Universal OBS Studio Setup for Any Laptop or PC (Video and Audio)

Two problems come up all the time when recording your screen with OBS Studio: the video is either heavy or blurry, and the microphone picks up background noise and a constant hum. Below is the setup I use on my own laptop, plus notes on what to change for other machines.

My machine

OS: Debian (GNOME)
GPU: NVIDIA (which is why I use the NVENC encoder)
Screen: 1366×768
Microphones: the laptop's built-in mic and a headset mic

1. The overall profile

Setting	Value
Canvas (Base)	1366×768
Output (Scaled)	1920×1080
FPS	30
Downscale Filter	Lanczos
Encoder	NVIDIA NVENC H.264
Rate Control	CQP
CQ Level	20
Keyframe Interval	2
Preset	Quality
Profile	High
Look-ahead	Off
Psycho Visual Tuning	Off
B-frames	2
Recording Format	MKV
Audio	48 kHz / 192 Kbps

2. Video settings

Settings → Video

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Base (Canvas) Resolution:   1366×768
Output (Scaled) Resolution: 1920×1080
Downscale Filter:           Lanczos
Common FPS Values:          30

My laptop's screen is 1366×768, so the canvas stays at that value. If your screen is different, set the canvas to match your own screen resolution. Output at 1920×1080 saves the video in Full HD. The Lanczos filter keeps text and thin lines sharper when scaling up, which matters a lot for coding tutorials.

3. Recording and encoder settings

Settings → Output → Output Mode: Advanced → Recording

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Type:                 Standard
Recording Format:     MKV
Encoder:              NVIDIA NVENC H.264
Rate Control:         CQP
CQ Level:             20
Keyframe Interval:    2 s
Preset:               Quality
Profile:              High
Look-ahead:           Off
Psycho Visual Tuning: Off
B-frames:             2

Why these values:

CQP keeps the quality constant. The file stays small when little is moving on screen and grows only when needed.
CQ 20 is a good balance between quality and file size.
Look-ahead and Psycho Visual Tuning are off because they add extra GPU load. Turning them off helps avoid dropped frames on my laptop.
MKV keeps your recording safe if the PC shuts down or OBS crashes. With MP4 the file can end up corrupted.
Keyframe 2 lets video editors seek quickly through the footage.

To convert MKV to MP4 afterwards: File → Remux Recordings. It does not re-encode, so there is no quality loss.

4. Audio settings

Settings → Audio

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Sample Rate: 48 kHz

Settings → Output → Audio

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Audio Track 1 Bitrate: 192 Kbps

48 kHz is the standard sample rate for video, and 192 Kbps is plenty for speech and music.

5. Microphone: removing background noise and hum

My laptop's built-in mic captures my voice together with heavy background noise. The headset mic is cleaner, but a low hum remains. The problem is not OBS itself but noise getting into the mic signal, and filters can reduce it a lot.

Audio Mixer → Mic/Aux → ⚙️ → Filters → +

5.1. Noise Suppression

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Method: RNNoise

Very effective against constant background noise. Add this one first.

5.2. Expander

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Ratio:       3:1
Threshold:   -40 dB
Attack:      5 ms
Release:     100 ms
Output Gain: 0 dB

Lowers the mic while you are not speaking, so the noise between sentences drops too.

5.3. Compressor

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Ratio:       3:1
Threshold:   -18 dB
Attack:      6 ms
Release:     60 ms
Output Gain: 0 dB

Evens out your volume, so the gap between quiet and loud parts of your speech gets smaller.

5.4. Limiter

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Threshold: -1 dB
Release:   60 ms

Prevents clipping (crackling distortion) when you suddenly get loud.

Filter order

The order matters. From top to bottom:

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Mic/Aux
   ↓
Noise Suppression
   ↓
Expander
   ↓
Compressor
   ↓
Limiter

6. If you have a powerful computer

The values above are chosen to fit my laptop's capabilities. If your machine is more powerful (a modern NVIDIA GPU, enough RAM and a fast SSD), you can raise them:

Setting	Default	For powerful PCs
FPS	30	60
Output	1920×1080	2560×1440 or 3840×2160
CQ Level	20	16-18 (lower number = higher quality, bigger file)
Look-ahead	Off	On
Psycho Visual Tuning	Off	On
Audio bitrate	192 Kbps	256-320 Kbps

Note: higher values put more load on the GPU and disk and produce larger files. After changing them, make a 1-2 minute test recording and check that no frames are dropped (watch Dropped Frames and the CPU/GPU indicators at the bottom of OBS).

7. If you don't have an NVIDIA GPU

NVENC only works on NVIDIA graphics cards, and that is what I use. If yours is different, pick the matching option in the Encoder list:

AMD or Intel (Linux): VAAPI H.264
AMD (Windows): AMD HW H.264 (AMF)
Intel (Windows): QuickSync H.264
No dedicated GPU or an old PC: x264 (CPU-based, uses more processor power)

Everything else (canvas/output, FPS, MKV, audio filters) stays the same.

Summary

With this setup I get Full HD, 30 FPS recordings with clean audio and reasonable file sizes. Start with this profile, and if your computer handles it comfortably, raise the values from section 6 step by step.