Managing Your Webcam and Audio Devices in XSplit Gamecaster

When it comes to streaming your gameplay, having the right webcam and audio devices can make all the difference. In this article, we'll explore how to manage your webcam and audio devices in XSplit Gamecaster.

Selecting Your Webcam

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To select your webcam from the drop down menu, simply navigate to the "Devices" tab in the XSplit Gamecaster settings window. If you do not see your desired device listed here, it is possible that you are using a capture card or a camera that does not register as a webcam or UVC class device in Windows. In this case, you will have to manually manage it as a source in your scene.

Manual Webcam Settings

---------------------

If you wish to manually tweak the resolution and color formats of your webcam, you can click on the gear icon to do so. This is only available for certain devices, but XSplit will do its best to manage these settings automatically for you as an example of these manual settings with the Logitech C920 specifically, you can change the output size to 720 or 1280 by 720 or 1920 by 1080. Keep in mind that the color space / compression options change based on resolution, so for this webcam, for example, you can use YUYV - an uncompressed higher-quality option at the default 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second.

Choosing Your Resolution and Compression Options

------------------------------------------------

This is generally fine for most people, but it does require more CPU usage than YUI 2 and can be of lower quality technically. There is a trade-off to make with this, and generally speaking, if you only really use your webcam for a small face cam over top of gameplay, I actually recommend leaving it at a lower resolution that way you can use YUI 2. However, if you spend a lot of time on stream with your face cam set to full screen chatting with your viewers on stream, then the higher resolution mode might be a better choice.

Understanding Your Webcam's Limitations

--------------------------------------

It is worth noting that all of the available USB webcams have a smaller sensor than even your smartphone, and their true native resolutions are much lower than you know 1080p or 720p. So bigger numbers doesn't always magically equal better. This is all you need to worry about in this device's tab of settings.

Switching Between Capture Modes

------------------------------

In the bottom left-hand corner of the main XSplit Gamecaster window, there are two icons - a camera and that of a laptop. Clicking on the laptop icon lets you change the game capture mode of Gamecaster between capturing PC games on the same PC that GameKassar is running on via software, and an external capture card source.

Choosing Your Capture Card Source

---------------------------------

By choosing the capture card source, you can then select your capture card for use. If you choose this single PC option, you can then choose between display capture for any monitors on your PC or specifically looking for Windows or apps to capture as well. Alternatively, you can leave it on any game which will just wait to detect 3D game hooks when a game has launched.

Switching Between Multiple Webcam Sources

-----------------------------------------

Clicking the camera icon simply gives you a quick toggle for switching between multiple webcam detected devices. It is handy to have quick access to that here.

Creating a Custom Scene

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If you wish to make a custom scene instead of using one from a theme provided by XSplit, with your webcam already added, you can add it there too. Simply click Edit scene on the preview, then add widget -> sources and camera source if you accidentally delete your gameplay source from your scene, you can add this here as well.

XSplit Master Class

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XSplit also offers a master class that includes cool graphics to enhance your stream, such as avatars, logos, alerts, transitions, and layouts. You can preview them in real-time, and they are easy to use. Go to API Fox Audrey /o W in 3D Link in the description check them out and upgrade your stream today.

Microphone and Speakers

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Make sure that you have selected a microphone and speakers in the XSplit Gamecaster settings window.

Conclusion

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By following these steps, you should now be comfortable managing your audio and video devices in XSplit Gamecaster. You are ready to move on to our next video and start tackling streaming and recording settings available in that playlist link in the description down below while you're there hit subscribe for more tech education, click click that subscribe button for more tech education and stream guides. Consider sharing this course with a friend I'm Evil Socks your stream professor and I'll see you next time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm a postbox and welcome back to my xsplit master class sponsored by xsplit in the previous episode I introduced you to the software and its UI and explained how this course works here's a hint check the description for time codes and links to all of the full episodes in this course as I've probably already answered any questions that you may have in those videos go check them out in this video I'll show you how to manage your audio and video devices audio interfaces webcams and capture cards if you want to download xsplit for yourself and haven't already consider using my affiliate link it's in the description below and it will let them know that I sent you and encourage you them to you know continue supporting free tech education just like this course are you ready to take ultimate control over your live stream but you're not sure how the elgato stream deck is the key to unlocking your full potential with your choice of six fifteen or thirty two keys all with customizable screens behind them and unlimited possibilities to nest make folders and pages to control your live stream with scene switching muting your microphone activating your igano key lights and setting up multi actions to do everything at once start your stream turn on your lights tweet your stream you can do anything you'd be a fool not to have this in your setup you don't want to be a fool do you check it out via the link below and tell them the stream professor sent you first let's talk about your audio interfaces or mixers these will be either connected by USB something like the focusrite scarlett 2i2 bérenger 204 HD or the go XLR or connected to your computer's 3.5 millimeter line in Jack as is the case with many analog mixers or perhaps you have a gaming headset connected directly to your mic jack on your computer or connected by USB these will all show up in your windows sound control panel differently depending on your device a USB interface or microphone will show up as something like yo XLR chat mic or blue Yeti etc a 3.5 millimeter analog device may just show up as something like real tech microphone or even just microphone it's important that you check your Windows settings and make sure that you know what devices you are looking for before trying to set it up in explicate castle because if you get there you're gonna be real confused as to why you're not getting any audio if you had the wrong device in mind thankfully webcams and video devices are easier they're all USB or PCIe and they show up as the name you'd recognize I've got o HD 60s logitech c920 and so on let's jump into xsplit gamecaster now click that settings cog in the bottom right hand corner and select the devices section if your windows default audio settings are correct you can just leave this on default speakers and default microphone but it's generally a good idea to manually specify what should be used under system audio select your audio output device your headphones your speaker's the system audio track on your go XLR wherever you will be routing your game sound and other sounds playback sample music or game sound and watch the audio meters bounce that way you make sure you have the right device selected you want your audio to peak around halfway up the bar to 75% of the bar keep in mind this needs to balance with your microphone you don't want it overpowering your mic nor clipping by reaching a hundred percent but you also don't want it to be too quiet your viewers do want to hear your game if it's too loud too high up the bar use the slider to lower volume levels that being said if your game sound or system sound is plenty loud enough in your headphones but showing up its super quiet and xsplit for some reason then you can check the box next to system audio boosts and crank that as high up as 300 keep in mind the big important factor in audio balance is to test test and test more to make sure you have the right audio levels and don't just wing it and go live before check do some test recordings and make sure it sounds great before starting to broadcast next is your microphone again choose your microphone device from the list and try balancing the levels again if you need more volume for the mic check microphone boost and crank it up to 11 if you have a lot of background noise in your microphone you can check the remove background noise box this applies a basic noise removal filter to your microphone this can be handy if you can't do anything else to reduce noise but it's worth noting that great microphone sound is 95% about physics and technique of microphone usage placement of the microphone speaking levels sound treatment and control of your environment I have an entire video diving into the ways you can improve your audio quality based purely on the physics of how sound works linked in the video description if you want to learn more lastly in this menu is of course your webcam if you're looking to add a capture card will show that later timecode on screen for that in the doobly-do select your webcam from the drop down menu if you do not see your desired device here it is possible you're using a capture card or a camera that doesn't register as a webcam or UVC class device in Windows if that is the case you'll have to manually manage it as a source in your scene once selected if you wish to manually tweak the resolution and color formats of your webcam you can click the gear icon to do so if available for your device but xsplit will do its best to manage these settings automatically for you as an example of these manual settings with the Logitech c920 specifically you can change the output size that's 720 or 1280 by 720 or 1920 by 1080 keep in mind the color space / compression options change based on resolution so for this webcam for example you can use yuy - an uncompressed higher-quality option at the default 640 by 480 at 30 frames per second but if you change the resolution to 720p or 1080p they only get 5 frames per second unless you switched to h.264 compression mode this is generally fine for most people but it does require more CPU usage - - code than Yui 2 and can be of lower quality technically there is a trade-off to make with this generally speaking if you only really use your webcam for a small face cam overtop of gameplay I actually recommend leaving it at a lower resolution that way you can use Yui 2 but if you spend a lot of time on stream with your face cam set to full screen chatting with your viewers on stream then the higher resolution mode might be a better choice just keep in mind that all of the available USB webcams have a smaller sensor than even your smartphone and their true native resolutions are much lower than you know 1080p or 720p so bigger numbers doesn't always magically equal better this is all you need to worry about in this devices tab of settings so once you're happy with your setup feel free to close this window there's another section where you can change the vise options as well this is important for those of you adding capture cards for game consoles or duel PC setups to in the bottom left-hand corner of the main xsplit gamecaster window are two icons a camera and that of a laptop clicking the laptop icon lets you change the game capture mode of gamecaster between capturing PC games on the same PC that game Kassar is running on via software game capture and an external capture card source you can switch these at basically any time and this will just swap in place your game capture source but just pretty cool by choosing the capture card source you're able to then select your capture card for use if you choose this single PC option you can then choose between display capture for any monitors on your PC or specifically looking for Windows or apps to capture as well or you can leave it on any game which will just wait to detect 3d game hooks when a game has launched if the any game option is not detecting your game you may need to manually select your game from the list of running apps instead clicking the camera icon simply gives you a quick toggle for switching between multiple webcam detected devices it's handy to have quick access to that here xsplit makes it easy to manage your camera and webcam sources so they're always assigned to the right devices if you wish to make a custom scene instead of using one from a theme provided you know by xsplit with the webcam already added you can add it there too simply click Edit scene on the preview then add widget' sources and camera source if you accidentally delete your gameplay source from your scene you can add this here as well this xsplit master class is also brought to you by owned owned has lots of cool graphics you want your stream to have that Wow where'd you get that effect own stream designs can do that for you you got avatars you got logos you've got alerts you've got sticker transitions you've got layouts you can preview them in real time they're really cool and you can fully customize them and they're easy to use go to APIs Fox Audrey /o W in 3d link in the description check them out and upgrade your stream today microphone and speakers check webcam check capture card or PC game capture check with all of this covered hopefully you you're now comfortable managing your audio and video devices in xsplit gamecaster and you're ready to you know move on to our next video and start tackling streaming and recording settings available in that playlist link in the description down below while you're down there hit subscribe for more tech education you know click click that subscribe button for more tech education and stream guides you know what you're doing maybe hit the like button as well consider sharing this course with a friend I'm evil socks your stream professor and I'll see you next timeI'm a postbox and welcome back to my xsplit master class sponsored by xsplit in the previous episode I introduced you to the software and its UI and explained how this course works here's a hint check the description for time codes and links to all of the full episodes in this course as I've probably already answered any questions that you may have in those videos go check them out in this video I'll show you how to manage your audio and video devices audio interfaces webcams and capture cards if you want to download xsplit for yourself and haven't already consider using my affiliate link it's in the description below and it will let them know that I sent you and encourage you them to you know continue supporting free tech education just like this course are you ready to take ultimate control over your live stream but you're not sure how the elgato stream deck is the key to unlocking your full potential with your choice of six fifteen or thirty two keys all with customizable screens behind them and unlimited possibilities to nest make folders and pages to control your live stream with scene switching muting your microphone activating your igano key lights and setting up multi actions to do everything at once start your stream turn on your lights tweet your stream you can do anything you'd be a fool not to have this in your setup you don't want to be a fool do you check it out via the link below and tell them the stream professor sent you first let's talk about your audio interfaces or mixers these will be either connected by USB something like the focusrite scarlett 2i2 bérenger 204 HD or the go XLR or connected to your computer's 3.5 millimeter line in Jack as is the case with many analog mixers or perhaps you have a gaming headset connected directly to your mic jack on your computer or connected by USB these will all show up in your windows sound control panel differently depending on your device a USB interface or microphone will show up as something like yo XLR chat mic or blue Yeti etc a 3.5 millimeter analog device may just show up as something like real tech microphone or even just microphone it's important that you check your Windows settings and make sure that you know what devices you are looking for before trying to set it up in explicate castle because if you get there you're gonna be real confused as to why you're not getting any audio if you had the wrong device in mind thankfully webcams and video devices are easier they're all USB or PCIe and they show up as the name you'd recognize I've got o HD 60s logitech c920 and so on let's jump into xsplit gamecaster now click that settings cog in the bottom right hand corner and select the devices section if your windows default audio settings are correct you can just leave this on default speakers and default microphone but it's generally a good idea to manually specify what should be used under system audio select your audio output device your headphones your speaker's the system audio track on your go XLR wherever you will be routing your game sound and other sounds playback sample music or game sound and watch the audio meters bounce that way you make sure you have the right device selected you want your audio to peak around halfway up the bar to 75% of the bar keep in mind this needs to balance with your microphone you don't want it overpowering your mic nor clipping by reaching a hundred percent but you also don't want it to be too quiet your viewers do want to hear your game if it's too loud too high up the bar use the slider to lower volume levels that being said if your game sound or system sound is plenty loud enough in your headphones but showing up its super quiet and xsplit for some reason then you can check the box next to system audio boosts and crank that as high up as 300 keep in mind the big important factor in audio balance is to test test and test more to make sure you have the right audio levels and don't just wing it and go live before check do some test recordings and make sure it sounds great before starting to broadcast next is your microphone again choose your microphone device from the list and try balancing the levels again if you need more volume for the mic check microphone boost and crank it up to 11 if you have a lot of background noise in your microphone you can check the remove background noise box this applies a basic noise removal filter to your microphone this can be handy if you can't do anything else to reduce noise but it's worth noting that great microphone sound is 95% about physics and technique of microphone usage placement of the microphone speaking levels sound treatment and control of your environment I have an entire video diving into the ways you can improve your audio quality based purely on the physics of how sound works linked in the video description if you want to learn more lastly in this menu is of course your webcam if you're looking to add a capture card will show that later timecode on screen for that in the doobly-do select your webcam from the drop down menu if you do not see your desired device here it is possible you're using a capture card or a camera that doesn't register as a webcam or UVC class device in Windows if that is the case you'll have to manually manage it as a source in your scene once selected if you wish to manually tweak the resolution and color formats of your webcam you can click the gear icon to do so if available for your device but xsplit will do its best to manage these settings automatically for you as an example of these manual settings with the Logitech c920 specifically you can change the output size that's 720 or 1280 by 720 or 1920 by 1080 keep in mind the color space / compression options change based on resolution so for this webcam for example you can use yuy - an uncompressed higher-quality option at the default 640 by 480 at 30 frames per second but if you change the resolution to 720p or 1080p they only get 5 frames per second unless you switched to h.264 compression mode this is generally fine for most people but it does require more CPU usage - - code than Yui 2 and can be of lower quality technically there is a trade-off to make with this generally speaking if you only really use your webcam for a small face cam overtop of gameplay I actually recommend leaving it at a lower resolution that way you can use Yui 2 but if you spend a lot of time on stream with your face cam set to full screen chatting with your viewers on stream then the higher resolution mode might be a better choice just keep in mind that all of the available USB webcams have a smaller sensor than even your smartphone and their true native resolutions are much lower than you know 1080p or 720p so bigger numbers doesn't always magically equal better this is all you need to worry about in this devices tab of settings so once you're happy with your setup feel free to close this window there's another section where you can change the vise options as well this is important for those of you adding capture cards for game consoles or duel PC setups to in the bottom left-hand corner of the main xsplit gamecaster window are two icons a camera and that of a laptop clicking the laptop icon lets you change the game capture mode of gamecaster between capturing PC games on the same PC that game Kassar is running on via software game capture and an external capture card source you can switch these at basically any time and this will just swap in place your game capture source but just pretty cool by choosing the capture card source you're able to then select your capture card for use if you choose this single PC option you can then choose between display capture for any monitors on your PC or specifically looking for Windows or apps to capture as well or you can leave it on any game which will just wait to detect 3d game hooks when a game has launched if the any game option is not detecting your game you may need to manually select your game from the list of running apps instead clicking the camera icon simply gives you a quick toggle for switching between multiple webcam detected devices it's handy to have quick access to that here xsplit makes it easy to manage your camera and webcam sources so they're always assigned to the right devices if you wish to make a custom scene instead of using one from a theme provided you know by xsplit with the webcam already added you can add it there too simply click Edit scene on the preview then add widget' sources and camera source if you accidentally delete your gameplay source from your scene you can add this here as well this xsplit master class is also brought to you by owned owned has lots of cool graphics you want your stream to have that Wow where'd you get that effect own stream designs can do that for you you got avatars you got logos you've got alerts you've got sticker transitions you've got layouts you can preview them in real time they're really cool and you can fully customize them and they're easy to use go to APIs Fox Audrey /o W in 3d link in the description check them out and upgrade your stream today microphone and speakers check webcam check capture card or PC game capture check with all of this covered hopefully you you're now comfortable managing your audio and video devices in xsplit gamecaster and you're ready to you know move on to our next video and start tackling streaming and recording settings available in that playlist link in the description down below while you're down there hit subscribe for more tech education you know click click that subscribe button for more tech education and stream guides you know what you're doing maybe hit the like button as well consider sharing this course with a friend I'm evil socks your stream professor and I'll see you next time\n"