Help
Discord commands
Only available to users with the streamer role.
/streamkey get- Shows your stream server + key (creates one the first time). Reply is only visible to you.
/streamkey reissue- Generates a new key and immediately invalidates the old one - use this if your key ever leaks.
/streamkey visibility public|private- public: anyone can watch, no login needed. private: viewers must log in with Discord and be a member of this server to watch or to watch clips made from your stream. Publishing always just needs the key either way.
/streamkey name <value>- Sets a display name for your stream, shown instead of your Discord username on the site, in the live announcement, and on clips. Takes effect the next time you go live.
Logging in
You can log in with Discord, or with your own stream key (see /streamkey get
above). You need to be logged in to watch a stream set to private, or to use the clipping
feature.
Setting up OBS
- Run
/streamkey getin Discord to get your server URL and key. - In OBS: Settings → Stream.
- Service: Custom...
- Server:
loading… - Stream Key: paste the key from Discord.
- Apply, then Start Streaming.
- 🎉
Hotkey support
space- Play/pause.
m- Mute/unmute.
f- Toggle fullscreen.
↑/↓- Volume up/down.
Player size
In full-width mode, hover the player and drag the handle on its right edge to resize it. Double-click the handle to reset. Your size is remembered in this browser.
Clips
- You need to be logged in to create a clip.
- While a stream is live, hover over the video to reveal a small clip button in its top-right corner - click it, give the clip a name, done. In split view, every tile has its own clip button the same way.
- A clip captures up to the last 5 minutes retroactively - when you make one, you can choose how many seconds (up to 300) to save, counting backward from right now.
- You can browse all clips, or filter to one streamer from there.
- Only the clip's creator, or the streamer it's of, can rename or delete it.
Picking your stream quality
Not sure what to actually set your resolution/bitrate/encoder to? Answer a couple of questions and run a quick connectivity test to get settings tailored to your setup and connection.
If your Intel CPU has integrated graphics, select Intel (integrated graphics); otherwise it depends on how full your GPU's VRAM already is. If the game has already used it all up, use CPU encoding instead - if you still have some VRAM to spare, select NVIDIA or AMD.
Now test your connection to this server, so the bitrate we suggest actually fits what your upload can
handle.
This uploads a few throwaway megabytes and times how long it takes; nothing is saved afterward.
- Upload speed
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- Latency
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Your recommended settings
Video tab
These live under Settings → Video.
- Resolution ("Output (Scaled) Resolution")
- How sharp the picture looks. This is separate from your monitor's own resolution (OBS's "Base (Canvas) Resolution") - it can be lower, and OBS scales down automatically. Higher looks better but needs more of the bitrate below, and a faster PC to encode.
- Frame rate ("Common FPS Values")
- How smooth motion looks. 60fps needs roughly twice the bitrate of 30fps for the same quality.
Stream tab
These live under Settings → Output in OBS - switch Output Mode to Advanced first, or several of these fields stay hidden.
- Encoder
- The device that compresses your video. The exception: if a game already has your GPU maxed out with no headroom, that extra work can cause stutters in game and in your stream, since it shares memory bandwidth and power/thermal budget with the game. If you see that, try turning down a couple of in-game graphics settings first - usually cheaper than switching to CPU (x264) encoding, which competes with the game directly for CPU time.
- Rate Control
- CBR Keeps the amount of data you send every second steady instead of jumping around - a sudden jump is what makes a viewer's stream buffer.
- Bitrate
- How much data to send per second. Calculated from your measured upload speed above, with some headroom, so you don't overload your connection.
- Keyframe Interval
- How often OBS sends a full "starting point" picture. Shorter means someone who just opened the stream starts watching sooner, and everyone recovers faster after a brief network hiccup.
- Encoder preset
- Tells the encoder to favor speed over squeezing out perfect quality. For a live stream, every extra moment spent encoding is delay your viewers actually feel, so speed wins. If quality suffers, you can move to a slightly higher preset as a trade-off - it costs a little more latency in exchange.
- B-frames
- Setting it to 0 is a hard requirement. It's a compression trick that looks ahead at frames that haven't happened yet, which adds a small delay by design - 0 removes that delay.
GPU usage too high?
OBS can fall back to your CPU instead (x264, "software" encoding) at the same resolution/fps/bitrate above. It's noticeably slower and heavier on your PC than a graphics card would be, and typically adds 100-200ms more delay - but it works everywhere. Unlike the encoder above, x264 has no direct B-frames setting in OBS, so there's nothing to change for that one.
- Encoder preset
Not guaranteed to be perfect for every setup - if quality suffers, dial back one setting at a time rather than all at once.
Server stats
- Total streams
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- Total stream time
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- Data transferred
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