Streaming: An awesome experience

My passion for gaming – and eventually streaming – started, when my step-dad brought home an old computer from work. This monstrosity ran programs from floppy disks that were the size of DVDs; I was addicted to Root Beer Tapper. Over the years the first consoles I played scaled up from a Game Boy, a Game Gear, and the Megadrive right up until I got the first PlayStation. This beast, at the time, was where I got to grips with my first RPG experience. It happened to be Final Fantasy VII, a game with an intense storyline and sometimes complicated plot.

When Windows 95 made its entrance with dial-up, loading a page could take a long time but the wait was always worth it. Talking to your friends on MSN, and then having your internet die when your parents needed to use the house phone. This was around the time I started playing Doom, Rayman, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos as well as Command and Conquer. I didn’t get much time to game as I was at school and my parents limited my access to the computer.

Windows 98 has its debut just about the time most people are switching to a new internet service called broadband. I spent most of my younger years surfing the internet, downloading game demos if my computer could run them, checking trailers and reading about what was due to be released. Most of my time up until I started college I used playing Unreal Tournament and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Skip to my college years, I receive an Xbox Crystal, and starts my Halo journey. I also fell in love with Star Wars: Republic Commando(Editor’s note: Republic Commando is probably one of the best Star Wars games ever made. Play it). This game gave its all and delivered it perfectly. It’s a shame that no sequel ever materialised because I would have loved to search for my missing squadmate, have the decision whether you obey or disobey Order 66, then take the fight to your former comrades.

2012. When I first discovered PewDiePie, JackSepticEye and Markiplier. They gave me the inspiration to follow my dreams, so I started recording videos on my first gaming computer which I built myself. It did the job, but wasn’t quite powerful enough.

We finally come to 2016. I’m the proud owner of a super-fast gaming laptop. I picked up recording videos again after a slightly long break. I then looked in to streaming, downloaded the software I needed, spent hours fine tuning everything and setting up my temporary overlay. I pay my go-to art guy to sort me out some new artwork, this consists of a BRB screen, switching games screen, offline screen, social media banners and a social media profile picture. I was then ready to begin my new journey into streaming.

I entered the world of streaming as newbie, like a new-born foal finding its first steps and exploring its surroundings. I’m using social media properly for the first time to try and make myself known to the outside world. This is where I start connecting with other streamers like Jay Caulls and Princess Rambeta, it’s also where I met my collaboration partner who is now my best mate, SatansKid2280. With their help, my followers jumped from 5 to their recent count of 82, my YouTube channel with the help of my Twitch channel shot up from 6 top 104 over the past several months.I can say without a doubt this has been the best experience in my life, the new friends I’ve made, the new skills I’ve gained and the new routine I’ve started has made it worthwhile. I now stream seven days a week and record videos five days a week.

Torax Outlaw’s tips for Streaming

• If you want to get in to streaming, you can! You can stream on anything these days, Xbox One, Playstation 4, computers and laptops. But to do so you have to be committed and determined.
• You will have good days as well as bad days but you need to persevere through everything. You’ll go through a few streaming sessions with only a couple of viewers and others where you lose count. The bad days, I will agree, tend to make you rethink streaming as you see there’s no point doing it if no-one is watching. It’s all about promoting yourself, talking to your viewers and sticking to a schedule.
• If you’re streaming on a computer or laptop, you just need be sure that your system can handle running the game and your choice of streaming software at the same time. Your internet is an important factor too. You can stream on any internet upload speed, just be sure to setup up your software according to what your system can handle and what speed your internet can upload. I recommend OBS Studio as a choice for streaming software, it can be a pain to setup but it’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.
• There is a website that will help you determine your ideal settings for your setup and software. The OBS Estimator allows you to input certain specs of your system to help determine the settings that are ideal for your setup.
  An easy-to-follow setup guide is provided by and found on Twitch that will also help you to setup your software, but provides additional hints and tips for adding graphics as well as text to your stream.
• Once you’re all set up, you’ll be ready to stream your favourite games. Be sure to promote yourself on popular social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Follow accounts that do retweets when you use their handles and use popular streaming hashtags when you tweet.

Recommended links: OBS Studio OBS Estimator OBS Twitch Setup   This article was written by special guest contributor Torax Outlaw. You can find a video interview with the man himself here and check out his Twitch here! Editor’s note: If you want to have a crack at writing some articles we’d love to give you the space to do it. If you’re concerned about spelling and formatting, don’t be! – that’s what I’m here for! If you have any ideas feel free to email me at n1lgames@fullsync.co.uk. Big thanks to Torax for taking the time out to write this piece for us! Oh, and find more pieces like this in our featured section HERE.