# Changing Transcoded RAM limits

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Created:** [July 16, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985 "2018-07-16T22:14:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![uniquename76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7cd45c/32.png) [@uniquename76](https://forums.plex.tv/u/uniquename76)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985/1 "2018-07-16T22:14:27Z")

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I’ve been trying to use my PMS to run more 4K content. The results have been varied. One thing I do notice is that with some videos I need to pause it for like 5 minutes on the console player so it buffers up a few chunks first. If not it will be buffering every 2 minutes. Needless to say I checked my PC I have transcode set to “make my cpu hurt” what I do see is that Plex\_transcoder is using 800MB of RAM and stops. It could easily use 4-8GB. Is there a way to force Plex Server up to a higher amount of RAM

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**Author:** ![gbooker02](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/gbooker02/32/9726_2.png) [@gbooker02](https://forums.plex.tv/u/gbooker02)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985/2 "2018-07-17T14:45:55Z")

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The transcoder uses as much RAM as it needs; it’s not limiting itself on memory usage. It sounds like you are having CPU limitations in your playback. 4K content, especially HEVC, has a high decode cost and the encode isn’t cheap either.

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**Author:** ![uniquename76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7cd45c/32.png) [@uniquename76](https://forums.plex.tv/u/uniquename76)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985/3 "2018-07-17T15:02:24Z")

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I do not see my CPU even going over 60-70% should I try to set all transcode options to “very fast” ?

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**Author:** ![gbooker02](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/gbooker02/32/9726_2.png) [@gbooker02](https://forums.plex.tv/u/gbooker02)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 7:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985/4 "2018-07-17T19:50:35Z")

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Some parts of transcoding can use multiple cores and some parts can only use at most one core. It could be that your CPU’s single-core performance is not enough to transcode these files in real-time.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2018, 7:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/changing-transcoded-ram-limits/283985/5 "2018-10-15T19:50:45Z")

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