Streaming platforms are booming, with audiences of more than 100,000 people in some retransmissions. You may have a hidden talent, but technical doubts startle you. Don’t worry because we teach you how to stream on Twitch in a simple way so you can fill your channel with content.
Twitch is the most used streaming platform in the world, which belongs to Amazon . There are many who spend hours a day broadcasting their content in order to have followers and a significant audience. If you want to stream on Twitch, but don’t know how, you are in the right place.
What do you need before you start?
Before you start registering on Twitch to take the first steps, you need to know that you must meet certain specifications in your equipment to be able to broadcast live. The requirements are as follows:
- A powerful PC . We recommend starting with a CPU with 6 cores, 16 GB of RAM memory and a graphics card that is not less than a RX 570 or a GTX 1060. Logically, they are minimum requirements, so take them as a basis to improve them and, thus, you will improve the quality of your content. Our recommendation is that you have a PC powerful enough to play in 1080p at 60 FPS, using Ultra graphics settings. Think that if we broadcast and play, the consumption of resources on our PC skyrockets, so it better than missing it.
- Monitors We can go the humble way and start with a single monitor and watch our streaming with a tablet or smartphone. However, it is recommended that you start with two monitors to be able to play and control your streaming at the same time.
- Internet connection with 6 MB / s upload minimum for 1080p and 60 FPS. We recommend fiber optics of about 100 MB onwards to avoid connection problems. However, you may have less and it works perfectly for you. The minimum that Twitch sets for 1080p at 60 FPS is 6000 Kbps.
- Sound We recommend that you buy high-quality headphones and a microphone separately because gaming headphones usually do not have a good microphone (or at least not as good as a dedicated one), which will impoverish the content we broadcast.
- Webcam . It is essential to interact face-to-face with our audience, since people want to see people, not just the video game screen. After all, there is a person behind streaming and people want to meet them. Try to get it to offer a resolution of 1080p and about 60 FPS .
- Software . You can opt for XSplit, Streamlabs or the most recommended option to start: OBS . We are going to explain the whole process with OBS because it is easier.
Set up our Twitch account
The first step to start streaming is to create an account on the Twitch platform. As soon as we enter, we give the purple button “register” that is in the right corner and fill in the personal data (remember that the username is the name that will be shown in the streaming).
Then, we go to the OBS page to download its installer and start configuring our account. Once installed, you open it and you will see that a configuration wizard will appear through which you can optimize the streaming quality.
It will ask us to connect the Twitch account or use a broadcast key. In the past, no Twitch account could be connected, but we had to go to the control panel of our profile and get the broadcast key to be able to broadcast live.
The possibility of connecting the Twitch account makes things much easier for us; If you do it this way, you will see that we will have to go to our email to get the 6-digit code . Afterwards, OBS will be configured to have the program already prepared. 
As you may have seen in the streams, the game screen is usually shown and a box where the webcam is seen. In this box we usually see very attractive designs: this is called overlay . You can create a simple one yourself, design it in StreamElements, or have a designer do this.
You will see that OBS is divided into sources and scenes , which are the following:
- Scene. It is made up of the sources that we choose in it; that is, first the scene is created and, within it, we select the sources that we are going to use. One scene can be the overlay, another the transition and the last one would be the one that encompasses the streaming (camera, microphone, video game window, etc.).
- Sources. They are the devices that we are going to use to broadcast, as well as the windows that are going to be displayed. The sources are usually the microphone, the webcam, a game or a specific Windows window.
You will see that the OBS interface is intuitive and that it is easy to add or remove sources and scenes . You can do it with the “+” and “-” buttons, like right-clicking one.
Also, you will realize that you can add endless fonts for each scene, which gives us many facilities. In the case of Streamlabs, the methodology is the same, but it is a much more complete program because it incorporates themes, plugins, etc. Save this option for when you have a large audience.
We only have to configure the audio mixer to avoid distorting the microphone. To do this, you have to play with the volume of the microphone to prevent your viewers from hearing you too loud or distorted. As a tip, take a look at the Windows settings, going to the taskbar , opening the volume mixer and left clicking on “System Sound”.
Now, go to the ” record ” tab and double left click on your microphone. A new window will open, so go to the ” levels ” tab and check the volume and its amplification.
With everything configured, you only have to hit ” start transmission ” and retransmit the content. You can make use of the ” start recording ” mode because it allows us to simulate a broadcast and check if everything works well, or if it is heard as it should.
