1. System Requirements
Not everyone can stream in 1080p 60fps. By using OBS' estimator you can get a general idea of what your settings within OBS should look like. Search for "Run" within Windows and start the program. Type in "dxdiag" and you should get a screen which displays your CPU and graphics card (The graphics card is located under Display). Fill in the options in the estimator and it will give you your recommended settings. Of course you can enable your settings to be higher than the recommended settings, but this will cause FPS lag and/or FPS drops.
2. Getting started with OBS
This part is directly copy pasted from the internal guide with little changes to remove internal stuff. Please leave a reply if something isn't quite clear or if there are errors
Please read the following points carefully in order to set up your stream correctly.
- Download Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). You most likely already have this program or a substitute. I will use examples from OBS in this guide, but you can find everything in other streaming software as well.
Create a desktop shortcut and right click on it. Select properties and then compatibility and make sure the box âRun this program as an administratorâ is checked. This prevents OBS not streaming correctly because it doesnât have sufficient permissions. From what I know this is only a problem on Windows 10, but it doesnât hurt to make sure your software works correctly. Image
Within OBS, add a scene by right clicking in the âScenes:â box and clicking on âAdd sceneâ (sounds easy, right?). Name this whatever you like.
Within the scene, add a few sources by right clicking in the âSources:â box and clicking on âAddâ.
Add Game Capture and select âage3f Age of Empires IIIâ. Click on the âOKâ button and make sure the box is checked! Please note that the RE patch and EP patch require two sources.
Alternatively, you can use either Monitor Capture or Window Capture, but these will display other things than AoE3 as well (for example your skype or twitch stream)
3. OBS Settings
Within the settings, change a few settings in the following sub-settings.
Encoding: Navigate to Speedtest and determine your upload speed by pinging the nearest server. Your maximum bitrate should be slightly lower than your upload bitrate. Note that Speedtest uses mb/s and OBS uses kb/s. For reference, 1 mb = 1028 kb.
Broadcast Settings:
Mode: Set to Live Stream
Streaming Service: Set to Twitch
FMS Url: Set to closest city.
Stream Key: You can gather your stream key at https://www.twitch.tv/YOURCHANNELNAME/d ... /streamkey. Do not share this stream key with anyone.
Delay: Set to whatever you want. For ESOC related events we require 120 seconds but if you aren't afraid of Jerom stream sniping you being stream sniped you can set this to 0
Save stream to file: If you would like to upload your stream to your own youtube channel, set to enabled. If you do not have your own youtube channel, set to disabled. Please make sure you have enough space available on your computer to allow the files to process.
Video: If you have multiple graphics cards make sure you select the right one and make sure you select the right resolution or monitor.
We will not touch the rest of the settings. If you run into any issues while streaming you might be able to fix your problem by adjusting some setting. A quick google search usually delivers the solution to your problem.
Important Configure your sound and microphone correctly (microphone slightly louder than in game sounds). A microphone is obviously not required for casual streams, but you can choose to commentate your gameplay. You can easily configure your sound by recording a test video by clicking on the âStart Recordingâ button. The file can be found in the path you specified in Broadcast Settings. Change the sound levels within OBS, not within Windows. There are a few options within Windows which youâll want to change.
4. Troubleshooting
Most problems with OBS or your microphone can be fixed by searching on Google. However, here are some problems and solutions to common problems. If you still run into problems, feel free to contact an ESOC Media Team member.
P: My microphone is too quiet in comparison to my co-caster and game sounds.
S: Increase the microphone sound level within OBS and/or decrease the external sound level within OBS. Keep decreasing and increasing small amounts in order to find the optimal sound comparison. Avoid using Windowsâ Mic Boost as it causes a lot of background noise.
P: There is a lot of background noise when I talk.
S: This can have a lot of causes. The most common one is having a bad microphone, but that does not have to be the case. Right click on the sound icon in the taskbar and click on âRecording Devicesâ and open the properties of the microphone youâre using. The microphone youâre using will have a big green checkmark next to its icon. Within the properties, click on âLevelsâ and decrease the âMicrophone Boostâ level. Increase your microphone level within OBS to compensate and you should have less background noise.
P: My stream displays a black screen when I have AoE3 checkmarked in the source box.
S: Make sure OBS is run as an administrator to prevent OBS from having too few permissions. Please note that there is a difference between AoE3 RE patch and AoE3 EP patch. You will need two game sources; one for RE and one for EP.
Another solution is to enable windowed mode within AoE3.
Jerom wrote:Low upload tips: Set resolution downscaling, usually I go for 480p. I've also gone to 25 fps rather than 30 so that more of the bandwidth can be devoted to un-pixelizing your video. Make sure the audio bitrate is set to the lowest setting possible. It defaulted to 128 kbps for me, which is a lot if you're streaming at 600 bitrate.
If you have any questions please leave a reply in this thread, no matter how stupid you might think your question is! The more streamers the better