The best OBS settings for streaming ARC Raiders are 1080p or 936p at 60 fps, CBR at 6,000 kbps on Twitch (or Enhanced Broadcasting if you are a Partner or Affiliate), your GPU’s hardware encoder on a quality preset, and a game frame cap set below what your PC can hold so OBS never starves for GPU time. ARC Raiders adds two problems most shooters do not have: it ships with a 60 fps frame limit by default, and its long, quiet looting stretches in dark interiors, fog and foliage swing suddenly into loud firefights that punish a weak encoder. Work through the steps below in order.
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Step 1: Set the game’s frame limit before touching OBS
ARC Raiders locks its Frame Rate Limit to 60 out of the box. That looks stream-friendly, but it wastes a high-refresh monitor and hides how much headroom you actually have. Set the limit to Unlimited for one match with OBS closed, note the frame rate you hold in busy areas, then cap the game roughly 15% below that number. A PC that holds around 120 fps in a full raid would be capped near 100 fps.
The gap matters because OBS composes every stream frame on the same GPU that renders the game. When the game pushes the card to 99%, OBS starts missing frames and the stream stutters even though your own screen looks smooth. Turn on NVIDIA Reflex if you have it. Frame generation (DLSS frame generation on RTX 40 and 50 series, FSR 3 on other cards) raises the number on your screen but adds GPU work and does nothing for a 60 fps stream, so leave it off unless your base frame rate is already well above 100.
Step 2: Add the capture source
- Set ARC Raiders to Borderless Windowed. Exclusive fullscreen is the most common reason a Game Capture source shows nothing.
- Add a Game Capture source in “Capture specific window” mode and select the game. Keep “Use anti-cheat compatibility hook” enabled, which is the OBS default.
- Run OBS and the game at the same permission level. If one is elevated and the other is not, Windows blocks the hook and the source stays black.
- If the capture breaks after the game crashes, right-click the source, close the hook and capture again.
- If Game Capture still fails, switch to Window Capture with the “Windows 10 (1903 and up)” method. Display Capture works too, but it also shows notifications and anything you alt-tab to.
Embark’s support pages say overlays and game assistants are allowed only if they do not interfere with gameplay or give an unfair advantage. OBS and voice chat overlays fit that description. Tools that read game data or automate input do not. If the game crashes on launch while OBS is open, troubleshooting guides also suggest closing other hooking tools such as MSI Afterburner and RivaTuner first, then adding them back one at a time.
Step 3: Output and encoder settings
| Setting | Value | Why it matters in ARC Raiders |
|---|---|---|
| Output Mode | Advanced | Unlocks preset, tuning and B-frame controls |
| Rate control | CBR | Quiet looting scenes would otherwise drop the bitrate, then spike when a fight starts |
| Bitrate (Twitch, standard) | 6,000 kbps | Twitch’s standard maximum |
| Bitrate (YouTube, AV1/HEVC) | About 12,000 kbps at 1080p60 | YouTube’s recommended value; fog and foliage need the extra data |
| Keyframe interval | 2 s | Required by Twitch, recommended by YouTube |
| NVENC preset | P5, tuning High Quality, Two Passes (Quarter Resolution) | Good quality without overloading the encoder in fights |
| Psycho Visual Tuning / B-frames | On / 2 | Helps fine texture such as grass, rain and rubble |
| AMD AMF / Intel QSV | Preset Quality / Target Usage TU4 | Balanced starting points before moving to slower presets |
| Output resolution | 1664×936 (Twitch) or 1920×1080 | 936p gives each pixel about a third more bitrate than 1080p at 6,000 kbps |
| Downscale filter | Lanczos (Bicubic if the GPU is busy) | Keeps HUD text and item names readable |
Dark scenes deserve special attention. Smooth gradients in fog, night lighting and dim interiors are where low-bitrate H.264 shows banding and blocky shadows first. If viewers report muddy dark areas, lowering the output to 936p or moving to AV1 on YouTube helps more than raising the in-game brightness. In Settings > Advanced, keep color format NV12, color space Rec. 709 and color range Limited so shadows are not crushed.
Step 4: Check your upload with real numbers
A stream needs its video bitrate plus audio, plus headroom for the dips every home connection has. A 30% margin is a sensible minimum for a 30–60 minute raid session.
| Stream target | Video + audio | Steady upload to budget |
|---|---|---|
| Twitch 936p60 or 1080p60, standard | 6,000 + 160 kbps = 6.16 Mbps | About 8 Mbps |
| Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting, 1080p | Several renditions, top track up to 7.5 Mbps | About 12 Mbps |
| Twitch 2K (1440p, HEVC) | Top track up to 9 Mbps | Up to 20 Mbps if your channel lacks server-side transcoding |
| YouTube 1080p60, AV1 or HEVC | 12,000 + 128 kbps = 12.1 Mbps | About 16 Mbps |
| YouTube 1440p60, AV1 or HEVC | 24,000 + 128 kbps = 24.1 Mbps | About 31 Mbps |
Enhanced Broadcasting is enabled under Settings > Stream after connecting your Twitch account; leave it on Auto. 2K streaming requires OBS 32.0 or newer, a 2560×1440 canvas and output, and Partner or Affiliate status. If you also stream to another platform, cap the number of video tracks so the encoder is not overloaded.
Step 5: Build an audio mix for a sound-first shooter
Footsteps, ARC machine noises and proximity voice chat decide fights in ARC Raiders, so viewers need to hear the game clearly without losing your voice. Use an Application Audio Capture source for the game rather than desktop audio, which keeps alerts, music and Discord on their own sources. In-game voice chat comes through the game’s own audio, so other players’ voices will be on stream with the game sound.
- Sample rate 48 kHz; streaming audio bitrate 160 kbps.
- Microphone: RNNoise noise suppression, then a compressor around 4:1 with a -18 dB threshold, then a limiter at -3 dB.
- Levels: aim for your voice peaking near -10 dB on the OBS meter and the game sitting near -20 dB, so callouts stay above gunfire.
- Recording: track 1 full mix, track 2 game, track 3 microphone, track 4 Discord, so a loud fight can be fixed in editing.
Step 6: Protect yourself from stream sniping
ARC Raiders has a Matchmaking Privacy option under General > Streaming in the settings menu. It adds a randomized matchmaking delay and changes the server information shown in the bottom-right corner so viewers cannot easily match your lobby. It must be turned on before you queue, and in a squad the party leader’s setting applies to everyone. Embark also recommends covering the round timer in the middle of the screen, showing a holding scene from map selection until you are in the raid, and adding stream delay. In OBS, build a “Queue” scene on a hotkey and set Stream Delay under Settings > Advanced if you want delay on platforms that do not offer it.
Quick troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Black Game Capture | Exclusive fullscreen or privilege mismatch | Borderless Windowed, same permission level, re-hook |
| Stutter only while OBS is open | GPU or VRAM is full | Lower the frame cap and drop texture quality one step on 8 GB cards |
| Skipped frames due to encoding lag | Encoder overloaded during fights | Faster preset, Look-ahead off, then reduce output resolution |
| Blocky shadows and fog | Too few bits per pixel | 936p output, or AV1 at about 12,000 kbps on YouTube |
| Dropped network frames | Upload dips | Wired Ethernet, lower bitrate in 500 kbps steps |
