Best OBS Settings for Recording on PC [2025]

In this tutorial, I'll be sharing with you the exact settings to utilize to produce high-quality, 1080p, 60 frames per second using OBS Studio. The settings that you're using matter if you want your videos to be high-quality. 

If you're new here, be sure to check out The Streamer Academy where I help you start and build your stream. There are tons of free resources for you to utilize to help grow your stream.

Adjusting Your Video Settings

The first thing you're going to do once you have OBS Studio up and running is to go to settings in the bottom-right corner and start with the 'Video' tab. 

For both the 'Base (Canvas) Resolution' and the 'Output (Scaled) Resolution', you'll want these to be set to '1920x1080'. 

Then, you'll want the 'Common FPS Values' to be set to '60'. 

Adjusting Your Output Settings

Next, we'll go to the 'Output' settings and then into the 'Recording' tab. 

By default, the 'Output Mode' is going to be set to 'Simple', but you're going to want to change this to 'Advanced'. This is where we're really going to start to customize the settings. 

The first thing to do here is to decide on your 'Recording Path'. I would encourage you to get either an internal SSD or an external SSD dedicated to your recordings. 

For the 'Recording Format', be sure you select 'Matroska Video (.mkv)'. You do not want to select '.mp4' here because if OBS were to crash, you're going to lose your recording. However, with the '.mkv' file, you'll be able to recover the recording and pick up from where you left off. This is super important. 

A bit later on, we'll get into how you can get OBS to automatically convert this into a '.mp4' file when you're done recording so that you can import it into your editing software. 

When it comes to the 'Video Encoder', I would recommend selecting 'NVIDIA NVENC H.264'. If you have a lower-end PC and don't have this option available, select 'x264' instead. 

For the 'Audio Encoder', leave this as is at 'FFmpeg AAC'. 

With the 'Audio Track', you want to make sure that you're not using the same track that you use for streaming (if you are also streaming). If you aren't streaming, you can go ahead and use the first audio track. 

Staying in the 'Output' settings, switch over to the 'Audio' tab. Here, you'll want to make sure that the audio track you're using for recording is set to '320'. You do not want to leave this at '160' as that's good for streaming because anytime you stream to a different platform, it will compress your audio anyway. For recording, you want the highest-quality audio. 

Now, we can go back over to the 'Recording' tab. 

For the 'Recording Output', you can leave this set to 'Disabled'. 

Adjusting Your Encoder Settings

The biggest thing that matters is going to be the 'Encoder Settings'. 

The first thing we'll look at here is the 'Rate Control'. We'll switch this from 'Constant Bitrate' to 'Constant QP'. Then, for the 'Constant QP', you'll want to set this to '16'. 

For the 'Keyframe Intervals', you'll want this set to '2 s'. 

When it comes to the 'Preset' settings, you can sort of adjust this, but if you want the best quality, then you'll want this set to 'P7: Slowest (Best Quality). 

If you do a test recording and you see some lagging, then you're going to want to go ahead and lower this to maybe 'P4: Medium (Medium Quality)'. The closer you get to P1, the fewer resources it will take up on your computer, and the higher you are to P7, the more resources it will take up. 

For 'Tuning', you'll want to have this set to 'High Quality'. 

'Multipass Mode' should be at 'Two Passes (Quarter Resolution)'. 

The 'Profile' should be set to 'High'. 

You're going to want to uncheck 'Look-ahead', but you'll leave 'Adaptive Quantization' checked. 

Then, 'B-Frames' should be set to '2'. 

Now, you're going to want to press 'Apply', but we're not done quite yet. 

Adjusting Your Advanced Settings

Next, go back into settings and go to 'Advanced. 

This is where you'll be able to have your '.mkv' files automatically download as a '.mp4' file. 

To do this, you'll need to check 'Automatically Remux to mp4'. 

This means that you'll be getting the benefits of the mkv file. If OBS crashes, you can recover the recording while still having the recording be downloaded as an mp4 file that's a lot easier to upload to YouTube or into your editing software. 

Once you've selected this, press 'Apply' and you're all set to record. 

If you want to be able to stream using OBS Studio, these are not the settings that you'll want to utilize. Those settings are very different and require different resources to utilize. If you want to have the best settings for streaming, be sure to check out this video here. In it, I'll show you all the best settings to use to get a high-quality stream.