Build Simpler Scenes
OBS Studio allows you to build wildly complex scenes and make scene collections as large as you want. However, more complexity comes at a price. Every source requires some amount of resources to be shown in the scene. Most sources will also require some resources even if they aren't visible. This is to allow smoother transitions between scenes in the same scene collection, among other benefits.
If your scenes get very complex or your scene collections become too large, OBS Studio may require more resources than your system can spare while doing other things, like gaming. Fortunately, this can be remedied by following a few practices, which we'll go over below:
Limit Your Sources
Limiting the usage of expensive (hard to run) sources can be very beneficial for performance.
- Use lower resolutions in Video Capture Sources, or lower resolution media files in Media Sources
- For example: you do not need to display 4K video if you're not recording/streaming in 4K, or if the Source is scaled down
- Use several smaller resolution media files or Browser Sources and place them where they need to be
- Browser and Media Sources that take up the entire Base (Canvas) Resolution (usually 1080p) with, empty spaces use a lot of resources
Reduce Filters
Filters can let you do all sorts of cool stuff: color adjustments, image masking, image sharpening, render delays, and more! However, filters, like everything else, require some resources to compute and render their effects. In fact, some filters can be pretty resource hungry.
- Try disabling some filters
- If this improves performance, consider removing that filter
- Apply filters to the smallest possible sources rather than to sources (such as entire scenes)
- If you don't want to remove any filters, consider deactivating sources with lots of filters when they are not needed
Reduce Browser Sources
Web browsers are amazingly complex feats of software engineering, able to render text, images, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, and animations, and they can play audio, video, and even games. However, they can be very resource intensive.
This also applies for the Browser Source, which is often used to display stream chats, custom animations, overlays, and many other things. Using a lot of browser sources in a scene (or scene collection) can use a lot of system resources which can have a significant performance impact.
- Try to reduce the number of Browser Sources that you use
- Reduce Browser Sources' width and height to the minimum required size
- If you have static assets (non-animated overlays), try other source types
- For images, use an Image Source
- For video or audio files, use Media Source or VLC Source
- Some stream overlays, such as tip jars, often employ complex JavaScript to simulate physics. These can have a large performance impact. Try disabling these overlays to see if performance improves
Keep Scene Collections Small and Focused
OBS Studio uses Scene Collections to organize scenes. You don't need to keep every single scene you'll ever use in the same scene collection. If you find OBS performance is not as snappy as it was when you first started, consider splitting your scene collection up into multiple scene collections.
- Create new Scene Collections from the Scene Collection menu at the top of the OBS Studio window
- You can also duplicate your current Scene Collection, then remove the scenes you don't need on a per-collection basis
