While I'm not an expert I'll chime in with what I do. First you need to decide which streaming site you want to use. The two biggest are Youtube Gaming and Twitch. They both work in a very similar way yet I prefer Youtube. I'll admit that's mainly because I think watching someone play a game is rather silly. However it's a large market and only getting bigger, my friends with kids under 10 say that's all they watch, no more Saturday morning cartoons!
I'm going to continue with how to do this using Youtube. The steps for Twitch are very similar, if you decided to go that route this would help you figure it out. I'm going to post the basic steps here with a link to a Youtube video that will guide you through it.
- If you don't already have a Gmail/Google account create one and log in
- The URL for Youtube Gaming is https://gaming.youtube.com/
- You'll then need to get your "stream key"
- Now install OBS (Open Broadcaster Software)
- Once installed launch OBS and set it up per the video
- When it's configured click "Start Streaming"
- Go to the URL Youtube Gaming assigned you on another machine
- Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deoIXag1PqI
NOTE: I chose this video somewhat randomly and don't endorse it, etc. If it doesn't work out there are *many* guides on Youtube that will step you through it.
Considerations
there are a few things to consider - mainly how powerful is your PC? For streaming like this your video card won't matter that much (obviously it does for the game but not for the stream) - streaming is CPU intensive as it re-encodes your game to the service. Many popular streamers use a second computer for this with a capture card. That let's you get the highest quality stream without sacrificing PC performance. I game/stream on the same machine, a i7 4770k, 32GB Ram, 256GB SSD. You'll likely want to play around with the stream settings to find a balance between stream quality and game performance.
You'll also need to think about what you're capturing - do you play fullscreen? If so borderless window would likely work better as switch from game to OBS will be much easier. Are you using a single monitor or triples? If triples realize that the stream will be in that format so for most people it would look like a very thin strip of video. Finally is you're using VR (that's what I do) you'll likely want to run the app on the desktop at say 720p resolution (again that's what I do). The main issue with VR is that while it looks very smooth in your headset on the screen it can look very jerky as the headset is picking up very tiny movement you make.
One last tip is about the URL - I use tinyurl.com to have a nice, short URL (tinyurl.com/ross-gaming) vs. the long one Youtube will give you (
https://gaming.youtube.com/channel/UCaUq3b1xIbFCx6-fjAs5Usg/live).
Those are the basics. Depending on your goal you should look into both Youtube and Twitch as one might have a feature you care about that the other doesn't. For me I just wanted basic streaming and recording and for that OBS+Youtube works great.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions and be sure to share your stream when you're up and running.
~X
