How to Fix Webcam Flickering in OBS

The short answer

Most webcam flicker in OBS is not caused by OBS itself. The most common cause is room lighting that pulses faster than the eye can see, which the camera's sensor catches. In the US, mains electricity runs at 60 Hz. If your camera's anti-flicker (power line frequency) setting is wrong, or your frame rate does not fit evenly with that lighting cycle, you get rolling bars or pulsing brightness. Setting anti-flicker to 60 Hz, using 30 or 60 frames per second, and turning off auto exposure fixes many cases.

"Flickering" can describe different problems, and each has a different fix. Rolling horizontal bands or pulsing brightness usually point to lighting and exposure. Brief black frames, freezes or the image cutting out usually point to USB, power or driver problems. Flicker that appears only in the OBS preview but not in recordings points to display or preview rendering. Identify which one you are seeing before you change settings.

Identify what kind of flicker you have

What you see | Likely area to check first

Horizontal bars that roll slowly up or down the image | Lighting frequency, anti-flicker setting, frame rate, shutter/exposure

Whole image brightening and darkening every second or two | Auto exposure or auto white balance adjusting over and over

Shimmer only under certain lamps, LED strips or a screen in view | Light source dimming method or a monitor in the frame

Brief black frames, freezes or the camera disappearing and returning | USB connection, bandwidth, power management, driver

Flicker in the OBS preview only, while the saved recording looks fine | Preview or display rendering, not the camera

Flicker that starts only after a long session | Power saving, heat, or a connection that drops under sustained load (possible causes, not confirmed)

These pairings are starting points, not diagnoses. Several causes can happen at once, so work through the checks below in order and retest after each change.

Before you start

• Close other apps that might be using the camera, such as video call apps, browser tabs with camera access, or the manufacturer's camera utility. On many systems only one app can use a webcam at a time.
• Note your current OBS settings for the camera source and the video canvas so you can undo any change.
• Set up the lighting and position you normally use, since the problem may depend on them.
• Have a way to record a short test clip in OBS so you can review the result instead of relying only on the live preview.

Step 1: Check whether the flicker comes from your lighting

Many LED and fluorescent lights pulse in step with the electrical supply. The eye blends this into steady light, but a camera reading its sensor line by line can catch it as bands or pulsing.

• Turn off the room lights one at a time and watch the OBS preview. If the flicker stops when one fixture is off, that light is involved.
• Try daylight from a window, or a lamp you know is steady, as the only light source.
• If a dimmable LED is involved, try it at full brightness. Many LEDs dim by switching rapidly on and off, which can be more visible at lower settings.
• Check whether a monitor or TV screen is in the frame. Screens can show bands on camera even when the room light is steady.

How you know it worked: the bands or pulsing disappear when a specific light is off or changed. Note which light caused it. You can then replace it, avoid it, or compensate with the camera settings in the next steps. If the flicker continues under daylight alone, lighting is less likely to be the main cause, so move to Step 4.

Step 2: Set the camera's anti-flicker (power line frequency) option

Many webcams include a power line frequency setting, sometimes called anti-flicker. It adjusts exposure to suit 50 Hz or 60 Hz lighting. For the US, choose 60 Hz. Whether your camera offers this setting, and what it is called, depends on the camera model and driver. The supplied material does not confirm this for any specific camera.

• Windows: in OBS, right-click your Video Capture Device source, open Properties, and click Configure Video. This opens the driver's settings dialog, which on many cameras includes a power line frequency option.
• macOS: OBS shows fewer camera controls. If your camera maker provides a companion app, the setting may be there.
• Linux: the Video4Linux (V4L2) source in OBS often lists camera controls directly in its properties, which may include power line frequency.
• If the setting is not in any of these places, check the manufacturer's camera software.

How you know it worked: rolling bars fade or stop under your normal lighting. If the setting is already 60 Hz, or changing it has no effect, continue to Step 3.

Step 3: Match the frame rate and exposure to your lighting

Under 60 Hz power, lights pulse in a cycle that fits evenly with 30 or 60 frames per second. Frame rates built around 50 Hz regions, such as 25 or 50 fps, do not fit evenly and are more likely to show bands in the US.

• In the camera source's Properties, set Resolution/FPS Type to Custom and choose a resolution and frame rate your camera supports, such as 30 fps.
• In Settings, then Video, check the Common FPS Values. Matching the OBS canvas frame rate to the camera, for example 30 and 30 or 60 and 60, avoids uneven frame pacing. Uneven pacing usually looks more like stutter than flicker, but it is worth ruling out.
• If your camera allows manual exposure, turn off auto exposure. Then choose an exposure time that matches the lighting cycle, such as 1/60 or 1/120 of a second, and adjust gain or brightness to compensate.
• If the whole image pulses brighter and darker, try turning off auto exposure and auto white balance and setting them manually. This stops the camera from repeatedly readjusting.

How you know it worked: record a 30 to 60 second clip in OBS and play it back. The bands and pulsing should be gone or clearly reduced. Locking exposure can make the image darker or noisier, so you may need more steady light. If the flicker is unchanged, continue to Step 4.

Step 4: Test the camera outside OBS

Close OBS fully, then open the camera in another app, such as the system camera app or the manufacturer's utility. Use the same lighting and, if possible, the same resolution and frame rate.

• Flicker also appears in the other app: the cause is likely the camera, its settings, the lighting, or the connection. Go to Step 5.
• Flicker appears only in OBS: the cause is more likely in OBS settings, the source configuration, or how OBS renders the preview. Go to Step 6.

This test separates the camera and its connection from OBS. It does not tell you how the camera will behave over a long session, or whether a video call service will process the image differently.

Step 5: Rule out USB, power and driver problems

Black frames, freezes, or a camera that briefly disconnects often point to the connection rather than lighting. This is especially likely if the problem appears after the camera has run for a while.

• Plug the camera straight into a port on the computer instead of a hub, extension cable or monitor port.
• Try a different port, and a different cable if the camera uses a removable one.
• If you run several cameras, capture cards or other high-bandwidth USB devices together, unplug the others and test again. Shared USB bandwidth can cause dropped or corrupted frames.
• On Windows, check power settings for USB selective suspend, and check Device Manager for power-saving options on the USB hub. These can cut power to idle-looking devices during a session.
• Lower the camera's resolution or frame rate temporarily. If the dropouts stop, bandwidth or processing load is a likely factor.
• Update or reinstall the camera driver or firmware using the manufacturer's tools, if they offer any.

How you know it worked: the camera runs through a long test session without dropouts. Run it at least as long as your usual stream or call, because some problems only appear after the camera has been running for some time.

Step 6: Check OBS-specific settings

• In the camera source Properties, try a different Video Format option if your camera offers more than one, for example a compressed format versus an uncompressed one. Some formats load the USB link or the processor differently.
• Check whether the source has "Deactivate when not showing" turned on. Switching scenes can then restart the camera, which can look like a blink or a black frame.
• Avoid adding the same camera as a source more than once in a different scene with different settings. Use one source and add it to other scenes as a reference instead.
• Open View, then Stats, and watch the frames missed due to rendering lag and skipped due to encoding lag during a test. Rising counts suggest OBS is overloaded, which shows up as stutter. These counters reflect OBS rendering and encoding, not frames lost between the camera and the computer.
• Remove filters on the camera source one at a time to see if one of them is causing the effect.

If the flicker appears only in the live preview and a saved recording looks clean, the problem is in how the preview is drawn on your screen, not in what OBS captures. Your stream or recording is probably not affected. You can confirm this by reviewing a recording or a test stream.

Retest for a full session

A short preview check shows that the image is steady right now. It does not show that it will stay steady. To check sustained stability, record or run a private test for as long as your usual session, under your normal lighting and with your usual apps open. Then review the start, middle and end of the recording. If the flicker returns only after some time, recheck power management, connection and heat-related possibilities from Step 5.

A clean OBS recording confirms only that capture in OBS is working. If you send OBS into a call app through a virtual camera, check the call separately. The call service may compress or adjust the video, and its result can differ from what OBS shows.

When to stop and escalate

Contact the camera manufacturer's support, or consider a replacement, in these cases: the flicker appears in every app, on more than one computer, under steady daylight, with anti-flicker and manual exposure set, and through a direct connection with a known-good cable. Those results point toward the camera hardware or its firmware. If the problem appears only in OBS and none of the settings above help, the OBS community support forums are a reasonable next step. Include your operating system, camera model, source settings and a short clip showing the issue.

What this guide could not confirm

No model-specific evidence was available for this guide. Setting names, menu locations and the options your camera offers, including anti-flicker, manual exposure and video formats, vary by camera, driver and operating system. The exposure times and frame rates above follow general principles for 60 Hz lighting. They are not measured results for any particular device, so treat them as starting points and confirm with your own test recordings.