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Before streaming it'd be best to assess what you currently have; depending on what you have you may be limited in the quality of your streams and the games you can stream. All you truly need is;

1. A Decent GPU

2. A Decent CPU

3. A Good Quality Microphone*

(unless you intend on doing silent streams or simply have music while you play)

4.) At Least 4Gb of RAM

(This is the standard amount of RAM for the average gamer)

5.) Decent Internet Connection

Upload/Downlod

The Software requirements you need will vary from software/game to software/game. The first thing you need to decide on is, "what do you want to use to stream with." There are quite a number of streaming programs you may use but all have their own ups and downs. Xsplit is a pretty decent beginner program but it is a major CPU hog. I recommend using a program known as Open Broadcaster Software (a.k.a OBS). It takes up less CPU meaning your games get a better frame rate, the quality is better (audio and video), and all features are free and has been said will continue to be free. It does take a bit of time to adjust to if you are learning how to use OBS for the first time; but after a little while of messing around with OBS you will get it. It truly depends on the person. There is in fact other software out there that you could possibly use, but Xsplit and OBS are the only ones I have tried out so far and are the only ones I can recommend to you at the moment. Also on a second note I have in fact bought a license for paid features of Xsplit, there was little difference between streams other than a better audio codec meaning better sound quality. But again this truly depends, a lot of streamers do use Xsplit premium edition and they still have great streams. But their secret is, they have top of the line PC builds and top of the line internet connections; so to simply put it, most of you future streamers out there will not be able to stream at their quality nor close to their quality with Xsplit. OBS on the otherhand, has plain out better quality, sound wise and graphics wise. The reason for this is, is that when you download the best available audio codec is already available to you, and OBS also takes less CPU usage (as mention before) allowing you to safely up the quality a bit without worsening your FPS rate.

System Requirements for well-known software will be edited in at a later time

At this time there does seem to be some incompatibilities with OBS and some graphics cards/integrated graphics cards. I don't exactly know the cause of this but just to be safe, get a friend or a viewer to tell you how the stream looks to make sure no problems do arise.

Now you are ready to stream, but first you must create you accounts and set it up properly. The website I use (as well as many others) is Twitch.tv. I have not used any other streaming website nor have I thought of making a switch. Twitch.tv does what I need it to and does it quite well and if not decently.Once you have created the account you wish to stream with you can either begin streaming and skip the rest of the paragraph, or you continue reading and learn how to set up the bit-rate of your live stream. There are multiple ways to configure your bit-rates

the rest of the information will be edited in at a later time

A good live stream is made up of a good streamer, a good video, and (sometimes) a good fan-base. You have the basics of a good video so now all you need is to become a good streamer and the good fan-base will eventually come along. The qualities of a good stream can be thought of like this

1.) Good Voice/Music

2.) Interesting Personality

3.) Connects with Viewers

4.) Fun

5.) Reliable

Here we'll go in depth into the basics of a good Live-streamer.

Voice/Music - Most/Nobody wants to listen to squeaky voice of a 12 year old boy (most stream websites have the age minimum at 13 anyway) so if you're 12 and under or if you are 13/14 and your voice is still maturing I'd wait a bit until you begin live streaming. Also nobody wants to hear you blowing into your mic, or a lot of feedback from your mic. This will lose you a potential regular viewer/follower. If you don't intend on talking and instead playing music then you'll want to play music that both you and your viewers would definitely like, that way you can at least retain a few viewers.

Personality/Fun - Everyone on websites like Twitch, watch your live stream for entertainment. Unless you're playing an extremely interesting game that no one else has a boring personality will get you no-where. I'm not saying create a fake personality just for streaming or anything, I'm simply saying you should have the type of personality that can keep a crowd watching for a couple of hours.

Connects with Viewers - This doesn't apply to some people but others it does. Viewers love to talk to the streamer, and the easiest way to talk to a viewer is by connecting to them, understanding them. all it takes is to respond to them, have conversations, include them in your gameplay, etc.

Reliable - Unless you're an extremely good streamer, most viewers won't know when to watch you if you aren't reliable. It is recommended to set up a specific times to stream at (A.K.A a schedule) so your loyal viewers of yours know when to stop by to say hi and such.

There are a couple different routes you can take with your stream:

The Single-Player Route - this is where you only play single player games and chat/chill with viewers while providing commentary. This route is best if you wish to have a truly loyal fanbase, most of the streamers that have gone this route gain a large amount of dedicated viewers quite rapidly as long as the personality of the streamer is favorable.

The Multi-Player Route - This is where you play multi-player games in which viewers can join if they wish but can simply talk in chat and watch you. This route is a simple route, it's great for getting easy follows/views but it is a bit hard when it comes to gaining dedicated viewers. Every once in a while you may find some but they are rare finds.

Or

The Giveaway/Competition Route - This is where you constantly do giveaways and/or competitions in which viewers can compete for some type of prize. (I do not recommend this route because you get viewers that only come in for giveaways, not loyal follower. This means that once the giveaways stop you mean lose the giveaway hungry followers.

The next thing you will want to do is set up a easy to access/find rules list. This will be absolutely necessary when it comes to enforcing the chat in order to prevent content that you rather would not see in your stream chats/streams. They are rather quite easy to set up just think of what you don't like when it comes to stream chats and viewers chatting/playing with you. And you simply write them down. REMEBER, keep the rules fair, nobody likes a stream where everything that they do is against the rules in some way. Viewers do need some freedom.

After the rules have been set up what you'll be wanting to do is gather a small number of trusted viewers/friend to become moderators on your chat. They will be necessary when it comes to enforcing your rules because as a streamer you can't pay attention to the stream at all times of the stream. Some of these moderators should even help you if you decide to greet your viewers upon arrival in stream.

The final thing you could do in your stream chat is get a bot. A bot is litterally a bot, an AI I guess you could say. Their only purpose is to make streaming easier for you, helping when it comes to moderating chat and depending on what type of bot you'd have they might even help you with giveaways, giving server ips, and etc.