OBS Studio 32.0 has been released. The update sees this streaming and screen recording stable gain a nifty new plugin manager, change a few of its default settings and expand its support for NVIDIA RTX effects.
The new plugin manager is described as “basic” because it is: it shows a list of installed plugins with a checkbox to enable/disable, but ‘Browse’ and ‘Update’ options are greyed out (those options being there suggests it will be possible to find and install plugins in OBS directly).
OBS Studio 3.20 increases the default bitrate from 2500 to 6000 Kbps.
The old value was decided upon a decade ago, and expectations in quality have shifted. OBS’ devs note that “…a lot of users who use OBS for recording don’t touch the default settings and end up with a 2.5 mbps recording which looks terrible”.
Users with NVIDIA RTX GPUs gain Voice Activity Detection (VAD) for RTX Audio Effects, which the release notes say improves noise suppression for speech and optimises other NVIDIA effects. Plus, the RTX Background Removal now has a “chair removal” option.
Hybrid MP4/MOV is now the default recording format for new profiles, having been (successfully) trialled in beta previously. New default settings have been applied for AMD encoders to improve ‘perceptual quality for AVC/HEVC/AV1’.
On Linux, OBS Studio 32.0 improves PipeWire video capture by adjusting the render technique used to capture screen sources. The pull request has detail on why users on Linux saw gamma/brightness issues when adding effects.
Other notable changes in OBS Studio 32.0:
- Opt-in automatic crash log upload (Windows and macOS)
- Experimental Metal renderer on Apple Silicon Macs
- Audio deduplication logic improved across nested scenes, etc
--disable-shutdown-checklaunch flag removed- Plugins built for newer versions of OBS Studio are no longer loaded
Beyond that, there is are an array of bug fixes to resolve various errors, crashes, missing chapter markers, plugin issues and so on – many issues rather specific to certain setups or situations.
Though a modest update compared to the OBS Studio 31.1 release from July, OBS Studio 32.0 refines and extends what already works, while the new plugin manager (and some other new widget additions) lay foundations for bigger changes still to come.
How to Install OBS Studio 32.0
OBS Studio is free, open-source software for Windows, macOS and Linux. Download the latest version for Windows, macOS or Linux from the OBS Project website or from GitHub (a DEB for Ubuntu/Linux Mint is linked in the assets section).
On Linux, there is also the OBS Studio from Flathub — an official, verified Flatpak maintained by the OBS Project themselves, who consider it to the ‘recommended’ way to install OBS Studio on Linux.
There’s also an official OBS Project PPA providing this, and future updates via more traditional packaging methods. The PPA supports Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and above (but not, as of writing, Ubuntu 25.10 as it’s yet to be released).
To install OBS Studio from the PPA, first add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
Then, install OBS Studio using apt:
sudo apt install obs-studio
Finally, there is an unofficial OBS Studio snap, a modified build with other changes, including a handful of AI plugins, filters, and other tweaks. The Snap is not officially supported by OBS Studio, and any issues with it should be reported to the Snapcrafters team.