I’ve had a few questions about how to get set up with streaming to Mixer, so I’m creating this guide to help get you started. This certainly isn’t going to be an exhaustive guide, as there’s way too much to cover. I’m hopeful that this will at least get you up and going for something like playing Jackbox Party games with your friends during COVID lockdowns. I know this seems like a lot for a basic setup, but this isn’t exactly easy. It was until Microsoft removed Mixer streaming from the Game Bar built into Windows. If you have questions, feel free to hit me (CombFiltered) up on our Discord, and I’ll try to help work through your scenario as much as possible. I’m certainly no expert, but I’ve worked with OBS enough to know my way around the basics.
- Go to mixer.com, and top right click Sign In. Use your Microsoft Account to sign in. The vast majority of the time, this is the account that you are using to sign into Windows. If you don’t have one, click Create Account instead of Sign in with Microsoft.
- Click on your avatar top right now that you’ve signed in, and click Broadcast Dashboard.
- Click Get Started, and walk through the steps. Once you get to a message about a Stream Key, you’ll need to hit Request Stream Key, and then go through a 24 hour waiting period. I’m not entirely sure what this is for, but it’s there nonetheless.
- Once your 24 hours are up, go back to your Broadcast Dashboard, and hit Next Step to activate your key. You won’t need it, as the way we’re setting up OBS just links it with your account.
- Go to obsproject.com, choose your OS, and save the download.
- Open the installer, and Next/Next/Next/Install/Finish.
- In OBS, it will ask you if you want to go through the auto-configuration wizard.
- Click Yes.
- Choose “Optimize for streaming, recording is secondary” (the default option), Next.
- Choose likely the default and Next. Mine defaulted to “Use Current (1920×1080)” and “Either 60 or 30, but prefer 60 when possible,” which my monitor is 1920×1080. You will likely want whatever resolution monitor you have.
- Choose “Mixer.com – FTL” for Service. Click “Connect Account (recommended),” and sign in with your Microsoft Account. Next. It might ask in here if you’re sure you want to do so, as OBS will be able to view your stream key. Hit Yes.
- Click Yes on the bandwidth test, then Apply Settings.
- You’ll now need to set up OBS and your source for streaming. Much of this will depend on what you want to do and what your exact setup is. You’ll want to be working with “Sources” – bottom left, right next to Scenes.
- If you want to capture an entire monitor, hit the + button, Display Capture, OK, and then pick from the drop down the monitor you want to capture. Whether or not you want to have “Capture Cursor” selected likely depends on the game and your use case. If you have it selected, the mouse cursor will be shown on your stream. Hit OK. NOTE – you might have issues with this on laptops with dual GPUs – an integrated Intel GPU on the CPU, and a discreet Nvidia or AMD GPU. Sometimes the display you selected will just show up black, and I’m not sure how to fix this. I’ve always captured an external monitor on my laptop because of this.
- If you are playing a game in windowed mode, this will need to be set up with the game running. Open your game, then click the + button, Window Capture, OK, select the game window in the first drop down, and OK. You might need to play around a little bit with the resolution your game is set to, and dragging your window around in the preview. If you click in OBS on the window that you’re showing, a red border will show up that you can resize and move around on your canvas. Resize and move around until you’re happy with placement. Ideally this is filling the entire black area, as this preview is exactly what your viewers will see.
- In OBS, check your audio settings in the bottom middle. The defaults might just work depending on what you’re doing. Next to Desktop Audio (your game audio) and Mic/Aux (your voice), there’s a gear icon. If you click that, and then Properties, you can choose the audio card you’re using.
- Defaults most likely work unless you’re doing Jackbox Party and an audio call with friends. In this case, what I’ve successfully done is change my Windows default audio device to my monitor instead of the speakers/headset. Before you launch the game, left click the speaker icon in your system tray, and choose your monitor instead of Speakers. In your voice app, make sure you’re selecting your headset as the audio device instead of the now default monitor. Basically what you’re doing here is making sure that you’re not streaming out the audio from your call.
- With OBS set up and your account connected, you’re ready to hit “Start Streaming” in the lower right!
- During your stream, make sure you’re watching chat. You can do this through OBS – the View menu, Docks, Chat. Or you can go to mixer.com/[your username here] and watch it there.
Hopefully this gets you most of the way there. Any issues or questions? Discord it up.