How to fix black screen in OBS when recording display on Windows 10
Open Broadcaster Software is a popular app. Despite being free, it is feature rich and used by a lot of professional streamers. The app still gets regular updates and as of a recent update, it seems a lot of users are getting a black screen in OBS when they try to record their display. This is a pretty common problem and there are a few things you can do to fix it for good.
Disable Compatibility mode
OBS is a desktop app and desktop apps can be forced to run in compatibility mode for when they aren’t playing nice with Windows 10. This latest version of the app works fine with Windows 10 and doesn’t need to be run in compatibility mode even if older versions did.
To disable compatibility mode for OBS, right-click the shortcut that you use to launch it. From the context menu select Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab and disable the ‘Run this program in compatibility mode for’ option.
Use Integrated Graphics
This applies if you have an Nvidia GPU. Right-click on an empty area on your desktop and select Nvidia Control Panel from the context menu. From the column on the left, select ‘Manage 3D Settings’. Go to the Program Settings tab.
Open the ‘Select a program to customize’ dropdown and select OBS. If you can’t find OBS in the list, click the Add button next to the dropdown and select the app’s EXE.
Next, open the ‘Select the preferred graphics processor for this program’ dropdown and select ‘Integrated graphics’. Click Apply.
While this is a problem that users with Nvidia GPUs are experiencing, it is possible that users who have an AMD GPU experience it as well. If you’re running an AMD GPU, what you need to do is open the AMD Catalyst Center or the AMD Control Center by right-clicking on an empty area on your desktop and selecting it from the context menu.
From there, find settings that allow you to set which graphics card an app is allowed to use. In the event you can’t find the setting, and you’re running the Windows 10 1803 build (or later), you can set the graphics card that OBS can use from the Settings app.
Run as Admin
Finally, when you run OBS, right-click it and select Run as administrator from the context menu. When you next try to record your display with OBS, you will be able to do so without any sort of black screen.
