GeForce Experience 1.8.1: Introducing ShadowPlay Twitch Streaming

Earlier in the month we brought you GeForce Experience 1.8, which introduced Adjustable Optimal Playable Settings, and major ShadowPlay updates that made the critically-acclaimed gameplay recording tool even better. Today, we’re updating GeForce Experience to version 1.8.1, and adding Twitch streaming to ShadowPlay, enabling you to broadcast your gameplay and commentary live to gamers worldwide, instantly, and without the need for additional capture equipment or software.

As with recordings saved to disk with ShadowPlay, Twitch ShadowPlay streaming has a minimal performance impact on framerates thanks to the H.264 hardware encoder built into GeForce GTX 600 and 700 Series desktop graphics cards. And unlike other capture solutions, your in-game framerate will not be capped, enabling you to enjoy every game at full speed even when broadcasting.

"Broadcasting to Twitch has become an integral part of the gaming experience,” said Brooke Van Dusen, Director of Business Development, Twitch. “We're extremely excited to work with NVIDIA to make Twitch live streaming available to GeForce Experience users. ShadowPlay is revolutionary, providing high quality streams with almost no noticeable performance impact for our users.”

GeForce Experience 1.8.1.’s all-in-one streaming solution also enables you to overlay your webcam video output onto your stream, and commentary can be added via your headset or microphone using the “In-game & microphone” Audio option.

Together, these tools enable instant and easy broadcasting to the world’s most popular streaming service, direct from GeForce Experience. With these new ShadowPlay features, GeForce GTX gamers can stream to friends and family, or launch their very own broadcast career. To get started, follow the simple steps below:

1. Download, install, and open GeForce Experience 1.8.1. If you have a previous version of GeForce Experience already installed, open GeForce Experience, click the “Preferences” tab, click “Updates” on the left of the screen, ensure “GeForce Experience” is checked in the “Updates” panel, and click “Check now” to begin an automatic download of 1.8.1.
2. Click the ShadowPlay button on the top right of the client to open the ShadowPlay control panel.
3. Activate ShadowPlay by clicking the large on-off switch.
4. Select “Twitch” in the Mode dropdown.
5. Click the “Log In” button and enter your Twitch credentials (create a Twitch account on the Twitch website if you do not already have one), before clicking “Log In” on the dedicated account screen.
6. Select the quality mode based on your internet upload speed. 3.5Mbps is required for High Quality, 2Mbps for medium, and 0.75Mbps for low.
7. Load a DirectX game running in Fullscreen screen mode, and press the defined shortcut (Alt + F8 by default) to activate broadcasting to Twitch. Press Alt+ F6 to activate your camera.
8. Press the defined shortcuts once more to end webcam output and broadcasting.
9. Following your broadcast, a recording of the stream will appear on your Twitch website profile and can be edited and saved for archiving, or embedding on websites. If you are using a new Twitch account, you will need to enable the "Automatically archive my broadcasts" option on your account page. This is particularly useful for creating clips of your best moments, and editing out the times where you were on a bio break.

In the Preferences menu of GeForce Experience you can adjust the location of your webcam, the size of the webcam window, the broadcast indicator's location, and the hotkeys used for broadcast options.

This is the first beta release of this feature and we look forward to your feedback. Our next major milestone we're working towards is desktop capture for ShadowPlay, and enhanced microphone control. If you experience any issues please send feedback using GeForce Experience’s “Send Feedback” button or post on the GeForce.com forum, where our Customer Care team can better assist you.