GLOBAL GUIDE · CHECKED SEPTEMBER 2026
OBS Settings for Streaming: Start From Your Upload Speed, Not a Copied Table
The short answer: The right OBS settings for streaming start from your measured upload, not a copied table. Twitch recommends 6,000 kbps for 1080p at 60 fps with a hardware encoder; YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for the same picture (both checked September 2026). Use CBR, a 2-second keyframe interval and AAC audio, capped at 160 kbps on Twitch. If your upload can't carry that with room to spare, drop to 720p60 at 4,500 kbps.
Every OBS guide hands you the same table: 6,000 kbps, 1080p at 60 fps, NVENC, 2-second keyframes. Almost none of them ask what your connection can actually push, which is the number that decides whether those OBS settings for streaming work at all.
That table is Twitch's ceiling, and it's the wrong starting point for YouTube, which recommends double the bitrate for the same picture. It's also a gamble for plenty of UK homes. Ofcom’s home broadband performance research put the average UK home upload at 18.4 Mbit/s (March 2023 data, published September 2023), and an average hides many lines well below it.
So this guide works in three steps: test your upload, pick the row that fits it on your platform, then choose an encoder your PC can carry. OBS Studio itself is free and open source, and version 32.2.2 (released 14 August 2026) is current on the official OBS Studio download page. Every figure below comes from Twitch, YouTube, NVIDIA or Ofcom with the date checked, in line with how SetupFind sources its guides.
Your upload speed decides your OBS settings for streaming
Run a speed test on the streaming PC, over a wired connection, at the time of day you'll actually go live. The upload figure is your budget. UK homes averaged 18.4 Mbit/s upload in Ofcom’s March 2023 broadband performance data, but your own line, not the national average, sets the ceiling.
Download figures get all the marketing attention; upload is what a stream actually consumes. Many UK broadband packages are heavily asymmetric, so a big headline speed can still hide a small upstream. The UK streaming setup cost guide explains how to check which kind of line you're on.
Test at your streaming hour, not at 10 am. Evenings are when the rest of the house watches Netflix, joins calls and downloads game updates, and the figure you get then is the one that counts.
Then leave headroom. Your video bitrate plus audio should sit comfortably under the tested figure, never right at it, because a stream running at its limit drops frames the moment someone else queues a download. If the result swings between runs, plan against the lowest one. Once you have that number, every other choice in OBS follows from it.
OBS settings for streaming on Twitch and YouTube, side by side
Twitch recommends 6,000 kbps for 1080p at 60 fps with NVENC, while YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for the same resolution and frame rate. Choose your platform's row first, then check it against your tested upload. A profile tuned for Twitch leaves YouTube picture quality unused.
Twitch's figures come from its Broadcasting Guidelines and YouTube's from its live encoder settings help page, both read on 26 September 2026. The verdict column measures each row against the 18.4 Mbit/s Ofcom average until you have your own number.
| Resolution and frame rate | Twitch video bitrate | YouTube video bitrate | Verdict against an 18.4 Mbit/s upload |
|---|---|---|---|
| 720p at 30 (or 25) fps | 3,000 kbps | 4 Mbps | Yes, on both, with plenty of room |
| 720p at 60 (or 50) fps | 4,500 kbps | 6 Mbps | Yes, on both |
| 1080p at 30 (or 25) fps | 4,500 kbps | 10 Mbps | Usually; YouTube takes over half the average |
| 1080p at 60 (or 50) fps | 6,000 kbps (7.5 Mbps with Enhanced Broadcasting) | 12 Mbps | Usually on Twitch; Marginal on YouTube at around two thirds of the average |
| 1440p at 60 fps | Up to 9 Mbps (Partners and Affiliates, Enhanced Broadcasting) | 24 Mbps | Marginal on Twitch; No on YouTube, which exceeds the average outright |
Twitch lists 60 or 50 fps, and 30 or 25 fps, as interchangeable options. UK mains power runs at 50 Hz, so a camera at 50 fps is less likely to pick up flicker bars from cheap LED bulbs; the UK frame rate and shutter speed notes in the podcast camera guide explain the same 25/50 logic.
Pick the highest row your upload carries with headroom, not the highest row your PC can render. A 1080p60 stream that buffers loses viewers; a clean 720p60 keeps them.
A hardware encoder, not x264, for most streamers
Think of a small restaurant where the head chef also washes every plate. Food still goes out, but every minute at the sink is a minute away from the stove, and on a busy night both jobs slow down.
Hire a kitchen porter and the chef goes back to cooking. The porter doesn't cook and doesn't need to; the washing simply stops competing with the food.
That's the difference between the two encoder types in OBS. x264 is the chef at the sink: it encodes on your CPU, the same processor running the game. NVENC is the porter. NVIDIA’s GeForce broadcasting guide (updated 30 January 2025) describes it as a dedicated section of the GPU that does nothing but encode, so the game keeps its resources. AMD's AMF and Intel's QuickSync do the same job on their hardware.
Quality used to be the argument for x264. It mostly isn't now. Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines say NVENC on Turing cards (RTX 20 series and GTX 1660) typically beats x264 on the Fast preset and is on a par with x264 medium.
Three cases, then.
- RTX card or GTX 1660: NVENC, preset Quality, B-frames 2, which is Twitch's recommended starting point.
- Recent AMD or Intel graphics: AMF or QuickSync, at the bitrate from your platform's row.
- No usable GPU encoder: x264 at veryfast. Twitch notes that presets beyond Faster need six or more CPU cores.
If you want x264's slower presets without the game losing frames, a dual-PC streaming setup moves the encoding onto a second machine.
OBS settings for streaming on a low-end PC
On a low-end PC, stream 720p at 60 fps and 4,500 kbps, or 720p at 30 fps and 3,000 kbps if frames still drop, following Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines. YouTube's equivalent rows are 6 Mbps and 4 Mbps. Scale the output resolution in OBS and leave the canvas at your monitor's resolution.
Low-end usually means the CPU, not the connection. Four changes, in this order.
- Use the hardware encoder if there is one. Even an older graphics card's encoder takes load off a struggling CPU.
- Drop the output resolution. In Settings > Video, set Output (Scaled) Resolution to 1280x720 and leave Base (Canvas) Resolution alone.
- Drop to 30 fps before going lower. Motion looks less smooth, but the encoder has half as many frames to process.
- Stay on x264 veryfast if CPU encoding is the only option, which is where Twitch advises starting.
The Auto-Configuration Wizard, under the Tools menu, is a sensible first pass. The OBS Studio quick start guide says it weighs what you're doing, your hardware and, when streaming, your network conditions. Treat its answer as a starting point and check it against your platform's row.
Streaming and recording at different quality
Most guides treat the recording as a copy of the stream. It doesn't have to be. Your upload caps the stream; nothing caps a file written to your own drive except disk space and encoder load.
Switch Settings > Output from Simple to Advanced. The Streaming and Recording tabs then each get their own settings, and setting the recording encoder to anything other than “(Use stream encoder)” gives it an independent bitrate. The stream can sit at 6,000 kbps CBR for Twitch while the recording runs at a higher quality for edits and clips.
Keep the stream side identical to your platform's row and put the extra quality into the recording, so your OBS settings for streaming and recording share one profile.
Two practical points.
- Record to MKV rather than MP4. If OBS or the PC crashes mid-session, an MKV file stays playable up to the crash; convert it afterwards with File > Remux Recordings.
- Watch the load. Two encodes on a hardware encoder are generally manageable, while two x264 encodes on a weak CPU invite dropped frames. Open the Stats dock (View > Docks > Stats) during a test stream and check for skipped frames.
Keyframes, CBR, audio and Enhanced Broadcasting
Set the keyframe interval to 2 seconds for both Twitch and YouTube; YouTube accepts up to 4. Twitch recommends CBR over VBR. Audio should be AAC: Twitch recommends 96 kbps with a 160 kbps maximum, while YouTube recommends 128 kbps stereo.
Four fields to set in Settings > Output (Advanced mode).
- Rate control: CBR, as Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines recommend.
- Keyframe interval: 2 s, the figure in both Twitch's guidelines and YouTube's live encoder settings.
- Audio bitrate: 160 kbps at most on Twitch; 128 kbps on YouTube.
- NVENC preset and B-frames: Quality and 2, per Twitch.
Enhanced Broadcasting changes the Twitch numbers. Twitch’s 17 June 2026 announcement of Dual Format and 2K streaming lifts the ceiling to 7.5 Mbps at 1080p and 9 Mbps at 1440p using HEVC, with 1440p open to Partners and Affiliates. You switch it on in Settings > Stream, under Multitrack Video.
Affiliate status needs 25 followers, 4 hours streamed across 4 different days, and an average of 3 concurrent viewers, all within 30 days, according to Twitch’s Affiliate programme requirements. Multitrack video can upload more than one rendition from your PC, so re-run the upload test before relying on it.
The same switch powers Twitch's Dual Format, which sends a vertical canvas alongside the landscape one; the vertical streaming setup guide covers the Aitum Vertical side.
Save these OBS settings for streaming as a named profile from the Profile menu, and keep a second profile for YouTube with its own bitrate and audio.
What to set first, and what to decide next
Three takeaways. Your tested upload, not a copied table, sets the bitrate; Twitch's 1080p60 row needs 6,000 kbps while YouTube's needs 12 Mbps. A hardware encoder beats x264 for most single-PC streamers, and on RTX-era cards Twitch rates it on a par with x264 medium. The recording doesn't have to match the stream, because Advanced output mode gives it its own encoder.
The next decision is what sits in front of the encoder. Camera, microphone and lighting all feed the same bitrate, and a clean, well-lit image holds up better at 6,000 kbps than a noisy one. The streaming setup guide takes each piece in order, with the upload budget from this page as the constraint.
Prices are US retail, checked 25 September 2026, and will change. SetupFind has not bench-tested these products; figures come from manufacturer specifications and named sources, as set out in how SetupFind researches its recommendations. Some links may earn a commission at no extra cost to you (affiliate disclosure).
Straight answers
What bitrate should I use in OBS for 1080p 60fps?
Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines recommend 6,000 kbps for 1080p at 60 fps with NVENC. YouTube's live encoder settings recommend 12 Mbps for the same resolution and frame rate. Either figure should sit comfortably below the upload speed you measure at the time you stream.
Is NVENC or x264 better for streaming in OBS?
NVENC is the better choice for most people gaming and streaming on one PC, because it encodes on a dedicated part of the GPU rather than the CPU running the game, according to NVIDIA's broadcasting guide (updated January 2025). Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines say NVENC on RTX 20 series and GTX 1660 cards typically beats x264 Fast and matches x264 medium. x264 mainly makes sense on a dual-PC setup with CPU to spare.
What are the best OBS settings for a low-end PC?
Stream 720p at 60 fps and 4,500 kbps, or 720p at 30 fps and 3,000 kbps if frames still drop, following Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines. Use a hardware encoder if the PC has one; otherwise start x264 at the veryfast preset. Lower the output (scaled) resolution in OBS video settings rather than the canvas.
Can I stream and record at the same time in OBS at different quality?
Yes. Switch OBS to Advanced output mode and give the Recording tab its own encoder instead of reusing the stream encoder. The stream stays within your upload speed, while the local recording can run at higher quality because your connection doesn't limit it.
What keyframe interval should I use for Twitch and YouTube?
Use a 2-second keyframe interval on both platforms. Twitch's Broadcasting Guidelines recommend 2 seconds, and YouTube's live encoder settings recommend 2 seconds with a maximum of 4. Set it in OBS under Settings > Output in Advanced mode.