Start
You don't need expensive gear. You need to sound good, a picture that doesn't stutter, and a clear idea of what you're going to do.
What you need
A good mic before a good camera
People put up with an average picture, but they leave if they can't understand you. A simple USB dynamic or condenser mic close to your mouth, in a room that doesn't echo.
Stable upload
What counts is upload speed, not download, and that it holds steady. Cable beats wifi. The OBS calculator tells you what quality your line can carry.
OBS Studio
Free, open source and for Windows, Mac and Linux. It's what sends your picture to Twitch. You don't need Streamlabs or anything paid to start.
A graphics card that encodes
NVIDIA, AMD and Intel cards from recent years compress the video themselves and leave the processor free for the game. Without one, go with 720p.
Your first stream, step by step
Install OBS and run the wizard
Download it from obsproject.com. The first time it opens the auto-configuration wizard: choose «Optimise for streaming» and let it test your connection.
Connect your Twitch account
Settings › Stream › Service Twitch › Connect account. No stream key to copy, and OBS adds chat and activity as panels.
Build four scenes
Starting (a picture and music while people arrive), Live (your game or whatever you do, with camera), Break and Ending. That's enough to move around without showing your desktop.
Add the sources
Game capture (or window capture), a video capture device for the camera, and your mic. If you only want one program's sound, on Windows use «Application Audio Capture».
Put filters on the mic
Right-click the mic › Filters, in this order: Noise Suppression (RNNoise), Noise Gate, Compressor and Limiter at −1 dB. It makes a huge difference.
Record two minutes and listen back
Before going live, hit «Start recording», talk and play a bit, and watch the file. That's where a quiet mic, a game drowning your voice or a dark camera show up.
Fill in title, category and language
From Twitch's Stream Manager or the OBS panel. A title that says what you're doing today helps more than a clever one.
Before you hit «Go live»
It stays ticked in this browser. Untick it before your next stream.
Only Twitch?
Twitch is the platform par excellence, but not the only one. OBS streams to any of these, and with Aitum Multistream (in Plugins) to several at once.
Twitch
The reference for live streaming: chat culture, raids and the tools were born here. The hard part is being found while small.
YouTube
Streams stay up as videos and show up in search. If you already make videos, your people are already there.
Kick
The Twitch copy that pays creators better. Born from an online casino's owners, and it shows: more gambling and laxer moderation.
TikTok Live
Vertical, with lots of passing viewers. It requires a minimum age and follower count to go live.
OwncastOpen source
Your own Twitch, open source, on your server: your chat, your rules, no ads. It connects to the fediverse so people can follow from Mastodon. Nobody will stumble upon you, though.
PeerTubeOpen source
Free, federated video and live streams: you can stream on an existing instance without setting anything up.
Music and safety
Music: only what's cleared for streams
Twitch deletes VODs and can suspend channels over copyrighted music. Use catalogues made for streaming: Tools has the ones I know.
Two-factor authentication
Turn it on in Twitch before anything else. A stolen channel is the worst that can happen, and some features require it.
AutoMod and a trusted mod
AutoMod holds back dodgy messages until you approve them. And if a friend can moderate, you get to focus on the stream.