How to Stream Games on Discord From Desktop and Mobile

The gaming community on Discord is huge. Gamers like to show off their skills, play co-op games, and host watch parties. Discord makes it easy with its Go Live feature. This guide will walk you through the process of streaming games on Discord on both mobile and desktop, covering everything from setup to advanced streaming tips.

How to Stream Games on Discord

Discord offers a feature called Go Live, which lets users stream applications, screens, and especially video games to others in a voice channel or voice call in DMs. It also captures audio from the shared application, game, or screen, so your game audio is streamed along with your voice. While the Go Live stream may not be perfectly synchronized with your voice, Discord minimizes latency, so most users won’t notice any delay. This feature has expanded beyond the desktop app to support web browsers, mobile devices, and even gaming consoles.

Stream Games on Discord Desktop:

Open the game you want to stream beforehand.
Launch Discord app or the website.
Navigate to the server and join a voice channel where you want to stream your game. Alternatively, you can also join Voice calls in DM.
Click on the Share Your Screen icon at the bottom.
In the pop-up, select Window and click on the game you want to stream. (On Mac, switch to the game window and select the Share this Window option)
Click on Share to start streaming.

That’s it! Your game will be streaming to the voice channel or call, and everyone on that channel can watch it.

Stream Games on Discord Mobile:

Open the game you want to stream and then open the Discord app.
Join any voice channel on any server or make a voice call in a DM.
Here, tap the Share your screen icon at the bottom.

Your screen will start streaming. Just shift to the game and start playing.

Done. However, on phones, you can only stream the entire screen with Discord, but cannot choose specific apps.

Whether you are streaming from your phone, desktop app, or website, your game will be streaming in 720p at 30fps. You can stream in 1440p or Source resolution at 60fps if you have Discord Nitro.

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How to Stream Games on Discord Using OBS

The native Go Live feature on Discord does the job and can stream the game with minimal lag and also includes the audio. However, using third-party apps like OBS or Xsplit offers customization, so you can:

Stream the chat on Discord channels on your stream.
Add various widgets and arrange them on the screen however you want.
Show who’s talking in a Discord voice channel.
Customize the look and feel with your style sheet.
Display your Discord community link on your stream.
Add a webcam overlay on your stream.

To stream games using OBS:

Make sure you have OBS Studio downloaded and installed.
Open OBS, click the + icon under Sources > Game Capture, and select your game from the dropdown menu to add a source.
Game Capture feature is available with OBS on Windows, not MacOS. Syphon Client is an alternative, but does not function properly in MacOS 10.14 and above. Instead, we recommend macOS Screen capture option.
To show your face, add your webcam as another source. Click the + icon again and choose Video Capture Device.
Add any additional widgets using the Source tab as needed.
Download the OBS VirtualCam plugin from the OBS website and install it.
In OBS, click on Start VirtualCam under the Controls section.
Open Discord Settings > Voice & Video and select OBS-Camera under the Camera section.
Join the voice channel where you want to stream. Enable the camera to stream the game along with the audio.

The game should begin streaming now.

Settings to Configure for Smoother Streaming on Discord

By default, Discord does a good job of streaming the game and also sharing it including the game audio. However, by adjusting a few settings, you can make the experience even better with less lag and better quality and latency.

Raw video data can be quite large. Discord encodes and decodes the captured frames using codecs like VP8 and H264. This compression significantly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. To make encoding and decoding smoother, open Discord’s User Settings > Voice & Video and enable Hardware Acceleration.
You can also try enabling Hardware Acceleration in Discord’s User Settings > Advanced > Hardware Acceleration. However, if you experience frame drops while streaming, disable this option.
If you use Discord on a browser, Hardware Acceleration is not available on Discord web app. However, you can enable it directly on most browsers. For example, you can enable it on Chrome from Settings > System and enable Use graphics acceleration when available.
You can also disable the OpenH264 Video Codec in Discord’s Voice & Video Settings to improve the streaming performance.

That’s a wrap. Now you know how to stream games on Discord. Whether you use the built-in Go Live feature or opt for OBS, you can easily share your gameplay with friends. Remember to tweak these settings for the smoothest possible stream.