Hey, this is Dustin with the Streamlabs team,
and today we’re going to talk about how
you can make adjustments to Apex Legends and
Streamlabs OBS to get the best experience
while streaming the game on a single PC.
Apex Legends is the hottest new release in
the battle royale genre, but currently isn’t
optimized for single PC streaming, since the
game will allocate available resources directly
to the game.
When Apex Legends prioritizes resources for
the game, it leaves less CPU and GPU resources
available for streaming software, including
Streamlabs OBS.
In this video we will talk about 4 things
you can do to improve performance.
First we will talk about optimizing the game
itself.
Second we will share tips on optimizing Windows
10.
Third, I will share how to tweak Streamlabs
OBS to yield best streaming performance.
And lastly, a reminder on updating your GPU
drivers.
First are some settings we can adjust within
Apex Legends.
Once you’re in the game, go to Settings
and keep Vsync on, as this will limit the
amount of frames your GPU renders to your
monitor’s refresh rate, making sure your
GPU doesn’t work harder than it needs to.
If you decide not to turn on Vsync, you should
make sure to set your Resolution FPS to cap
your framerate.
A Resolution FPS setting that matches your
monitor is ideal.
For our example, we’ll cap framerate to
60fps, since our monitor only supports 60Hz,
which means the monitor refreshes to display
images 60 times in one second.
If you have a monitor with a higher refresh
rate, you can set it to that monitor’s refresh
rate value, but if you notice streaming performance
isn’t good, you may need to lower your Resolution
FPS.
Another thing you can do is to lower your
graphics settings in Apex Legends.
If you’re running at graphics settings that
are too high, you may also experience lower
game and/or streaming performance.
You can adjust these accordingly as you test
out your streams, but in our example we’ll
set all of ours to low.
Anti-Aliasing, will be None.
Texture Streaming Budget, will be None
Texture Filtering, will be Bilinear
Ambient Occlusion, will be Disabled
Sun Shadow Coverage, will be Low
Sun Shadow Detail, will be Low
Spot Shadow Detail, will be Disabled
Volumetric Lighting will be Disabled
Dynamic Spot Shadows will be Disabled
Model Detail will be Low
Effects Detail will be Low
Impact Marks will be Disabled
And Ragdolls will be Low
Now, we can look into adjusting Windows 10
settings.
Windows 10 has a Game Mode that, when enabled,
can help some games perform better.
Unfortunately, the Game Mode may cause less
resources to be available to any streaming
software, including Streamlabs OBS.
To disable Windows 10 Game Mode, you’ll
need to go to the Windows Settings app in
the Gaming section.
Go to the Game Bar and turn “Record game
clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game
Bar” off.
Do note that Windows 10 Game Mode is only
available on Windows 10 releases starting
from the Anniversary Update (Build 14393).
Another setting in Windows 10 that may negatively
impact streaming and gaming performance is
Game DVR.
This feature can be disabled in the Windows
Settings app in the Gaming section in the
"Game DVR" tab.
Turn off the "Record in the background while
I'm playing a game" option.
Do note that Windows 10 Game DVR is only available
on Windows 10 releases starting from the Anniversary
Update (Build 14393).
Now, we can look into making changes in Streamlabs
OBS.
Multi-adapter Compatibility is a setting which
may cause performance problems.
This setting is usually turned off, but it’s
important to double-check to make sure it’s
off.
To disable this option, go to the properties
of your window capture source in Streamlabs
OBS, and un-check "Multi-adapter Compatibility".
Now we can get into Scene Collections, Scenes,
and Sources.
With any streaming software, adding too many
elements, such as too many Scenes in a Scene
Collection, or too many Sources in a Scene
can impact performance.
While your Scenes and Sources may work fine
for most games, since Apex Legends may be
taking up many resources, you may need to
simplify your Scenes and Sources when streaming
this game.
If you have a lot of Scenes in a Scene Collection,
try deleting some Scenes to improve performance.
This can be done by selecting a Scene and
clicking the - sign by the Scenes list.
Or you can right click the Scene and click
Remove.
If you can also simplify your Sources in a
Scene, you can do the same thing by selecting
the Source in the Sources list and click - or
by right-clicking the Source and clicking
Remove.
As far as Sources go, Browser Sources can
sometimes be more resource intensive than
other Sources.
If you find that you’re experiencing problems
with streaming performance with Apex Legends,
try removing Browser Sources to improve performance.
Sources under the Widgets overlay section
are related to Browser Sources and may need
to be removed from your Sources list if you
need to improve performance as well.
We also now have Optimized Encoder Settings
available for Apex Legends, so when you click
Go Live, after you’ve set Apex Legends as
your game, you can check the “Use Optimized
Encoder Settings” checkbox to get better
visual quality with Apex Legends.
Also, make sure your GPUs drivers are the
newest available, so if you have an NVIDIA
GPU, go to NVIDIA’s site and grab the newest
driver for your graphics card.
If you have an AMD GPU, go to AMD’s site
and get the newest driver for your graphics
card there.
One last thing to keep in mind is your hardware
setup.
Since newer games like Apex Legends aren’t
optimized, exploring new hardware options
and upgrading may be something to consider
as well.
Upgrading your CPU and GPU will give your
PC more resources for Apex Legends and Streamlabs
OBS to work with.
This covers the various ways you can make
changes to Apex Legends game settings, Windows
10 settings, Streamlabs OBS settings, and
PC hardware setup to make sure you can stream
Apex Legends and improve gaming and streaming
performance.
Be sure to download Streamlabs OBS by visiting
Streamlabs.com and hop into our Discord server
at Discord.gg/stream for live community support.
Check out the links in the description below.
