop. Click ‘Settings’ followed by ‘Stream’ which happens to be one among the multiple utilities you can modify.
   
4. Select ‘Twitch’ as the ‘Streaming Service’. You may choose an appropriate server. Paste the stream key you copied from the Twitch dashboard.
5. If you want to run stream test then you have to add ‘?bandwidthtest=true’ in addition to your stream key. It allows you to broadcast content without appearing online. It helps you to analyze the quality of your stream.
6. Click on ‘Apply’ to save changes. Close the settings box.
7. Now you need to add various input sources to add content to your stream. In the ‘Sources’ section, located to the left of Mixer at the bottom, click ‘Add’. Doing so, will pop up a list. To add desktop as your source, simply select ‘Display Capture’.
8. In the follow-up box, you may modify the name of the capture. Click ‘OK’. This will reveal another box, where you can select which display device to choose. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you can add multiple sources for display capture.
9. You may uncheck to disable capturing the cursor. Click on OK.
10. If you are only concerned about capturing and streaming games then you can add ‘Game Capture’ as the sole display source. After successfully doing so, click on ‘OK’, as it prompts a box where you can modify the source name. In the follow-up process, another box will popup which you can use to customize the source properties.
    
11. You can set the mode of capture to full screen, specific or foreground window. You may check the ‘Multi-adapter Compatibility’ if you have a CrossfireX/SLI If you want to downgrade your recording/broadcasting resolution by ticking down ‘Forced-Scaling’. You may check ‘Limit Capture Frame-rate’ to let OBS capture at in-game framerates.
12. You may not bother about the rest of the checkboxes. Click on ‘OK’ to finalize the game capture settings. ‘Window Capture’ also serves as an alternative to ‘Game Capture’. It lets you capture a specific window.
13. Similarly, you can sync the ‘webcam feed’ by adding a ‘video capture device’.
14. Repeat the same procedure, as mentioned in the above steps, if you want to add audio I/O, custom overlay images, text input, etc. located in the list of sources.
15. Hence, you are finally done finalizing all the settings. You can click on the ‘Start Streaming’ button located in the bottom right corner, to begin the Twitch broadcast.

The video below gives you a detailed walk-through of all the steps mentioned above.

Hope, you learned the basic steps required to stream on Twitch by referring our tutorial. If you still have any queries then do let us know in the comments section below.

Filed in Gaming. Read more about Live Streaming, Stream and Twitch.