OBS settings for streaming to Twitch on a powerful laptop

This config is specifically for a Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 6 that packs a Ryzen 7 5800H and an RTX "3060". Desktop hardware will get you much better mileage for obvious reasons.

Every main list item is a tab in the Settings window.

This is with StreamElements's SE.Live plugin. Vanilla OBS should be (nearly?) identical and Streamlabs Desktop should be similar.

General settings are personal preference and don't matter
- However you should use a light theme because 1) I said so and 2) you can then threaten to violently flashbang chat by dragging the OBS window into the stream
Stream
- Service: Twitch
- Server: Auto
- Twitch Chat Add-Ons: None
  - Chatterino is so much better than the chat dock (and so are its forks, of course, like chatterino7)
- Don't ignore streaming service setting recommendations
Output
- Output Mode: Advanced
  - Simple is downright unusable
- Streaming
  - Audio track 1
  - Twitch VOD track disabled
    - I don't feel like setting up a two-audio-track stream, and I only play copyright-safe music on stream anyway
  - Encoder: NVENC (new)
    - StreamFX gives much lower-level control over NVENC. I should check that out sometime
  - Rescale Output disabled
  - Rate control: CBR
  - Bitrate: 4000 kbps
    - Enough for 720p60
    - Not being an Affiliate nor a Partner, I don't have the luxury not to care about viewers with bad connections
  - Keyframe interval: 2 seconds
    - Twitch requirement
  - Preset: P7
  - Tuning: High Quality
    - Low Latency is bullshit - stream latency is dominated by network jank, not encoding
  - Multipass mode: Two Passes (Full Resolution)
    - I said stream latency is dominated by network jank
  - Profile: high
  - Lookahead enabled
    - More quality!
  - Psychovisual tuning enabled
    - Facts don't care about math's feelings
  - GPU 0
  - Max B-frames: 4
- Recording
  - Type: Standard
  - Recording path on a massive external SSD
  - Recording format: mkv
    - FLV considered harmful due to obsolescence
    - MOV considered harmful due to potential nonstandard bullshit
    - TS and M3U8 aren't even container formats
    - MP4 recordings get corrupted if OBS crashes
    - Therefore, MKV
  - Audio track 1
  - Use stream encoder
    - Not making the VOD exactly identical to the stream is unfair to either VOD frogs or live frogs
  - No custom muxer settings
- Audio
  - All tracks at 128 kbps
- Replay buffer off
Audio
- Sample rate: 48 kHz
- Channels: Stereo
- Desktop audio: Default
- Mic/AUX: Disabled
  - Can't accidentally turn on the mic if there's no mic
- Other audios disabled
  - Desktop Audio 2 might be useful with dark technology involving virtual audio devices
- Decay rate: Fast
- Peak meter type: Sample Peak
Video
- Canvas resolution: 1280x720
- Output resolution: 1280x720
  - 4000 kbps isn't enough for 1920x1080
  - Set your games and the screen you game on to 1280x720 so things just work
- FPS: 60
Hotkeys are personal preference
- #define CAS Ctrl+Alt+Shift
- I bound CAS+R to Start/Stop Streaming and Start/Stop Recording, CAS+O to the main scene, CAS+P to the start-of-stream scene, CAS+] to the end-of-stream scene, CAS+' to Mute/Unmute Desktop Audio, and CAS+J to a black rectangle that hides my email address on Honkai Impact 3rd's login screen
  - Should probably have a better mute button than a four-button chord. Do I use Pause for anything?
Everything that will ever show up in Accessibility is personal preference
Advanced
- Process priority: High
  - Prevents CPU-heavy games from breaking OBS
- Show active outputs warning on exit
- Renderer: Direct3D 11
  - Only one in the menu?
  - Use the newest D3D on Windows, not sure about Linux (newest Vulkan I guess?)
- Color format: NV12
- Color space: 709
- Color range: Partial/Limited
  - One would think RGB/sRGB/full would be the best but it appears to be much more complicated
  - Defaults are safe
- Leave the SDR/HDR brightness stuff on defaults too idk
- Filename format: %CCYY-%MM-%DD %hh-%mm-%ss (UTC%z)
  - ISO 8601 at heart
  - Trivial to chronologically sort
  - Allows figuring out the exact moment the stream started in UTC
- Don't remux to mp4
  - OBS-recommended way of getting MP4 VODs; disabled because I like MKV
- No stream delay ever
- Auto-reconnect enabled
  - Retry delay: 1 second
  - Maximum retries: 120
- Don't dynamically change bitrate to manage congestion
  - This option is for people with garbage connections who are sick of subjecting their chat to 15 FPS streams. I don't have a garbage connection and think OBS's current plan B of screaming in panic and dropping frames suits me better
- Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration checked
- Never disable hotkeys
  - On Windows, run OBS in administrator mode to make sure your hotkeys always work

dorukayhan/!obs.md