How to Record Gameplay in 4K with OBS Studio

Recording your gameplay in 4K resolution ensures your videos look incredibly sharp and professional. This guide provides a straightforward, step-by-step walkthrough on how to configure OBS Studio’s video, output, and encoder settings to capture high-quality 4K footage without sacrificing game performance.

Step 1: Adjust the Video Settings

To record in 4K, you must first configure your canvas and output resolutions within OBS Studio.

  1. Open OBS Studio and click on Settings in the bottom-right corner.
  2. Select the Video tab from the left sidebar.
  3. Set Base (Canvas) Resolution to 3840x2160 (this is the resolution of your game/monitor).
  4. Set Output (Scaled) Resolution to 3840x2160 to ensure no downscaling occurs.
  5. Set the Common FPS Values to 60 for smooth gameplay playback.

Step 2: Configure Recording Settings

Next, you need to set up the recording format and choose the right encoder to handle the heavy workload of 4K rendering.

  1. Navigate to the Output tab in the Settings menu.
  2. Change the Output Mode at the top from Simple to Advanced.
  3. Click on the Recording tab.
  4. Set your Recording Path to a fast storage drive (ideally an NVMe SSD), as 4K files are very large.
  5. Set Recording Format to mkv or fragmented mp4 (these formats prevent file corruption if OBS crashes).
  6. Select your Video Encoder. For 4K, it is highly recommended to use hardware encoders to offload the work from your CPU:
    • NVIDIA GPUs: Select NVIDIA NVENC H.264 or NVIDIA NVENC HEVC (HEVC/H.265 is more efficient for 4K). If you have an RTX 40-series card, select AV1.
    • AMD GPUs: Select AMD HW H.264, HEVC, or AV1.

Step 3: Set Encoder Settings for High Quality

Because you are recording locally and not streaming, you should use quality-based rate control rather than a constant bitrate (CBR).

  1. Set Rate Control to CQP (Constant QP) or CRF (Constant Rate Factor).
  2. Set the CQ Level (or CRF value) between 15 and 20. A lower number means higher quality but larger file sizes. A value of 18 is the sweet spot for 4K.
  3. If your hardware forces you to use CBR, set the Bitrate to at least 45,000 Kbps to 60,000 Kbps for 4K 60fps.
  4. Set the Keyframe Interval to 2 s.
  5. Set the Preset to Quality (or P5/P6 on newer NVIDIA cards).
  6. Set Profile to high.
  7. Keep Lookahead and Psycho Visual Tuning checked.

Click Apply and OK to save your settings. Your OBS Studio is now optimized to capture gameplay in native 4K resolution.