Setting Up 4K Streams

CI.ME 4K streaming needs a 3840 x 2160 display at 60 or 120 Hz, 25,000-35,000 kbps NVENC output, and a symmetrical 500 Mbps line, with 1 Gbps recommended.

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Overview

CI.ME supports streaming in up to 4K UHD (2160p) resolution.

To stream in 4K, your display, OBS settings, PC hardware, and network connection should all be set up to support 4K streaming.

1. Set Up Your Display

Before setting up OBS, connect a 4K monitor and configure your display settings as follows:

Setting	Recommended Value
Resolution	3840 × 2160
Refresh Rate	60 Hz or 120 Hz

For the best experience, we recommend using a refresh rate that is a multiple of 60 Hz, such as 60 Hz or 120 Hz. Using refresh rates like 144 Hz may result in inconsistent frame pacing and can affect stream smoothness or stability.

Keep in mind that OBS currently supports a maximum streaming frame rate of 60 FPS. Higher monitor refresh rates improve your local viewing and gameplay experience but do not increase the stream frame rate.

For 4K gaming at very high refresh rates, we recommend using a modern high-performance GPU.

2. Create an OBS Profile

We recommend creating a dedicated OBS profile for 4K streaming.

Step	Action
1	Open OPS
2	Go to [Profile] → [New]
3	Create a new profile (for example, CI.ME 4K)

3. Set Up Stream Settings

In OBS, navigate to: [Settings] → [Stream]. Then enter the following information:

Setting	Value
Service	Custom
Server	4K Server URL provided by CI.ME Studio
Stream Key	Stream Key provided by CI.ME Studio

4. Output Settings

In OBS, go to [Settings] → [Output], then change Output Mode to Advanced and set up the following settings.

4-1. Streaming Settings

Setting	Recommended Value
Audio Track	1
Audio Encoder	AAC
Video Encoder	NVIDIA NVENC H.264

4-2. Encoding Settings

Use the following settings as a baseline for 4K streaming:

Setting	Value
Rescale Output	Off, 3840 × 2160
Rate Control	Constant Bitrate (CBR)
Keyframe Interval	1 second

The settings below are recommended for high-end streaming PCs. Depending on your hardware performance and network conditions, you may need to lower some settings to maintain a stable stream.

Setting	Recommended Value
Video Bitrate	28,000-32,000 kbps
Preset	P6
Tuning	High Quality
Multipass Mode	Two Passes (Quarter Resolution)
Profile	High
Look-ahead	On
Psycho Visual Tuning	Off
B-frames	0-2

Use the following guidelines when choosing your bitrate.

• For Just Chatting streams or content primarily featuring 2D virtual avatars, we recommend starting at 25,000 kbps or higher. At this bitrate, most streamers can achieve excellent image quality while maintaining stable low-latency streaming performance.

• If your system struggles with 4K virtual avatar rendering or other demanding workloads, consider using 25,000–28,000 kbps. This range provides a good balance between visual quality, stream stability, and encoding performance for a variety of content, including gaming streams.

• If your PC has sufficient performance headroom, we recommend 32,000 kbps for the best overall quality. For streamers aiming for maximum image quality, CI.ME supports bitrates of up to 35,000 kbps. We encourage you to test different settings and find the bitrate that works best for your hardware, network connection, and content.

If you experience performance or stability issues, we recommend applying the settings below before increasing your bitrate further.

Setting	Recommended Value
Video Bitrate	25,000 kbps
Preset	P5
Tuning	High Quality
Multipass Mode	Single Pass
Profile	High
Look-ahead	Off
Psycho Visual Tuning	Off
B-frames	0

For the best 4K streaming experience, we recommend a symmetrical 1 Gbps internet connection. At a minimum, a symmetrical 500 Mbps connection is required for stable 4K streaming.

4-3. Audio Bitrate

Set the audio bitrate to 320 kbps.

5. Audio Settings

In OBS, go to [Settings] → [Audio] and set up the following settings:

Settings	Recommended Value
Sample Rate	48 kHz
Channels	Stereo

6. Video Settings

In OBS, go to [Settings] → [Video] and set up the following settings:

Settings	Recommended Value
Base (Canvas) Resolution	3840 × 2160
Output (Scaled) Resolution	3840 × 2160
Downscale Filter	Not required when both resolutions match
Common FPS Values	60

7. Troubleshooting Audio/Video Sync Issues

If your audio and video appear out of sync, try the recommendations below.

7-1. General Sync Adjustments

Setting	Recommended Adjustment
B-frames	Set to 0
Look-ahead	Off
Audio Sync	Adjust the microphone sync offset in OBS

• If you experience audio/video sync issues, we recommend setting B-frames to 0 and disabling Look-ahead in your OBS encoder settings. Reducing these encoder features can lower encoding latency and help improve synchronization between audio and video.

7-2. When Your Virtual Avatar's Lip Sync Is Off

• If your PC is under heavy load or your virtual avatar requires significant rendering resources, avatar rendering may lag slightly behind your audio. When this happens, your avatar's mouth movements may not match your voice perfectly.

• To correct this, try adjusting your microphone's Sync Offset in OBS.

7-3. Adjusting Sync Offset

• In this case, you can adjust the Sync Offset to slightly delay your microphone audio and better align your avatar's mouth movements with your voice.

• Navigate to [Audio Mixer] → [Microphone] → [More Options (⋯)] → [Advanced Audio Properties], then gradually increase the value under [Microphone Sync Offset]. (Recommended starting range: 50–100 ms)

8. Optimizing In-Game Graphics Settings

Graphics settings play an important role in the overall quality of your 4K stream.

However, setting every graphics option to the maximum can significantly increase GPU usage, which may affect stream stability, frame rates, or encoding performance. We recommend finding the right balance between visual quality and streaming performance.

1. Start with your game's graphics settings set to Medium or higher, then perform a test stream.

2. Monitor your stream in OBS and check for dropped frames, encoding lag, or performance issues.

3. If your stream remains stable, gradually increase settings that have the greatest visual impact, such as:

   • Texture Quality

   • Lighting and Shadow Quality

   • Object and Environment Detail

4. If you experience performance issues, consider lowering or limiting settings that place a heavy load on your system, including:

   • Ray Tracing

   • Advanced Shadows or Global Illumination

   • Aggressive Anti-Aliasing Settings

Keep in mind that lowering game graphics settings too aggressively may reduce the visual benefits of streaming in 4K, even when broadcasting at a 4K resolution.

Rather than targeting the lowest settings required to maintain gameplay performance, we recommend optimizing your settings for the highest visual quality that can be streamed consistently and reliably.

9. 4K Streaming on Lower-End PCs

9-1. Adjusting Virtual Avatar Rendering by Content Type

Mode	Recommendation
Just Chatting	High avatar rendering resolution (3840 × 2160)
Gaming	Lower avatar rendering resolution (1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720)

Separating Gaming Mode and Just Chatting Mode and adjusting your virtual avatar’s rendering resolution for each mode can help lower-end PCs handle 4K streaming more effectively.

For Just Chatting, you can set your virtual avatar’s rendering resolution to 3840 × 2160 to maximize visual quality and presence on stream. During Gaming Mode, system load increases significantly. Before starting a game stream, we recommend lowering your avatar’s rendering resolution to 1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720.

Once you're finished gaming and switch back to Just Chatting, you can increase the avatar rendering resolution back to 3840 × 2160 for the best visual quality.

9-2. Adjusting Virtual Avatar Settings

When streaming games, reducing avatar physics effects such as hair, clothing, and particle effects can help improve overall performance.

In some VTuber applications, real-time physics calculations can place a significant load on your GPU and may impact stream performance.

9-3. Using Upscaling

If your system cannot comfortably handle native 4K rendering, you may want to consider streaming at 1440p with 4K upscaling.

For example, if your PC performance is limited or your monitor only supports resolutions up to 2560 × 1440, you can render both your virtual avatar and game at 2560 × 1440, then use OBS to upscale the stream output to 3840 × 2160 (4K).

For the best image quality, we recommend using the Lanczos scaling filter in OBS.

While this approach is not true native 4K, streaming at a higher bitrate with a 4K output can still provide noticeably sharper image quality than a typical 1080p 8,000 kbps stream.

In practice, many streamers find that a well-configured 1440p-to-4K upscale can achieve approximately 80–90% of the visual quality of native 4K, while requiring significantly less system performance.

Update: 7/06/26

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