When I was first getting started with streaming, I briefly thought about how I did not have a solid PC build to attempt to stream off of. I knew that my laptop might not be strong enough to support the stream and the game simultaneously. But I also knew even less about computers than I do now and I really barely know anything now. Most of what I have learned has been in the process of doing and in being informed by others in the community how I could be improving things. My suggestion to you is going to be to take in any and all advice that people are willing to give but understand that not all of it is going to suit you and your personal setup best. You need to be able to look into things yourself and experiment with different software and different parts as well.
The one thing I would definitely suggest checking, your RAM. I currently utilize my Lenovo Legion Gaming Laptop for everything I do. And for the first year and a half, possibly two years, I assumed that because it was a gaming laptop, that it would be sufficient for what I needed. I quickly found out that it wouldn't like playing certain games while trying to also stream it and I kind of just accepted that. Until my boyfriend sat me down and explained that when you get a laptop, they only provide you with a single RAM stick but there are usually two slots for RAM in a laptop. For those like me who don't always fully understand computer lingo, RAM is a type of memory storage. Unlike a hard drive or a flash drive though, RAM is temporary storage. This temporary storage point allows your computer to process tasks. If your RAM is small, typically 8 GB, you will barely be able to process a game without lag let alone stream. I believe my laptop had a 16 GB RAM stick in it which allowed me to play games efficiently or stream lesser quality games without issues but would get easily backed up in the case of say a raid coming in to stream. I definitely helped take some of the pressure off my RAM by streaming primarily console games and using a capture card, but even this would still use up some of the RAM in my PC. My boyfriend helped me upgrade to 32 GB of total RAM storage which has allowed me to play more games on my PC with less lag. So check in on your RAM. See if maybe you should consider upgrading it before you try gaming and streaming off of the same device.
My next tip I would suggest, if you have never used your device before and it is not already cluttered with all your gaming software; how much general storage space do you have? I know laptops can not store much to begin with but make sure you are maximizing your storage if you can. I am not a fan of external hard drives because I am scared that one day I will go to unplug it and all the data on it will be lost, but at this point, I also can not switch out my hard drive to my PC because I do not have a way to transfer everything over to a new hard drive without buying a special transfer contraption. And then I would also have to go through the process of reinstalling Windows and I really am not a good enough PC girlie for that just yet. So if you can, make sure you have a lot of internal storage before you start installing all your games and streaming software. You will chew through that space very quickly if you are like me and have lots of games. Or even if you are just like my boyfriend and play games with a lot of space requirements. (The one game that I play with him requires like 103GB of space!)
Another good tip, when it comes to your streaming software; you need to understand and acknowledge just how many applications you are going to be running and how much wear and tear that puts on your computer. When I go live, I not only have whatever game I am playing and my OBS up, but I also have Discord, Streamlabs Chatbot, MixitUp Bot, and usually at least 4 tabs in a browser running. That is a lot for my PC to be running at a single time (although it also is not the most I have seen people have open) and it can start to slow everything down if I am not careful. You need to be able to watch your PC metrics, see how much of your CPU is being used consistently, see how much of your GPU is being occupied, see if the bitrate connection is set too high for your connection to streaming sites. See if there are ways you could potentially limit these applications, do I really need two different chatbots? no, I could realistically combine them into one, I just like how my Streamlabs chatbot lets me have a bot name, and am being lazy with switching over. The point though, some softwares may take up more credentials than others. Twitch Studio was a great stepping stone for me before I moved on to Streamlabs OBS. Streamlabs was very user-friendly and very easy to navigate and adjust my layout, BUT it used up a LOT of my CPU. Part of that stems from the fact that it just has so much to offer you and help you with your stream, the store running in the background really does not need to be doing that. There are ways you can limit its usage and help out your stream without compromising but you should honestly just consider using OBS instead. I know it looks daunting, but you can very easily create a layout for your stream in Streamlabs and then OBS will automatically convert the save files to be used on their software! So definitely take a look at all your options and monitor what it is using on your PC.
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