How to Clear OBS Studio Shader Cache

Visual glitches, stuttering, or rendering bugs in OBS Studio are often caused by corrupted or outdated shader caches. This guide provides a direct, step-by-step walkthrough to manually locate and clear both the OBS Studio browser source cache and the Windows DirectX shader cache to resolve these visual anomalies and restore peak performance.

Step 1: Close OBS Studio Completely

Before deleting any cache files, ensure that OBS Studio is not running in the background. Close the application and check your system tray or Task Manager to confirm that all OBS processes have fully terminated.

Step 2: Clear the OBS Browser Source Cache

Many visual bugs, especially with overlays, alerts, and web sources, stem from the OBS browser plugin cache.

  1. Press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
  2. Type %appdata%\obs-studio\plugin_config\obs-browser and press Enter.
  3. In the folder that opens, locate the folders named Cache and GPUCache.
  4. Select both folders, right-click, and choose Delete (or press Shift + Delete to permanently delete them).

Step 3: Clear the Windows DirectX Shader Cache

Since OBS Studio relies heavily on DirectX for rendering scenes and game captures, clearing the system-level DirectX shader cache can resolve deeper rendering issues.

  1. Press the Windows Key, type Disk Cleanup, and press Enter.
  2. Select your main system drive (typically C:) and click OK.
  3. In the list of files to delete, scroll down and check the box next to DirectX Shader Cache. You can uncheck other boxes if you only wish to clear the shader cache.
  4. Click OK, then click Delete Files to confirm.

Step 4: Restart Your Computer and OBS

Once the files are deleted, restart your computer. This forces Windows and OBS Studio to generate fresh, uncorrupted shader files the next time you launch the software and load your scenes.