How to exclude sound capture from some applications without using VoiceMeeter?

[orangedeal]

Leave only games, Discord and the microphone for capture. Everything else, such as browsers and players (Foobar2000 and Media Player Classic) should be excluded. Is it possible?

If this cannot be done without a Virtual Cable and VoiceMeeter, then please explain how to make sure that only applications that are not demanding on delay - players and browsers - go through VoiceMeeter. Because now I only understood how to run everything through VoiceMeeter, make it the main sound source, and the players work directly. All applications by default work through it, and only those applications in which I select my sound card as an output, and not the VM, work bypassing the VM and are not captured by the OBS. But it's not right.

Running games through VoiceMeeter is a bad idea, because with all the tricks, the sound delay will still be, and on some systems, when it is reduced, clicks and crackles occur, and if now I can set the delay to 2560 samples, instead of 7168, then I have no confidence that when I switch to Windows 11 and generally upgrade the hardware, I will be able to achieve the same. But even at 2560 there is a delay, albeit a little noticeable. In addition, not all games can allow to choose the sound output in the settings of the game itself, and I can't do it even through the Windows sound settings - this is ignored.

 

[koala]

The key to excluding sound sources is to not include them in the first place. That means, one should try to capture sound sources directly from where they originate, not capture sources that contain mixed audio streams originating from several distinct audio sources. "Desktop Audio", usually your speakers, is such a mixed source: in its default functionality, it contains a mix of all audio sources on the system. So avoid capturing that.

OBS offers a "Application audio capture" audio source. Most apps can directly be captured with this source type, so try this for your apps. The big exception are browser-based apps, because from the computer's point of view, the browser is the app as a whole, not one tab within the browser. So if you want to capture Discord with this kind of capture source, for example, use the standalone Discord app, not the browser app.

If the application audio capture source doesn't work for your apps, you can configure many apps to define the Windows audio device they're sending their audio to. Usually, they send it to the "default" Windows audio device, which is speakers, or headphones if connected. To capture these apps, you can install a virtual audio device and configure the apps to send their audio to that device. With OBS, configure this virtual audio device as one of the global audio devices in settings->audio. To still hear in your speakers or headphones what your app is sending to the virtual audio device, activate monitoring for this source in OBS or activate the "Listen to this device" setting in the legacy Windows audio configuration applet for the recording device part of your virtual audio device and point it to your speakers or wherever you want to duplicate audio to, see https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/126383-listen-microphone-through-playback-device-windows.html

 

[orangedeal]

Thanks for the answer! The game I'm interested in is Fallout 4 (I suspect this is how all Creation Engine games work). I am unable to configure OBS to capture the audio stream only from this game. And now I checked again - the game ignores the output settings in the Windows sound settings and there I can only adjust the volume.

But do I understand correctly that it is possible to make such games and Discord able to play sound directly and OBS capture their sound as general (Desktop Audio), but Foobar2000 and MPC-HC (they have the ability to select audio output in the settings) to play through VoiceMeeter?

I now found that I can not find the option to capture a specific audio stream in OBS. I have Windows 10 1909 (yes, I still haven't updated) but plan to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 11 from scratch in the next month. Is this the case? OBS version 29.1.2.

I'll keep trying, but I suspect it's useless before moving to Windows 11 because Win10 1909 is too old.

 

[koala]

Always use the most current version of a software with all updates and patches, including the operating system.