First off: This only explains the basics and it does not give you “perfect stream settings”. Setting vary on a lot of things besides them like hardware, internet connection, etc. so a lot of testing is necessary either way til you’re at a point where you reach “perfect settings” for your own stream.

 

There are multiple settings for streamers which are important, the most known ones are those:

  • Bitrate / Upload
  • Resolution (XXXp)
  • FPS
  • BPP

The resolution and FPS (Frames Per Second) are pretty much self-explanatory and is simply just the size of your stream video output and the frames per second. Most people stream currently in 720p (Resolution: 1280×720) or even 1080p (Resolution: 1920×1080) while 1080p with 60fps is only recommend for really slow paced games since the bitrate limit can’t achieve a really good quality (it would need around 9 to 12 mbit).

Bitrate is the upload you use to achieve the quality output. The limit for bitrate on Twitch is currently 6.000 (6mbit).

BPP might be new to some people but it means “Bit Per Pixel” which is as the name says the value for each pixel. You aim to stay within the range of 0.05 and 0.1 bpp while 0.1 is the highest and 0.05 the lowest value. 0.1 bpp is prefered for gameplay while 0.05 bpp can be used for creative streams and such (slow paced).

How can I calculate all this stuff?

(width x height x framerate x bpp) / 1000 = bitrate in kbps

Just the most used ones as example:

1080p60fps: 1.920 x 1.080 x 60 x 0.1 / 1.000 = 12.442 kbps = 12.44 mbit 

1080p30fps: 1.920 x 1.080 x 30 x 0.1 / 1.000 = 6.221 kbps = 6.22 mbit

720p60fps: 1.280 x 720 x 60 x 0.1 / 1.000 = 5.837 kbps = 5.84 mbit

720p30fps: 1.280 x 720 x 30 x 0.1 / 1.000 = 2.919 kbps = 2.92 mbit

As you can see every stat changes the necessary bitrate by a lot (especially the FPS and bpp) so it’s also important what you stream since you most likely can go down to 0.05 bpp when streaming slow paced things (creative, development).

 

 

If you want some more in-depth details and infos visit the site of my friend Ocgineer. He wrote down a really well written page for it: http://www.ocgineer.com/streaming