---
title: 'How to Stream on Twitch in 2026 (Complete Beginner''s Guide)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=9nkLGbOFvck'
video_id: '9nkLGbOFvck'
date: 2026-07-22
duration_sec: 878
channel: 'Cpaws Music'
---

# How to Stream on Twitch in 2026 (Complete Beginner's Guide)

> Source: [How to Stream on Twitch in 2026 (Complete Beginner's Guide)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=9nkLGbOFvck)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for beginners to set up a professional Twitch stream using OBS Studio. It covers downloading and configuring OBS, creating scenes and sources, routing audio without expensive hardware, optimizing video and encoder settings, and going live. The tutorial emphasizes a no-fluff approach, offering a free graphics pack and a pre-stream cheat sheet to help new streamers succeed.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to the Guide** [00:01] — The video addresses the common frustration of a blank OBS screen and promises a zero-fluff masterclass covering software download, layout building, audio routing, and secret settings for a clean stream.
- **Downloading and Opening OBS Studio** [00:41] — Go to obsproject.com to download OBS Studio (free, low CPU usage). After opening, the interface is explained: the black box is the viewer's view, bottom left is scenes, and sources are the elements within scenes.
- **Connecting OBS to Twitch** [01:22] — Click Settings > Stream, select Twitch as the service, click 'Connect Account', log in, and authorize. After connecting, two boxes appear: one for stream title/category/tags, and one for Twitch chat. These can be repositioned.
- **Creating Scenes: Starting Soon, Just Chatting, Gameplay** [02:14] — Three essential scenes: Starting Soon (to let viewers gather), Just Chatting (webcam full screen), and Gameplay. The presenter offers a streamer starter pack with overlays to save time, available for a low price.
- **Setting Up Starting Soon Scene** [03:07] — Rename a new scene to 'Starting Soon'. Add an image source (static overlay) or media source (animated). Select the overlay file and adjust as needed.
- **Setting Up Gameplay Scene with Webcam** [03:46] — Add a new scene 'Gameplay'. Add a video capture device for webcam, resize/position it. Add an image source for webcam overlay (ensure it's above webcam in sources list). Add game capture (preferred) or window/display capture for the game.
- **Setting Up Just Chatting Scene** [05:54] — Add a new scene 'Just Chatting'. Add existing webcam source (from gameplay scene) and set it to full screen (transform > fit to screen).
- **Advanced Audio Routing Without GoXLR** [06:36] — Disable desktop audio and mic/aux in Settings > Audio. Then add audio sources per scene: audio input capture for microphone, application audio capture for game audio (select the game). Adjust volume levels. Copy audio sources to other scenes using 'Copy' and 'Paste Reference' to maintain audio across scenes.
- **Optimizing Video Settings** [09:28] — In Settings > Video: Base canvas resolution = monitor resolution (e.g., 1080p). Output scaled resolution = 1080p or 720p if lagging. Downscale filter = Lanczos (best quality). Common FPS values = 60. Apply settings.
- **Encoder and Bitrate Settings** [11:05] — In Settings > Output, change mode to Advanced. Encoder: Nvidia NVENC H.264 (Nvidia GPU), AMD HW H.264 (AMD), or X264 (CPU). Rate control: CBR. Bitrate: 6000 Kbps for 1080p60, 4500 Kbps for 720p60. Apply.
- **Going Live and Using Stream Manager** [12:13] — Click 'Start Streaming' in OBS. Check Twitch chat to see the stream. Use Creator Dashboard > Stream Manager to monitor viewers, followers, bitrate, and activity. Mute the stream manager to avoid echo. After streaming, click 'Stop Streaming'.
- **Important VOD Settings** [13:35] — In Settings > Stream, enable 'Store past broadcasts' (VOD settings) to save streams. By default it's off, so streams are lost after ending.
- **Final Advice: Pre-Stream Cheat Sheet and Next Video** [14:03] — A clean setup doesn't guarantee viewers. Download the free pre-stream cheat sheet (link in description) and watch the next video on fixing the zero-viewer problem.

### Conclusion

By following this guide, beginners can set up a professional Twitch stream with clean layout, flawless audio, and optimized settings without expensive hardware. However, technical setup alone won't attract viewers; the presenter offers a free cheat sheet and a follow-up video to address the zero-viewer problem.

## Transcript

a completely blank OBS screen. Your only viewers are your chatbot and your own the volume on her iPad. We've all been there. Most Twitch tutorials treat streaming like you're trying to launch a SpaceX rocket. They want you to buy $300
plugins, have a computer science degree, and three different audio mixers just to doing that. Today, I'm giving you the ultimate zero fluff Twitch masterclass. through step-by-step through downloading the software, building a professional
layout, routing your audio perfectly, and optimizing the exact secret settings movie. By the end of this video, your stream is going to look so incredibly clean that it might actually make your ex regret everything. So, grab a snack
is getting the actual engine that runs your entire stream. Go to obsproject.com and download OBS Studio. It's completely free, barely uses any CPU, and is the it, open it up and run it. Once you open it for the first time, it's going to
look like a terrifying black void, but don't panic. Let me translate this whole interface for you. That massive big black box at the top of the screen, this pretty much what your entire screen is going to look like to your viewers.
what Twitch will see. The bottom left, this is where you have your scenes. your house. You'll have a room for just chatting, a room for gameplay, and a that is going to be your sources.
those rooms. Your webcam, your gameplay, your microphone, and your text, and buy the furniture, we got to sign the lease to the house. Go to the bottom button called settings. So, click on settings. Then we're going to click on
the stream tab on the left. Click that and go to the very top where it says service and then click on Twitch. Then we're going to click on connect account. to put in your username and password in order to connect your Twitch. Then
authorize button. Might have to do a two-factor authentication like I did on cushion. Boom, we're officially hacked hit the apply button and okay because now we see we have two boxes that popped
which is your title, your go live notification, your category, tags, all chat, aka your Twitch chat. You can literally click the top of these boxes wherever you want to read them. So, I'm going to have my Twitch chat on the
left. So, if you need to change your title or anything like that, just change successfully. But, now we need to actually make your stream look scenes. The first is a starting soon screen to let people gather. The second
your chat. And the third is the gameplay scene. So, listen to me carefully. You next six or so hours designing and building everything from scratch for free, and that's totally fine. But, if you value your time or you're just super
copy my exact setup. I built a streamer starter pack that has everything you're overlays. We got a bunch of panels you can put under your Twitch stream. We got our starting soon, offline screen, be right back screen, and banners you can
use for your channel. And since I like you guys, I put an absolutely massive below. So, you can grab this entire graphics pack for less than the price of stream looking pro in 5 minutes and not 6 hours. So, I'm going to use my
to save us both some time. Let me show you exactly how to drop in your graphics we're going to rename this new scene by right clicking and renaming, and I'm spell. There we go. So, this is now our starting scene room. We're going to go
to sources next to it and hit the plus button. If you have an animated overlay, this one's static, so I'm just going to use an image source. So, click on image. We can call it starting soon screen. Then, we're going to hit okay. Now,
have. Whether you made it from Canva or you got it from me, doesn't matter. going to pick the starting soon screen. So, I'm going to double click. It's we're going to hit okay. And boom, our starting soon screen's already done.
add a new scene under starting soon. So, hit the plus button and we're going to call this one gameplay. So, we're going to hit okay. Now, we have another room gameplay. So, now if you're using a webcam, you're going to go to sources,
click on video capture device. There's a little camera icon next to it making it easy. So, click on that. We're going to call this one webcam, hit okay. You can camera from my laptop that's built into my laptop and that's okay for now. So,
if you need to make this larger or smaller, you can simply right click it and then do transform and then you can also have it fit to screen, make it traditionally you want to have it smaller. So, we're going to make [music]
to do now is click the plus button under sources. And we're going to use an image source if you have a static image or you're going to use a media source if to be using a static one. So, image and I'm going to call this webcam overlay.
We're going to hit okay, hit browse. I'm going to go into my overlays folder and this one and then I'm going to hit okay. I'm going to make sure my webcam overlay is above my webcam so that way it actually stacks over it. And I'm going
to adjust the size of the overlay using the corners and that looks pretty good. behind your webcam, you're not really going to see it. Make sure the overlay obviously for a gameplay scene, we want to have our gameplay here, right? So,
booted up everyone's favorite game Among Us and we have a couple different options. We go to sources right here. Your best choice is usually going to be not work, you can also use a window capture and then last case scenario, you
capture everything on your screen. So, first start with game capture since Then, we're going to hit okay. And if capture any full screen application it doesn't work, you can simply click this and then capture specific window
and find your game from this list and then hit okay. It'll usually pop up webcam go? That's because our game capture is above our other sources. So, have these in line, right? So, now we can move our webcam and our webcam
overlay by clicking on the one source and I'm going going down control on my keyboard and then click on webcam to select both, and then now we can go and deemed fit. So, let's say I want it right about here, and now we have a
have a starting soon scene, we have a gameplay scene. So, let's make a just left corner of scenes, hitting the plus button, we're going to call it just it's actually really easy. We're just going to hit the plus button under
device, and then we're going to use add existing right here, select our webcam, going to want to just have your webcam full screen. So, if your webcam is 720p you're going to right click it, and we're going to hit transform, and then
have our just chatting scene. So, now we have three important scenes, our starting soon so that way our chat can filter in, then we have our just before we start our gameplay, and then we go to the gameplay, and we can
So, now we arrive at step three, and this is the number one reason why streamers fail. Because two years ago, to perfectly separate your game audio from your Discord audio, you had to spend 300 bucks on a GoXLR mixer. But
going to go to our settings in the bottom right corner, click the settings audio tab right here, and we're going to go to desktop audio, and we're going to hit disabled, and we're going to go to mic and auxiliary audio, and disable
going to hit apply and okay. Now you can see that our audio mixer right here is because now we have total control to build from scratch and control all of sources box currently under our gameplay scene, and we're going to click the plus
audio input capture, that little microphone icon next to it. So, click on and then we're going to hit okay, and then now we're going to choose our microphone from this list. So, my microphone that I'm using is right here,
you can see that my microphone has been added here, and anytime I'm talking, you little blue bar underneath it, you can lower your volume here or raise it if under sources, and we're going to hit the plus button again, and we're going
to select application audio capture right here at the top. So, click on that. We're going to name it game audio, hit okay. Now, we're going to select the be Among Us. So, click Among Us, and then hit okay. Now, you can see we have
our game audio right here. So, if it ends up being too loud and makes it this down so it's not fighting for as much attention for our voice. So, maybe always ask chat or review your VODs after to see how the audio levels look
same thing. So, hit the plus button, application audio capture, and you can rinse and repeat this for all your other software like Discord calls. You can use app. Basically, any other audio source you want to add, you can add it the same
exact way here. So, if I had Discord up, I'd select Discord, okay, and it's going and repeat for all the audio that you want. But, to keep it simple, I'm just going to have my microphone and my game audio. And boom, you saved yourself $300
by not having to buy an individual audio mixer. Do keep in mind though that since to Among Us, we're going to have to go that we switch to. Otherwise, you're not going to have game audio. But, there's a
massive catch. Because we built out our audio sources in our gameplay scene to starting soon scene right now, your stream's going to go completely mute. To gameplay scene, and we're going to go and hover over the microphone one. We're
hit copy. Then, we're going to go to our other scene that we want our microphone sources, and then we're going to do paste reference. [music] And then, we're other sources that you want your microphone on. Right click, add source.
there for a second. And then, we'll go to gameplay, and you're going to rinse sources where you want them. Now, you technically don't need to do this for screen or your just chatting scene. But, for example, if you're using like a
Spotify app on your computer, and you want the music there, then you can feel you really want it to. You have the power and control over your audio now. where we fix your pixelated and laggy stream. We're going to go back down to
settings, and then once we're in settings, we're going to click on the video tab on the left-hand side. The base canvas resolution is the literal right now. I'm playing on a 1080p monitor, so mine is going to be 1080
right here. If you're playing on a 4K monitor, choose the 4K option. And then the output scaled resolution, this is the output that you're going to send to 1080p footage to Twitch, then you can use 1080 right here. But listen to me
very carefully. If your stream is lagging or stuttering or buffering, you may need to turn this from 1080p down to 720p, because that's okay. That just keep up with the footage you're trying to send to Twitch. And the good news is
they're really not going to matter if it's at 720 or not. However, if your internet can handle it, you can always do 1080p, which is a solid option, too. numbers are different, then you're going to have options to downscale. So what
you would do if I want to stream at 720p because it's not running buttery smooth to 720p, and then I would change the downscale filter to Lanczos, because quality. And you're going to change common FPS values to, well, common FPS
values, and make sure this is 60 frames per second. So the output 720, so 720p, FPS 60 frames per second. Or you could do 1080p to 1080p, no downscale filter necessary, so you'd be streaming at 1080p 60 frames per second if your
going to hit apply in the bottom right corner and move over to the output tab. We're going to go to the very top and we're going to change it from simple to encoder option right here, this is extremely important. If you have an
Nvidia graphics card, you're going to pick Nvidia NVENC H.264. If you have an AMD graphics card, you're going to use AMD HW H.264. That's because both of these GPUs have a dedicated chip that takes the heavy lifting completely off
your computer's processor, so your game doesn't lag. However, if you're on an older computer setup and you don't have either, then you can choose X264, which lag, but it's your only choice. Then, if we scroll down under the encoder
settings, for rate control, you're going to choose constant bit rate or CBR. It's you're streaming at 1080p 60 frames per second like I am, you're going to want to change your bit rate to about 6,000 kilobits. However, if you drop down to
720 p, then you can switch this to 4,500 kilobits per second. Then, we're simply going to hit the apply button and okay. Now, step five is the final payoff. time to turn that key. Now, we're back on the main OBS screen and we're ready
computer monitors. That way, you can have OBS running on one of them and you running. But now, we're going to look in the bottom right corner and we're going to click that button, give it a second to go. You'll be able to see if you're
able to see how healthy your stream is right here. But now, we actually want to burner Twitch channel we've connected. So, if I go to the chat, you'll see it looks like to your viewers. And by the way, that streamer starter pack
as well, including the offline banner. But what we want to do as a streamer is click your little icon and go to creator dashboard. Then, from here, we're going stream manager. And this will be your nice home base because this will be how
show your current viewers, how many followers you have, your bit rate. This window. It's going to have your activity feed anytime you get a follower, chat right here and it's got a bunch of other features as well that you can edit
these things with these buttons down here. So, feel free to get your hands a when you're running the stream manager, make sure it's muted. Otherwise, you're you're watching your own stream. So, if you hear an echo, make sure this is
muted and or paused. So, you can feel free to utilize this if you would like, or you can simply keep to the streaming information doc here in the Twitch chat you're done streaming, you simply hit stop streaming right here, and your
first stream, please go to the left-hand side here, click on settings, and then stream. And you need to make sure under VOD settings and stream rewind that know why, but by default it is turned off, which means if you started your
end your stream, it is gone. Poof, forever. So please make sure this is stream. But you did it. Your layout is clean, your audio is flawless, and your But I need to be brutally honest with you. Having a clean, professional setup
doesn't automatically bring in the viewers. If you leave this video without to an empty room for the next 6 months. Before you start your first actual broadcast, you need two things. First, you need my completely free pre-stream
cheat sheet. It's the exact pilot's checklist I use to guarantee my tech can download the PDF for free right at the top of the description. Second, you to click on your stream. So click on this video to the side of me, where I
break down the exact strategy to completely fix your zero-viewer problem. So grab the free cheat sheet, click that video, and I'll see you over there.