Best bitrate and encoder settings for 1080p60 live streaming on YouTube with OBS?

Hey! Great question. For YouTube live streaming at 1080p60, I'd recommend using NVENC (the new one) on your RTX 3060 Ti. It offloads encoding from your CPU, which is great for gaming. For bitrate, YouTube supports up to 12000 kbps for 1080p60, but 8000 kbps is a sweet spot for quality vs. stability. I've been streaming at 8000 kbps with NVENC and it looks sharp even on fast motion. Make sure to enable 'Lookahead' and set 'Psycho Visual Tuning' to Quality in OBS – these improve quality with minimal performance cost. Also, set 'Keyframe Interval' to 2 seconds (which is required by YouTube) and 'Rate Control' to CBR. For stability, use a wired Ethernet connection and test with YouTube's 'Stream health' feature while streaming. You can also run a quick test stream as 'unlisted' to check.

I've tested both 6000 and 8000 kbps on my 1080p60 streams, and honestly, 8000 kbps is the way to go if your upload speed allows. The difference is noticeable in high-motion scenes like fast-paced games – 6000 can get blocky. Also, if you have the bandwidth, you can push to 12000 kbps, but YouTube might re-encode it anyway, so I stick with 8000 to avoid any issues. For encoder, NVENC is perfect for your GPU. Just make sure you're using the 'NVENC H.264' encoder in OBS, not the older 'NVENC' – the new one has better quality. And set 'Max B-frames' to 2. Also, don't forget to set 'Process Priority' to High in OBS under Advanced settings to reduce dropped frames.

I agree with the above, but I'd also mention your audio settings. If you're using a dedicated mic, set your audio bitrate to 160 kbps in OBS (or even 192 if you have good upload). For video, one tip is to use 'CBR' rate control and set 'Preset' to 'Quality' instead of 'Performance' – it uses a bit more GPU but looks better. Also, check your OBS stats: while streaming, press Ctrl+Shift+O to see the stats panel. If you see 'Dropped Frames' or 'Skipped Frames' due to rendering lag, that's a sign to lower your game's graphics settings or reduce OBS's 'Output Resolution' temporarily. Another thing: make sure your 'Base (Canvas) Resolution' is 1920x1080 and 'Output (Scaled) Resolution' is 1920x1080 – don't upscale. And test your stream health on YouTube Studio: go to your live dashboard and check the 'Stream health' tab – it'll show if there are any issues.

Hi everyone, thanks for the detailed replies! I followed your advice and set up my OBS with NVENC, 8000 kbps, keyframe interval 2, and enabled lookahead and psycho visual tuning. I did a test stream as unlisted and it ran smoothly with zero dropped frames. The quality looks great! I also checked the stream health on YouTube Studio and it was all green. I'm confident to go live now. Thanks again for the help!