Streaming Games On Facebook Live - NVIDIA ShadowPlay Or OBS Studio?

The steady pace of growth of the eSports scene in Malaysia has inspired gamers to introduce themselves to the community by posting videos and live broadcasting their gameplay on Youtube, Twitch, Facebook Live, etc. 

For starters who is not familiar with the game streaming platform and software used for game streaming, running Facebook Live through their smartphone is the easiest way to share their gameplay. 

Gamers who wanted to step up their live stream game and look professional will either go for the paid game streaming software like the XSplit Broadcaster, or the free open-source OBS Studio. According to what I've seen in the past few months, OBS Studio is probably the most used game streaming software by the local Malaysian streamers because it is free.  

Setting up OBS Studio can be tricky for a first time users, mainly on the game capture and audio settings due to hardware behavior. That of course, isn't really an issue because you can get things sorted out easily with the help of the OBS community forum - all you have to do is ask. 

Quick Overview On OBS Studio

Setting up OBS Studio for game streaming isn't as hard as it looks. Game capture usually works on most  games, but it doesn't capture anything from your game, you can opt for windows capture if the game allows you to toggle windowed mode. Else, DxWnd or D3DWindower is a good windowed mode alternative for you to capture your game in windowed mode. 

Other than just the gameplay, you can add in other extras such as webcam, third-party program to display other information i.e key strokes, custom scene and frames, texts, etc just like what the professional streamers did during their live stream session.

If the audio quality of your game stream sounds like a bad quality 128kbps MP3 file, the output settings is the one you need to adjust. I recommend choosing CRF for the rate control and value 15 in the CRF value for starters, as it fixed my problem with bad quality audio after various attempt.

Streaming with OBS Studio requires a stream key from the streaming platform. If you're doing it on Facebook live, you can obtain the one-time stream key via the publishing tool on your Facebook page, or through third-party app that allows you to stream to your own timeline or custom groups.

The screenshot above is the result of one of my attempt on streaming with OBS Studio, not as flashy as the pros of course. 

Streaming With NVIDIA ShadowPlay

If you own a NVIDIA GeForce graphics card and OBS Studio is just too much work for you, you might want to consider to go with NVIDIA ShadowPlay, a free and powerful feature that comes together with GeForce Experience. 

Setting up your game stream with NVIDIA ShadowPlay way more easier than OBS Studio, as it comes ready with features like camera for you to capture your expression during your game stream, FPS counter for you to monitor the FPS fluctuations, viewers count and comments display for better engagement with your audience.

By connection your social profiles, Twitch account, YouTube account in ShadowPlay, you can easily stream to your favorite streaming platform without the need of setting up the stream key like what you need to do in OBS Studio. The only drawbacks of using the NVIDIA ShadowPlay for your game stream is the lack of support for third-party plugins and software.

Adjusting the output quality is a lot more easier as well, way much simpler compared to the amount of controls you have to deal in OBS Studio. 

The screenshot above is the result of one of my attempt on streaming with NVIDIA ShadowPlay, not too flashy but it definitely looks way more okay than my quick and simple setup in OBS Studio.

Verdict

So where does this leave us? Well, there's not best or worst in this comparison. OBS Studio, offers a lot more features, customization, plugin support for those of you who is planning to make a name of your own in the community. 

NVIDIA ShadowPlay on the other hand, makes things a lot more easier for those of you who just wanted to share you gameplay with your friends and the rest of the community members, quick and easy.

Having the best of both worlds - SSD and HDD

HDD and SSD serves its own purpose for different users with different needs, but that until today, is a topic that many enthusiasts would still debate on. There are those who suggests that spending extra for a large capacity SSD is the way to go for; others that suggests that SSD isn't really necessary and getting a performance HDD like the WD Black will do just well, and also those who will just go for both in order to have the best of both world.

Personally, we would prefer having an SSD for Operating System and frequently used software, and a decent performance HDD to store large files which seems to be a more practical and cost effective approach compared to getting either a 1TB SSD or 6TB HDD that would cost pretty much the same and having the shortcomings of its own.

It might or might no sound convincing enough to pull someone to team SSD and HDD hybrid with just the statements above, but here are some facts for both HDD and SSD to support our stand:

The Speed Demon - SSD

SSD is known to be shock-proof due to the absent of moving parts and its blazing fast sequential read and write speed that can reach up to 550 MB/s on SATA III and 5000MB/s on PCIe. Installing Operating System to an SSD seems to be the right thing to do now and some even install their frequently used software and games to it as well to reduce the loading time required.

The only shortcoming is that SSD has lower capacity compared to a HDD and it cost more as the capacity increases. Judging from the size of the file size of the game installation nowadays that can reach up to 30GB or more, most SSD that has a capacity of 120GB to 240GB will definitely not suffice for other storage purposes. While there are SSD with TLC and MLC NAND flash which cost lesser than an SLC NAND flash SSD, it will still cost more than any HDD that can deliver few times higher capacity than an SSD. 

The Storage Monster - Hard Drive 

While it might not be able to offer that blazing fast 550MB/s performance like an SSD, an HDD is able to offer a much higher capacity that is more reasonable when it comes to storage purpose. HDD manufacturers like WD, Hitachi, Seagate offers a wide range of HDD that is made to serve different purposes and for WD Black especially, are made for enthusiasts and those who works in the creative industry who requires a fast and reliable HDD for both work and entertainment. There are significant difference in time when it comes to loading large game files, reading and saving large files like RAW images which makes the WD Black superior in a way compared to other mainstream drives like the WD Blue.

Still, that doesn't means that the WD Black is the wonder drive that beats the crap out of other drive. We have done a review on the WD Black 6TB ourselves and when compared against the mainstream WD Blue, it shows minimal to no difference when it comes to normal usage like opening word file, excel file, web browsing and other light task. 

Thoughts and Verdict

You can of course, directly aim for a high speed system with a large capacity SSD i.e: 4TB PCIe SSD or completely reject the existence of an SSD and aim for a high capacity HDD for storage needs, but as an end-user ourselves, we will say that it is more practical to have both SSD and HDD installed in a system where each of the storage devices will be playing a different role: SSD for the operating system and commonly used software which is often preferred for faster access, and HDD as a storage medium that stores larger files such as video, raw image, audio or even game installation. 

Homebrew Tips & Tricks: Typing Faster

A quick search on the web will tell you that you'd need to sit in a good posture, memorize the keyboard layout, go for classes, play "typing games" and learn to touch-type. Keyword here is simply "Practice". The benefit? more time to do other things (including coffee breaks).

But what about people who just don't spend as much time in front of the PC? Nowadays most of us will only need to type two or three lines to reply emails, update the Facebook status, Tweet etc.... But when it comes to a need to typing a letter or an essay or the annual budget report, I'd like to get it over with A.S.A.P but I don't see myself training to type that much to achieve this. So here are some of my methods that I use to complete my assignments without spending too much time on the keyboard.

Drafts & templates, keep them!!

More often than not, you're likely to be typing a report that contains the same formatting to the previous week, month or even year. Saving those documents in soft-copies will actually help to lessen the work as you could reuse the same formatting. 

This is especially when you're working with spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel as we tend to type in numbers and figures that need to be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. Keeping the privoius template allows you to store the formula(s) used in it so all that's left is to enter the new information or data. No longer do you need to re-create the same tables, charts.

This not only saves you time, but will keep the report looking uniform and professional as well.

Software Short-cuts

Aside from saving drafts, software like Microsoft Words and Excel have some nifty tricks embedded into them to allow for improved speed. For example, most of us will know the "cut, copy  & paste" combinations with the use of the 'ctrl' key with either 'x' , 'c'' and 'v' keys. the full list can be found on Microsoft's support page (Microsoft Office Support Page).

The key is to only memorise those that are useful to you. For myself, I found that I normally use ctrl+b (bold) ctrl+shift+, or . (to resize text) and ctrl+shift+directional leys (text selection); just having these three functions alone lets me complete a page in no time at all. By doing this, you do not have to hunt for the specific functions in the tool bar or even reaching for the mouse. Some of these short-cuts will actually work on other applications as well such as blogs and forum posts as well.

Use specialized keyboards

A typical computer store will normally have different types of keyboards. From the cheapest to the most extravagant of keyboard, you'd be surprised how a good keyboard can aid in improving your typing speed.

Mechanical keyboards - This type of keyboard is so named for it's mechanical keys, at first glance, most of them would look like a normal keyboard, to understand what  makes them different have a read in Wikipedia. We also did quite a few reviews of mechanical keyboards such as the Filco Majectouch Ninja, Armaggeddon Black Hornet MKA-3 and the Armaggeddon Stealth Raptor MKA-7.

These provide feedback to your fingers as you type, particularly true to the blue and brown version of the switches, which tells you that the key is registered even without pressing the keys all the way to the down. Theoretically, once you get used to it, you would then move on to type the next key(s) in sequence a little faster. The only thing stopping everyone from owning such keyboards are it's cost with the cheapest retailing at RM250.

Ergonomic keyboards - This breed of keyboards may look strange to most people. Far different from a typical keyboard, they break away from the traditional rectangular design and is shaped to suit the natural position of the human arm and wrists.

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (pictured above) is one such where the curves and raised parts as well as the position of the keys are placed in such a way to allow a more comfortable typing experience. Speed then comes in as second nature as you wouldn't need to reach as far or shift your wrist position as much compared to using a typical keyboard. It will take some time to get used to though as the majority of us are used to the squarish layout of the typical keyboards.

Gaming keyboard - Yes gaming keyboard for typing may not be it's intended target of use but the additional functions on these keyboards are actually quite useful. I'm of course referring specifically to the programmable buttons that gives me the ability to bind multiple keystrokes to a single button.

As you might have known, I've been using the Logitech G510 as my primary keyboard, with the extra 18 keys (G1 to G18) at the side, I've actually registered all of the most common word(s) that I would type. For example, my multiple email address and web-address is bound to a different key; so instead of typing "www.tech-critter.com" all the time, all I have to do is press on G4 and instead of typing "Th1s-Is_mY+passwOrd" (note the caps and symbols) as a password for my email, I just hit G17.

So if you use the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" most of the time, the macro button just became your best friend hasn't it?

Conclusion

Though these tips might not turn you into a speed demon on the keyboard, but it will mean spending less time at the keyboard while completing more. Proves that, with a little creativity, you could be a little more productive without much effort. Do leave a comment to the article if you have any other methods.

Now, since I just made some time, who has time for Coffee?