How to Set Up OBS Studio: The Best Streaming Settings in 2026

The Short Version: Settings to Start From

If you only want the numbers, these are sane defaults for a single gaming PC streaming 1080p. Each one is explained further down.

Latest OBS Version and What Changed

The current stable release is OBS Studio 32.2.2, published August 14, 2026. OBS 33.0 is in public beta. If you are following an older tutorial, these are the changes that make menus look different or break old advice (from the official release notes):

Stay on the stable build for anything you stream live. Betas are for testing, and the 33.0 plugin folder change means some third-party plugins need updating anyway.

Download and Install OBS Studio

Get OBS only from obsproject.com/download — it is free and open source, and “OBS downloads” on other sites are a common malware route. The download page lists what 32.2.2 supports:

• Windows: Windows 10 and 11. Run the installer, accept the defaults, launch.
• macOS: macOS 13 or newer, with separate Apple Silicon and Intel builds. On first launch allow Screen Recording, Camera and Microphone access in System Settings → Privacy & Security, or your captures stay black and silent.
• Linux: the official Flatpak, or the PPA for Ubuntu 24.04 and newer.

NVIDIA users: since 32.2, NVENC needs driver 570 or newer. If the NVENC options are missing or OBS says it failed to open the encoder, update the driver first. To update OBS itself later, use Help → Check for Updates.

Want built-in alerts, themes or a simpler interface instead? Our OBS Studio alternatives guide compares Streamlabs, Meld, XSplit and the rest, and the streaming software directory lists every option we track.

Run the Auto-Configuration Wizard

The wizard opens on first launch. To run it again: Tools → Auto-Configuration Wizard. It has four screens:

1. Usage Information. Pick “Optimize for streaming, recording is secondary”. The other choices are “Optimize just for recording, I will not be streaming” and “I will only be using the virtual camera”.
2. Video Settings. Base resolution: your monitor. FPS: “Either 60 or 30, but prefer 60 when possible” for games, or “prefer high resolution” for slides and art.
3. Stream Information. Choose the service, then Connect Account (recommended) or Use Stream Key. Tick Prefer hardware encoding and Estimate bitrate with bandwidth test. On Twitch you also get the option to test Enhanced Broadcasting.
4. Final Results. Review the streaming encoder, bitrate and scaled resolution, then click Apply Settings.

Settings → Stream: Service and Stream Key

Settings → Stream tells OBS where to send video. For Twitch and YouTube, use Connect Account: no key to copy, and you get chat and stream info docks inside OBS. For Kick, TikTok and anything not in the list, choose Custom… and paste the server URL and stream key the platform gives you.

Platform walkthroughs with the rest of the setup (titles, categories, moderation): streaming on Kick, going live on YouTube and going live on TikTok from OBS. TikTok is the awkward one: LIVE needs 18+ and 1,000 followers (TikTok says this varies by region), and the stream key for PC software is granted to fewer accounts still. If you never see one, TikTok LIVE Studio is the official way in on Windows.

Leave Ignore streaming service setting recommendations unticked. With it off, OBS keeps you inside the service's limits — its built-in Twitch profile, for example, caps video at 6,000 kbps and sets a 2-second keyframe. And never show this settings page on stream: anyone with your key can broadcast to your channel. If it leaks, reset it in the platform dashboard.

Settings → Output: Encoder, Bitrate, Keyframes

Switch Output Mode to Advanced so every field is visible, then open the Streaming tab.

• Video Encoder: a hardware encoder on a single PC (table below).
• Rate Control: CBR. Twitch, YouTube and Kick all ask for constant bitrate; variable bitrate spikes during action scenes and causes buffering for viewers.
• Bitrate: the platform's number or about 75% of your stable upload speed, whichever is lower.
• Keyframe Interval: type 2. The field reads “0 = auto”; set it explicitly, since all three major platforms specify 2 seconds (YouTube: never above 4).
• Audio: in the Audio tab, set Track 1's Audio Bitrate to 160 kbps — Twitch's maximum.

Which encoder to pick

Hardware encoders use a dedicated chip on the GPU, so the game barely notices. Twitch's broadcasting guidelines put NVENC on RTX 20-series and newer ahead of x264 Fast and level with x264 medium — at a fraction of the CPU cost. If NVENC shows “too many concurrent sessions”, close ShadowPlay or Game DVR.

Per-platform limits (as of September 2026)

Sources: Twitch's broadcasting guidelines, YouTube's live encoder settings, Kick's streaming help article. TikTok publishes eligibility rules but no encoder table.

Full bitrate tables by resolution and frame rate — including 720p, 1440p, 4K and AV1 — live in our bitrate and encoder settings cheat sheet. If your upload is below roughly 8 Mbps, a clean 720p60 at 4,500 kbps looks better than a starved 1080p.

Settings → Video: Resolution, Scaling, FPS

• Base (Canvas) Resolution: your monitor's native resolution, so captures are 1:1 and nothing needs resizing in the preview.
• Output (Scaled) Resolution: what viewers receive. 1920×1080 on Twitch, Kick and most YouTube streams; 1280×720 on a weak upload or older GPU. Kick tops out at 1080p.
• Downscale Filter: only active when base and output differ. Bicubic is the balanced pick; Lanczos is sharper but costs more GPU time; Bilinear is fastest and blurry.
• Common FPS Values: 60 for games and anything with fast motion, 30 for talk, art or slides. 60 fps needs more bitrate for the same sharpness.

With Enhanced Broadcasting on, Twitch recommends setting base and output to the same value — 1920×1080 or 1280×720 at 60 fps — for the most efficient GPU use. On a 1440p monitor streaming to Kick or standard Twitch, keep the base at 2560×1440 and scale the output to 1920×1080.

Settings → Audio and Mic Filters

In Settings → Audio → General, set Sample Rate to 48 kHz and Channels to Stereo. 48 kHz works on every platform here (Kick caps at 48 kHz; YouTube suggests 44.1 kHz for stereo if it is your only destination), and Enhanced Broadcasting refuses some other channel layouts. Under Global Audio Devices, pick your headset or speakers for Desktop Audio and your microphone for Mic/Auxiliary Audio.

Since 32.1 the Audio Mixer defaults to a vertical layout and lets you pin sources so they always show. Speak at your normal streaming volume and aim for peaks in the yellow, never red.

The mic filter chain, in order

Right-click the mic in the Sources dock or the Audio Mixer → Filters, then add these with the + under Audio Filters. Order matters: OBS processes them top to bottom.

A quiet mic can take a Gain filter at the top of the chain. To have game audio duck when you talk, put a Compressor on Desktop Audio with your mic as the Sidechain/Ducking Source; OBS suggests starting at Ratio 32:1, Threshold −36 dB, Attack 100 ms, Release 600 ms.

Scenes and Sources: How to Use OBS Studio Day to Day

The main window has five docks: Scenes (your layouts), Sources (what is in the selected layout), Audio Mixer, Scene Transitions and Controls (Start Streaming, Start Recording, Studio Mode, Settings). A scene is a layout; a source is one thing inside it. Sources higher in the list sit on top.

Click + in the Sources dock. Since 32.2 that opens an Add Source dialog where you pick a type, then either Create New or reuse an existing source — reuse your webcam and mic instead of adding them again in every scene.

• Game Capture (Windows only): hooks a game directly; the fastest way to capture fullscreen games.
• Display Capture / macOS Screen Capture and Window Capture: a whole monitor or one app.
• Video Capture Device: webcams and capture cards. For consoles, see our capture card picks.
• Browser: alerts, chat boxes and widgets from a URL. Each one costs resources, so keep them few and sized to what they show.
• Image, Media Source and Text: overlays, intro videos, labels.

A working set is five scenes: Starting Soon, Main (game or screen plus webcam), Just Chatting (camera large), BRB and Ending. Turn on Studio Mode to edit a scene in the preview while the live one keeps running, and assign scene and mute hotkeys in Settings → Hotkeys.

Recording Settings: Hybrid MP4, MKV and Remux

In Settings → Output → Recording, set the Recording Path to a drive with space and pick a Recording Format:

• Hybrid MP4 — the default for new profiles since OBS 32.0. It is written in fragments, so it stays recoverable after a crash or power cut, then finalized to open like a normal MP4 in editors. It also supports chapter markers from the “Add chapter marker” hotkey.
• MKV — also crash-safe and still the most compatible pick for multiple audio tracks. Convert with File → Remux Recordings, or enable automatic remuxing under Settings → Advanced → Recording.
• Plain MP4 — OBS itself warns it is unrecoverable if the file cannot be finalized. Avoid it.

Recordings do not need CBR. A quality-based mode (Constant QP on NVENC and AMD, CRF on x264) keeps quality steady and lets the file size float; OBS's defaults are 20–23, and lower numbers mean better quality and bigger files. To see what a bitrate means in gigabytes per hour before you fill a drive, use our recording size calculator.

Dropped vs Skipped vs Missed Frames

Open Docks → Stats during a test stream. OBS reports three different kinds of lost frames, and each has a different cause — lowering bitrate fixes only the first.

On Twitch, if dropped frames persist, OBS's own troubleshooting advice is to test with Enhanced Broadcasting off or with Maximum Streaming Bandwidth set below your measured upload. For a deeper list of network, Windows and game-side fixes, see stream optimization tips.

Vertical, Dual-Format and Multistreaming

Twitch Dual Format sends a horizontal and a vertical stream at once, and Twitch says it is open to all streamers. In OBS it runs on Enhanced Broadcasting plus the Aitum Vertical plugin: install the plugin, tick Enhanced Broadcasting under Multitrack Video in Settings → Stream, set Additional Canvas to Aitum Vertical, build your vertical scenes in its dock, and press the normal Start Streaming button — one click sends both. Our dual-format vertical video guide covers layout and safe areas.

For TikTok from OBS, the simplest route is a separate profile and scene collection with a portrait canvas (Profile and Scene Collection menus), so your landscape Twitch setup stays untouched. To send one OBS stream to several platforms at once, you need either a relay service or a plugin — both are compared in how to multistream and our multistreaming services list. Check each platform's rules on simultaneous streaming before you do.