Creating a high-quality stream on Twitch or YouTube requires not only energy and enthusiasm but also specialist hardware and software. This guide walks you each element and the things you need to consider to optimise your streaming setup.
There are seven main elements of a steaming set-up - a gaming PC, streaming software, capture card, microphone, camera, lighting and accessories such as a green screen or stream deck.
There are multiple brands of gaming and streaming PCs available in the market, and it’s an important decision to get right to make sure you receive a professionally assembled system, built from high quality branded components, it’s competitively priced, and is provided with excellent customer service in case you need support.
3XS Systems has been designing and hand crafting PCs, workstations and servers for more than 30 years, so we have a huge amount of experience in building highly reliable systems that deliver the most performance for your budget. Here are the key reasons to buy a 3XS Systems PC.
Scan is an NVIDIA Elite Partner awarded for our GPU-accelerated systems expertise.
Our gaming PCs and workstations are used by a host of leading game developers and esports teams.
Our PCs have won hundreds of awards in the media.
Our experienced technical support engineers are available seven days a week.
3XS Systems include a three-year warranty offering complete peace of mind.
Streaming PCs have to fulfil two roles, first they have to be a brilliant gaming PC so your stream isn’t full of frame drops and secondly, they have to be good for editing your stream in your favourite video editing application. The most important component for streaming games is the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) or graphics card, determining how quickly the PC can play games and simultaneously broadcast the content. Although many PCs will be able to stream, we’d only recommend an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU or higher; or an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT or higher. You can learn more about GPUs and their relative performance by reading our GAMING PC BUYERS GUIDE.
Streaming software uses video encoding technology to convert your video feed into a suitable digital format for live streaming. These digital signals are transmitted to the viewers’ devices, and a decoder converts them back to video for viewing. There are a number of streaming applications available - the most popular ones being Open Broadcaster Software, often abbreviated to OBS and Streamlabs.
Streamlabs software is easier to use than OBS, but OBS uses fewer compute processing resources. Additionally, while the entire OBS feature set is free to use, Streamlabs has some of its best features only available by subscribing to its paid plan.
A capture card is a hardware device that allows you to record and stream the video signals from your PC. Leading capture card brands include Elgato, Asus and Razer, offering both internal PCIe cards and external USB devices.
If you’re only intending on streaming PC games and your PC is powerful enough to both play and process the stream, then a capture card isn’t strictly necessary, however we would advise installing one for the best experience as the card offloads streaming from the CPU and GPU. Some professional streamers go a stage further and use a two PC set-up - one PC to play the game, and a second PC, armed with a streaming card, to capture the signal over HDMI. The diagram below shows how a dual PC setup would operate.
It is also possible to stream from a games console too. You can learn more about this and PCIe capture card installation by viewing our ELGATO HD60 SET UP VIDEO, presented by Rage Darling.
A dedicated microphone will ensure you can be clearly heard on your stream. Microphones range enormously in price, from around £50 to over £200. Budget microphones connect via USB whereas higher-end versions will use an XLR (eXternal Line Return) connection. XLR uses an analogue cable to an audio interface that then converts the signal to digital - this is usually seen in professional audio set-ups but offers much better sound quality.
If you can’t afford to buy a dedicated microphone you should use the microphone built into your gaming headset. This has the advantage of being positioned close to your mouth, so shouldn’t pick up too much background noise.
Not all streamers appear on-screen, some just provide an audio commentary, but if you want to appear in the stream then a good quality camera and lighting are crucial. Again, there’s a huge choice from standard webcams to action cameras through to digital SLR cameras like a professional photographer would use.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more expensive options offer better image quality, with DSLRs offering mirrorless image capture which is better suited to adjustability for different lighting conditions. While webcams connect via USB, action cams and DSLRs benefit from connection via a product such as the Elgato Cam Link, with a PC recording the action rather than the cameras internal storage.
Last but not least, if you are going to be visible in your stream then you also need to invest in some lighting. The simple rule for lighting is that you need at least two lights; a primary light source commonly referred to as the key light and a second light source known as a fill light. Both lights are normally positioned behind the camera at different angles, helping to even out and remove the uneven patches of light and shadow created by one another.
Depending on the shape of your room and the amount of ambient light you’ll need to play around with ideal positioning of the key light and fill light.
Green screens are used to help remove the background behind you, enabling you to show something entirely different. They work by combining two video streams together, in this case the first video stream from the game and the second from your camera. Using a process known as 'chrome key compositing' or 'Chroma keying', your streaming or recording software will make anything green transparent (including clothes).
So, if you have a green screen behind you, and you configure your Chroma key in your streaming software, you'll have no background behind you and you can overlay your webcam stream on top of your game.
Controlling your stream overlays can be quite complicated when they're just a mix of keyboard hotkeys. You might often forget which one is your going live scene and which on is your camera scene. This is where a stream deck comes in handy. These programmable control pads allow you to macro directly onto the device with LCD keys showing you exactly what's what.
Stream decks not only allow you to control software without use of the keyboard or mouse, they also allow you to set lighting levels and effects as required and integrate with RGB lighting solutions such as Corsair iCUE.
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If you still have questions on streaming don't hesitate to contact one of our friendly advisors on 01204 474747.