If you use OBS to record video or stream to Twitch, chances are you're using H.264. H.264 is everywhere; if you're streaming a show from Netflix or another service, it's probably H.264. H.264 is basically the JPEG of video. While far more efficient and better quality compression methods are now available, it's hard to get rid of such a well-established format. However, streaming video is starting to make it happen with an open source codec called AV1. Netflix has been dabbling with this codec for several years, and now OBS Studio version 29.0 natively supports AV1 encoding on AMD and Intel GPUs native support for AV1 encoding on AMD and Intel GPUs.

This is an exciting step, but not one that is immediately available. There are two basic types of video encoding: software (completely CPU-dependent and very CPU-intensive) and hardware (uses the GPU to accelerate the encoding process). Hardware encoding is faster, more efficient, and never uses 100% of the CPU. However, it is also generally of lower quality.

AV1 has the advantage of looking much better than H.264 at lower bitrates, which is especially useful for streaming on Twitch where bandwidth is limited. This new version of OBS adds support for AV1 encoding for a few specific GPUs: AMD's RX7000 series and Intel's Arc cards. in November, OBS added support for Nvidia cards, but with the new encoder It was only for the 4000 series GPUs. Those with older Nvidia cards, sadly, cannot take advantage of this.

However, if you have a newer AMD GPU, you can try AV1 encoding; a recent video from Linus Tech Tips outlines the pros and cons of AV1 and makes the case for such a cheap Intel Arc GPU dedicated to video encoding (new tab ) dedicated to video encoding.

There are several other additions and improvements in the patch notes.

Features

Tweaks and improvements

Bug fixes [15]