Did you setup correctly the OBS Studio? Are you already started your streaming career, but OBS not capturing game? OBS Studio is one of the best streaming and recording software, however sometimes some problem may come along, like showing black screen, or an encoder error. In this quick tutorial, we solve the problem of not capturing game. It’s a common problem, especially, when you’re playing many games, using other softwares or you get a new graphics card.
There are some common solution that you can do, before we dive into the specific ones. You should go and check out our “Black Screen” article and get back, if those are not helped you. But let’s start with the most important ones.
1. Check These First
As we mentioned there are some basic solution that you can start with. These solutions is based on OBS and your system, whether your using OBS on Windows 10 or Windows 11. Most of the time these ones are enough to capture the game in OBS.
1.1 Update Windows, OBS and Drivers
If you’re currently updated your Windows, OBS or Drivers there’s some chance, that you downloaded a version which caused your problems. Companies always updating their hardwares, Windows comes up new and new features, and OBS trying to patch some things, however in these updates, may some conflict can happen. Therefore the obs not capturing game.
Let’s go ahead your Windows and click on update. Find your AMD or NVIDIA software, and search for the newest updates. Not least, after you opened OBS go ahead to Help and Check For Updates.
1.2 Run as Administrator
If you’re changed the OBS installation path, or you’re using Windows as a simple user, permissions can cause the problems. Because OBS cannot reach the game, or run appropriately, because the permission it cannot capture your current running game.
Exit OBS, also you can restart your computer, and after a right-click to the icon, choose “Run as Administrator” option.
1.3 OBS Graphics Preference
This solution is mostly for notebook users, but those who have two graphics card, can find useful. The fix is based on the fact, that the OBS want to use the weaker card, but it can happen, that some conflict exists between the two card. Go ahead to the Graphics Settings in your computer.
Click on Browse and OBS Studio, and choose “High Performance”. On the picture, there’s only one graphics card is listed, but you can find “Integrated” or the other card as well.
After you click on Save, the settings are done.
Not least, let’s restart your computer before you try to capturing game again.
2. Exit Other Recording Tools
If you’re using other recording tools as well, there’s a chance that they can zone out each other. Maybe you can’t see, but the other one is also running in the background, and ready to start capturing the game. Or using the same instances, for recording and OBS cannot work properly. For that let’s go and uninstall the other one. Don’t worry, you can use for anything OBS, even for a simple recording.
3. Play in Window Mode Rather Fullscreen
There will be a point, where you can see the common problems with games, and especially in CS:GO and Destiny 2, there’s a chance that because you’re playing in Fullscreen OBS can’t record it. It happens, when the two program is fighting for the first position on your screen. The games mostly doing that for prevent any cheating, but with that our OBS not capturing game.
In the game go to the settings option, and find “Video” or “Graphics” settings. Here you’ll find the option to play in Windows Mode under the “Display Mode”. Click on WIndowed, or Window mode, and restart your game, OBS, even your computer to make sure this is your solution.
4. Common Problems With Games
There are many games out there, but OBS collected the most famous ones, where not capturing can happen. Most of the times, you can see, this is because you didn’t run the game as an administrator, or because the window/fullscreen conflict.
Let’s check out what are the known issues with games:
| Game | Solution |
| Fortnite | If you experience crashes or framerate issues in DX12 mode, switch to DX11 mode |
| League of Legends | Create two scenes. In the first scene, add a Window Capture of the LoL launcher/lobby. In the second scene, run the game to add a Game Capture of the game itself. Finally, configure the Scene Switcher to automatically swap between them. |
| Minecraft | For laptops and all-in-one computers, you should change the OBS graphics preference |
| Valorant | Run OBS Studio as administrator |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) | Use windowed/borderless fullscreen or use Window Capture |
| Destiny 2 | Use windowed/borderless fullscreen and Window Capture instead of Game Capture |
| Call of Duty | Run OBS Studio as administrator |
5. Reinstall OBS, Driver, Windows
The heading order is valid, after everything you tried, the last step is to reinstall OBS, Driver or Windows. Firstly you should reinstall OBS, because, that’s where the main problem is occuring. You can also export your scenes, so don’t worry about it. Behind this solution is that some OBS plugin, can cause the not capturing problem.
If the OBS reinstallation not helped, the next one is the Graphics Driver. If you’re currently bought a new graphics card, especially If it’s not the previous brand, like you switch from AMD to NVIDIA.
After nothing helped, you should reinstall your operating system. Because sometimes, even with the proper uninstallation, maybe some leftover graphics files or code in the registry, that causing the problem, which you can only solve with full reinstallation.
Did you solved the problem or not? Ask your comment below! Do you have a different solution that helped you? Share them in the comments!
