NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience software has a built-in game streaming feature. If you have NVIDIA graphics hardware, you don’t need any additional software to stream on Twitch, Facebook Live, or YouTube Live.
NVIDIA’s streaming feature may not have all the advanced features available in Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), but it’s much easier to get started with and also supports webcams, microphones, status information, and custom overlays.
Enable Broadcasting
RELATED: How to Stream a PC Game on Twitch with OBS
To get started, you’ll need to have NVIDIA GeForce Experience installed, which doesn’t necessarily come with a regular driver installation. So, go ahead and download that, install it, and then sign in.
After that, you just have to press Alt+Z to open the GeForce Experience overlay. You can do this anywhere—in game or even on the Windows desktop.
If the overlay doesn’t appear, you’ll need to open the GeForce Experience application and head to Settings > General > In-Game Overlay. Enable the overlay if it’s disabled and note the keyboard shortcut that opens it. You can also click “Settings” to customize the keyboard shortcut.
Click the cog-shaped “Settings” icon, and then click the “Broadcast LIVE” button. Ensure that the “Turn on broadcasting” option at the top of the screen is set to “Yes.”
From here, you can also customize your Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube streaming quality settings. You’ll also find custom overlay options at the bottom of this screen, allowing you to overlay any custom image on top of your stream. You can return here to tweak these settings in the future.
Sign Into Accounts
To sign into your accounts, click the cog-shaped “Settings” icon in the overlay, and then and click “Connect” setting. Click whichever service you want to set up—Facebook, Twitch, or YouTube—and then click the “Log In” button. Enter the username and password of the account with which you want to broadcast.
Configure Your Webcam and Microphone
To configure how your microphone works, open the overlay and click the microphone icon. Select a mode—Always On, Push to Talk, or Off. By default, the push-to-talk key is the Grave key (`) just above the Tab key on your keyboard. You can change it to another key by heading to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.
To configure the size and shape of your webcam, head to Settings > HUD Layout, and then choose a position and size for the camera feed on your screen. Select “Off” here if you don’t want the video from your webcam appearing on the stream.
At any point while streaming, you can press Alt+Z to open the overlay and click the microphone and video icons to enable or disable your mic and webcam.
Start Broadcasting
To actually start broadcasting with GeForce Experience, first launch the game you want to stream. Next, press Alt+Z to open the overlay, and then click the “Broadcast LIVE” button. Click the “Start” option to start broadcasting your gameplay.
You’ll be prompted to choose the service to which you want to stream. If you haven’t already signed into the service you want to use, you can do it from here. You can also provide a title, location, and privacy setting for the stream. The exact options available here depend on the service to which you’re streaming.
Click “Go LIVE” when you’re ready to start streaming.
While you’re streaming, the “Broadcast LIVE” button on the overlay turns green. To stop broadcasting, press Alt+Z to open the overlay, click the “Broadcast LIVE” button, and then click the “Stop” command.
If the stream appears slow, there’s a good chance your Internet connection can’t provide the upload bandwidth required. Try heading to Settings > Broadcast LIVE and lowering your resolution, bitrate, or framerate to speed things up. You’ll have to stop and restart the broadcast for these changes to take effect.
If you’re uploading anything—for example, if you have a BitTorrent client running—you should also pause that. This makes more upload bandwidth available for your stream.
Change Keyboard Shortcuts
All of these actions we’ve talked about also have keyboard shortcuts you can use. To view and customize them, open the overlay and head to Settings > Keyboard shortcuts. Here are the default default keyboard shortcuts you can either use or change:
Alt+Z: Open overlay Grave Key (`): Push to talk Ctrl+Alt+M: Toggle microphone on or off Alt+F8: Toggle broadcasting on or off Alt+F7: Pause or resume broadcasting Alt+F6: Toggle camera on or off Alt+F5: Toggle custom overlay on or off
Like we mentioned, while not as full-featured as other tools, NVIDIA’s streaming option is great for getting started with streaming. And if you’re already using NVIDIA gear, it’s free and easy to set up.
