OBS Game-Only Audio: 2026 Ultimate Setup Guide

You’re in the middle of a flawless run. The boss goes down, the music swells, and you land the perfect kill. Then you stop the recording, scrub through the timeline, and hear it: your keyboard clacking loudly over the final blow, or worse, the neighbor’s dog barking during the intro. It’s a frustration that kills the vibe more often than any boss.

If you’ve been typing "how to get obs to only record game audio" into your browser repeatedly, you’re not alone. The default setup in OBS Studio captures everything—every notification, every whisper, and every system chime—because it’s designed for live streams where context matters. But for clean gameplay footage, that’s noise.

The good news? You don’t need complex third-party drivers or paid software to fix this anymore. Modern versions of OBS have native tools to isolate specific application audio. In this guide, we’ll move past the basic "mute your mic" advice and look at how to engineer a setup that captures only what your game engine outputs. Whether you’re on Windows, Mac, or Linux, I’ll walk you through the specific configurations, the pitfalls I’ve encountered over the last few years of testing, and how to keep your desktop audio free while your game audio stays pure.

Method 1: Using Native Application Audio Capture

For most Windows users, the cleanest way to achieve this is using the Application Audio Capture source. This feature allows OBS to target a specific process ID (PID) rather than grabbing the entire system output. Think of it like pointing a microphone directly at a band on stage instead of hanging it in the corner of the room; you get the music, not the ambient hum of the bar.

Step 1: Adding the Game as an Audio Source

Before you start recording, launch your game. This is crucial because the capture window needs the process to be active to identify it.

1. In OBS, click the + icon under the Sources panel.
2. Select Application Audio Capture (it may be labeled as BETA in some builds, but it’s stable enough for production use in 2026).
3. Name the source something clear, like "Game Audio," and click OK.
4. In the configuration window, ensure the mode is set to "Window."
5. From the dropdown menu, select your running game’s executable file (e.g., eldenring.exe).
6. Click OK.

Once added, you’ll see the source in your scene. If you play a quick test clip in the game, you should see a green meter bouncing on this new source while the "Desktop Audio" meter remains relatively flat (unless you’re playing other music).

Step 2: Isolating Audio in the Sound Mixer

Now we need to clean up the remaining input channels. The goal is to have the "Game Audio" source as the only active input.

In the Audio Mixer at the bottom of the OBS screen, you will typically see:

• Desktop Audio: Mute this. This removes all system sounds, notifications, and any other applications playing audio.
• Mic/Aux: Mute this. This ensures your microphone input is completely excluded from the recording track.
• Game Audio: Unmute this and adjust the volume fader.

I usually set the game audio fader to a level where the meter peaks into the yellow but doesn’t hit the red zone. If you’re playing a quiet atmospheric game, you might need to boost this source to 80-90% volume. If you’re playing Doom, keep it lower to avoid clipping. The key here is that we are decoupling the game’s sound from the rest of your PC, giving you a dedicated channel that is impossible to accidentally "leak" with system noise.

Method 2: The Legacy Way to Mute Microphone

Not everyone can use the Application Audio Capture feature. If you are on an older OS version, or if your game runs in full-screen exclusive mode that interferes with process detection, you might need to fall back on traditional muting methods. This approach is less elegant but still highly effective for "mute microphone in obs while recording game" scenarios.

Adjusting Global Audio Devices

The most robust legacy method is removing the hardware inputs at the source level.

1. Go to Settings > Audio.
2. Under Global Audio Devices, change Mic/Aux to None.
3. Leave Desktop Audio set to Default (or your specific output device).
4. Click Apply and OK.

By setting the global mic to None, you ensure that no scene can ever accidentally pick up your microphone. This is a "hard" block. However, the downside is that you lose the ability to quickly toggle your mic on for a voice chat session without changing settings back. It’s a trade-off between safety and flexibility.

Note: If you use this method, remember that "Desktop Audio" will still capture all system sounds. If you open a browser and play a YouTube video while recording a game, that video’s audio will be in your recording. This is why Method 1 is superior for advanced users.

Using Scene Items to Lock Audio

If you want to keep your mic source available but inactive for your game scenes, you can manage this via scene items.

1. Create a specific scene for "Gameplay."
2. In this scene, do not add your microphone source.
3. Alternatively, if you already have the mic in the scene, right-click it and select Hide.

Hiding the item removes it from the video overlay (if it’s a webcam) and, more importantly for audio, prevents it from being processed in that specific scene. If you switch to a "Streaming" scene where you have your mic and webcam, those sources become active again. This is the most flexible "legacy" approach. It allows you to have a master setup with everything on, and a "clean" setup for pure gameplay, just by switching scenes.

Platform-Specific Fixes: Mac & Linux Users

The Windows-native tools don’t always translate directly to Mac or Linux. For these platforms, "set obs to capture game audio only" often requires virtual audio routing because the operating systems handle audio streams differently.

Mac: Handling CoreAudio and BlackHole

On macOS, OBS cannot natively "grab" the audio of a specific app the same way it can on Windows. The Desktop Audio input on Mac is essentially "System Output," meaning it catches everything. To isolate game audio, you need to route that game’s audio to a virtual driver.

1. Install a Virtual Driver: The standard in the Mac audio community is BlackHole (free, open-source) or Loopback (paid, more user-friendly). BlackHole 2ch is usually sufficient for stereo game audio.
2. Route the Game: On macOS 12 and later, you can use the built-in Audio MIDI Setup to create an "Aggregate Device" or a "Multi-Output Device." However, the most reliable method is to set your system default output to BlackHole, while monitoring it through your headphones.
3. Configure OBS:
   • Add an Audio Input Capture source.
   • Select BlackHole 2ch as the input device.
   • This will now only capture audio sent to the BlackHole virtual device.

Critical Warning: When you route your audio to BlackHole, you will not hear it by default. You must also route BlackHole to your physical output (headphones/speakers) in Audio MIDI Setup to hear it in real-time. If you don’t, you’ll record your game while thinking it’s silent.

Linux: ALSA and PulseAudio Routing

Linux offers the most control but the most complexity. PulseAudio or PipeWire allows you to bind specific applications to specific sinks.

1. PulseAudio/PipeWire Approach:

   • Open pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control).
   • Go to the Recording tab.
   • When you launch your game, find its process in the list.
   • Set its "Recording device" to a specific dummy sink or a virtual sink you’ve created.
   • In OBS, add an Audio Input Capture and select that dummy sink.

2. ALSA Approach (for advanced users):

   • You can create a virtual device in /etc/asound.conf or ~/.asoundrc using a snd-aloop loopback device.
   • Bind your game to this loopback via environment variables or paplay routing.
   • OBS then captures from the other end of the loop.

In my experience, PipeWire has made this significantly easier on modern distros like Fedora and Arch. The "Application" routing feature in the default settings means you often don’t need to edit config files, just use the GUI to steer the game audio away from your default monitor and into a capture source.

Troubleshooting: Why Is My Mic Still Recording?

Even after following the steps above, some users report hearing their own voice or background noise in the game-only track. If you’re asking yourself "why is my mic in game recordings obs," it’s usually not a bug in OBS—it’s a configuration conflict.

Common Audio Sync and Monitoring Issues

The most common culprit is Audio Monitoring. OBS allows you to "monitor" an input, which means you hear it in real-time via your speakers/headphones. If you set your Mic to "Monitor and Output (live)," and you accidentally unmute it in a scene, you will hear it. But more subtly, if you are using a USB audio interface that defaults to "Monitor," the bleed can happen at the hardware level before OBS even sees it.

Here is a quick diagnostic table I use to check for conflicts:

1. Check Monitoring: Right-click your Mic source > Properties > Monitoring. Set it to Off. You do not need to hear your mic while recording game-only audio.
2. Verify Mute States: Look at the Audio Mixer icons. The red "Mute" indicator must be visible on Desktop Audio and Mic.
3. Reset Audio Buffer: Occasionally, the audio buffer in OBS gets out of sync, especially after a system sleep/wake cycle. If audio seems delayed or chopped, go to Settings > Audio > Buffering and increase the buffer time from 0ms to 100ms.

I’ve found that "sleep mode" is the silent killer of audio integrity. When your PC wakes from sleep, OBS sometimes fails to re-grab the audio process ID. If you play for 4 hours with breaks, restart OBS after the first break to ensure the Application Audio Capture is still locked onto the game’s current process.

Pro Tips: Optimizing Your Game Audio Track

Getting the audio isolated is step one. Making it sound good is step two. Here’s how to polish your "obs studio record game audio only" workflow for professional quality.

Applying Noise Suppression and Filters

Even when you isolate game audio, you might pick up the hum of your PC fan or the click of your mechanical keyboard if the game has environmental sound effects that are very quiet.

1. Add Noise Suppression:

   • Right-click your "Game Audio" source > Filters.
   • Click + > Noise Suppression.
   • Method: Choose RNNoise if you want the highest quality (slightly higher CPU usage), or Speex for low CPU usage.
   • Level: Start at -30dB. This is safe for game audio. You don’t want to accidentally cut off quiet ambient sounds like distant footsteps.

2. Use a Compressor:

   • Add a Compressor filter after the Noise Suppression.
   • Threshold: -20dB.
   • Ratio: 3:1.
   • This ensures that when the game is quiet (menu screens) and loud (explosions), the volume variance is smoothed out. It prevents sudden spikes from clipping your audio levels and keeps the background music consistent.

3. Gain Compensation (if needed):

   • If your game audio is naturally quiet (common in older titles or indie games), add a Gain filter with a positive value (e.g., +6dB) before the compressor. This boosts the signal before compression, resulting in a cleaner final output than boosting the master fader.

Final Checklist Before Long Sessions:

• Audio levels peak in the yellow, not red.
• Monitoring is off for all inputs.
• Application Audio Capture is targeting the correct .exe.
• Noise Suppression is enabled but not too aggressive.

Conclusion

Mastering how to get OBS to only record game audio is less about one magic setting and more about understanding the difference between global system audio and targeted process capture.

• For Windows Users: Stick with Application Audio Capture. It is the modern standard, offering the flexibility to keep your desktop audio for notifications or music while keeping your recording track pure.
• For Mac/Linux: You will almost certainly need a virtual driver (BlackHole/Loopback) or routing tool (PipeWire) to achieve true isolation.
• For Everyone: Always check your Audio Monitoring settings. This is where 90% of "ghost" mic inputs sneak in.

Before you start a 3-hour recording session, do a 1-minute test. Play a quiet part of the game, open a browser tab, and click a link. If you hear the click, you’re not isolated. If you hear only the game music, you’re good to go.

If you’re looking to expand your setup, I highly recommended checking out our complete OBS settings guide for video encoding, or grabbing one of our custom OBS profiles optimized for game recording to save time on your next setup.