OBS Studio 31.0 Introduces NVIDIA Background Blur and Enhanced NVENC Features

OBS Studio version 31.0 has begun its public beta testing phase, providing users with a powerful, open-source, cross-platform, and free solution for video recording and live streaming, compatible with Linux, macOS, and Windows.

This latest release of OBS Studio introduces a range of new features, including a NVIDIA Blur Filter and Background Blur, new preview scrollbars, v210 format support for AJA device capturing, integration with the Amazon IVS service, QSV AV1 screen content coding, and enhanced support for first-party YouTube Chat functionalities.

Linux users will notice several specific updates in the forthcoming version of OBS Studio. These include enhanced screensaver inhibit functionalities when using OBS Studio as a Flatpak application, improved QSV encoder performance, a change in Display and Window capture sources to prevent implicit capturing, the disabling of the built-in Automatic Scene Switcher function on Wayland, and the discontinuation of support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

The new version also aims to automatically separate the NVIDIA Audio Effects from Noise Suppression, ensuring a smooth transition for existing filters. Additionally, a reworked NVENC implementation is included, featuring split encoding, a Target Quality VBR mode (CQVBR), and a custom options field that permits the setting of advanced options that do not require dedicated UI elements. The update will also include B-Frames as reference frames.

In the upcoming major release of OBS Studio, users can look forward to several significant changes. A new warning message will appear for the Window Capture source when attempting to capture WinUI 3 applications using BitBlt. Additionally, macOS users will benefit from improved error messages for the Virtual Camera feature, while support for NVIDIA Kepler GPUs in the NVENC implementation has been removed. Scene items will also be adapted to use relative coordinates.

With OBS Studio version 31.0, there will be an update to the code signing certificate, which could affect game capture compatibility with certain anti-cheat solutions. Furthermore, users can anticipate a variety of bug fixes aimed at enhancing existing features and ensuring that OBS Studio operates more reliably and stably. For additional information, you can view the release notes.

The first public beta of OBS Studio 31.0 is now available for download from the project’s GitHub page, offering ready-to-use binaries for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, as well as Windows and macOS systems. Please remember that this version is a pre-release, so it is advisable not to use it in production environments.

Last updated 2 hours ago