Beginners Streaming

[Tylus]

Hi, I've been wanting to do streaming for awhile now and i only just set up my streaming stuff (e.g overlays and alerts ect) i am wanting to stream good quality game play but i dont know if my PC is built for streaming i would really love it if anyone could leave their opinions on what i should do,  If i should get a second PC for streaming and use my one i have right now for Gaming? or just upgrade my components?.

 

 I would really be interesting in knowing what i should do as im not very smart and dont know much about computer (apart from the basics), I have listed my current PC below please dont bully me too much about the specs i know its not the best but its my first pc

 

Specs:

CPU: i5 4670 3.4GHz

CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo

Motherboard: Gigabyte B85M  Micro ATX LGA 1150

Ram: 2x4GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 

Storage: 1x 120GB SSD Kingston A400

               1x 2T 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive 

GPU: EVGA GTX 960 4GB SuperSC 

Case: NZXT S340 (Black)

Power Supply: FSP Ground 550W

Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WDN4800 PCI

 

Extra Info:

Main Monitor: Asus VX238H

Secondary Monitor: AOC 23.6 E2450SWH

Microphone: Blue Snowball Ice (With Boom arm and Pop filter)

 

Much Love To The LTT Community <3

 

[Nocte]

I don't think you can stream well, even with GPU encoding (CPU encoding is out of question with that i5). 

[Arika]

stream with what you have. no point spending a whole ton of money when you only have a handful of followers.

 

I don't mean to dampen your spirits, but everyone wants to stream these days. it's like finding a needle in a needle stack, everyone is doing the same thing. you need to stand out and build an audience before even worrying about getting additional hardware for it otherwise it's just wasted money.

 

You have to give people a reason to watch you instead of the thousands of other people trying to stream and get the attention of people, what makes you special?

 

so with that said, you need to have a proper think about why you want to start streaming and what you have to offer that people can't already get somewhere else. you may find that streaming isn't for you, or that you don't amass the type of following you wanted. Are you prepared to throw it all away if things don't work out?

 

 

[Nocte]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

you need to stand out and build an audience before even worrying about getting additional hardware for it otherwise it's just wasted money.

It might very well be a waste of money if you don't succeed. But low-end hardware = low quality stream. You aren't helping yourself to stand out and make a good first impression on lurkers. 

 

I'm not saying you need an octacore CPU and a good GPU, but you definitely need something to provide watchable and enjoyable content. Obviously, no hardware you buy is going to improve your intrinsic ability to entertain an audience, but it can enhance it (or dampen it). 

[LogicalDrm]

Upload speed? Your specs are capable for 720p. Depends on games how bad your fps will get. You can do much by using GPUs power and QuickSync to encode, but all falls down to your upload speed. If you don't have 5-10mb up, then you will need to do some hard optimization with settings to get most out of your stream.