How to Tune Your Streaming PC Encoder in 2026

Encoder choice and bitrate are still the two settings that move visible quality on stream — and the right answers in 2026 are different from two years ago.

For Twitch, AV1 is now eligible across most regions and uses about 30% less bitrate for the same visual quality. If you’re on RTX 40+ (Nvidia), Arc, or RX 7000+ (AMD), turn it on. Older hardware: NVENC HEVC at 6,000 kbps for 1080p60 is the strongest fallback.

For YouTube, set bitrate to 8,000-9,000 kbps at 1080p60 with a 2-second keyframe interval. Going above 9,000 has diminishing returns. Most streamers’ biggest mistake is leaving the encoder preset at ‘fast’ — bump to ‘quality’ or ‘p7’ once and forget.