BEST OBS Mac Game Capture Record Settings for Elgato 4K X Using ProRes 422 HQ Video Codec

BEST OBS Settings for recording capturing on Mac Using an Elagto 4K X on a MacBook Pro M1 Max or Any Apple Silicon Mac for 1080P 60FPS using the ProRes video codec.

So the point here is to record the best possible gameplay picture quality capture in OBS Studio on our Apple Silicon Mac using the Elgato 4K X HDMI 2.1 USB-C video capture card. Which we then use in our preferred editing software to edit and create our final export for YouTube or any other online video streaming platform.

Some notes:

This workflow is specifically for creating recordings that will be edited in video editing software and not directly uploaded.

The video file we are creating is an intermediate.

This workflow is only for an 8-bit SDR standard dynamic range target, it is not for a 10-bit or HDR high dynamic range target.

Our final upload video is created from whatever video editing software we choose to use

This workflow is for creating a video master

These settings are not for live gameplay streaming

This workflow is for a simple capture with one video input and one audio input and one audio track, no microphone.

As we are going to be editing our footage in an NLE, video editing software, we want the best possible OBS capture we can get. This is because we will be doing destructive editing and re-compression of the game capture in our editing software. So we need to start off with highest possible quality we can before we degrade the captured footage further with editing, titles, maybe grading (although I would not colour grade game footage as it’s already correctly coloured) and then the final export compression for our upload video master.

The absolute best video picture quality would be uncompressed. However, this would great massive files. So the second best alternative is to use a good production codec such as ProRes and ProRes 422 HQ will be visually indistinguishable compared to uncompressed for our game captures.

While ProRes 422 HQ is a 10 Bit codec with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and our video input via the Elgato 4K X is at best 8 Bit 4:2:2 but more likely to be 8 Bit 4:2:0 and our target, YouTube or any other video streaming platform, are only 8-Bit 4:2:0 for SDR. There’s an argument to say that ProRes 422 HQ is a waste. However, that is incorrect and wrong.

While we don’t benefit from ProRes’s 10-Bit colour precision and bit depth with our video source. We do benefit from an intra-frame codec (all I frame codec) with a low compression ratio, high bitrate recording. As opposed to using something like H.265 for our intermediate file. Which will almost certainly be in its inter-frame variation, as in, IPB which is a codec with temporal redundancy and will have much higher compression ratios.

Basically. The difference between ProRes 422 HQ and a typical H.265 recording, or something similar like AV1, VP9 or H.264. Is that ProRes 422 HQ doesn’t suffer from certain temporal and motion artefacts that H.265 and the likes suffer from. This is the difference between ProRes 422 HQ being an intra-frame codec and H.265 etc. usually being an inter-frame codec. Plus there’s also the benefit of ProRes having less compression as well, which will especially help with fast action games and gameplay or games with a wide colour palette and lots of fine line detail and resolution.

Yes, the ProRes 422 HQ recordings will create very large file sizes. However, don’t forget these files are only intermediate files and will be deleted as soon as we have made our final edited master upload file from our video editing software.

I will start an OBS playlist, so you may want to keep an eye on that
   • OBS Studio  

Here's my Elagto 4K X playlist
   • Elgato 4K X  

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