Until recently I was one of those using Plex Media Player still, because I could not get Plex HTPC to cooperate. Specifically, I had a problem with some kind of dropped frames or similar hitches… a glitch every few seconds, which made things unwatchable. This was a problem even with refresh rate switching turned on. You know how it is when a long smooth pan breaks up? The horror, the horror!
I saw a post recommending going to the Nvidia control panel and resetting all the 3d settings to default. This did not actually work for me, but then I created a new profile for Plex HTPC and started fiddling with the Nvidia settings. Before long I found a set that worked – my pans are now as smooth as movie popcorn fake butter.
Oh, I have also turned off the Nvidia overlay. I did that first and I don’t know if it contributed – by itself, it did nothing. I should turn it back on and see if Plex HTPC gets choppy again.
There may be a more optimized set of options, I doubt most of these 3d settings matter… but this worked and it’s where I stopped messing with it.
In Plex HTPC, these are the video settings – nothing tricky, but refresh rate switching is a must. What’s great is I could turn quality up all the way – and this seemed to make a big difference in final quality.
It is likely the Vertical sync which is the key setting among those you customized. Is this actually the case for you?
In my case I had to change the Power management mode to Prefer Maximum Performance or it would occasionally drop audio whether passthrough was used or not (HTPC Tips and Tricks - #5 by gbooker02). Usually it occurred around black or nearly all black frames. I have a video file where it occurred 3-5 times in the first minute each around an all black screen with some white text to indicate the actors’ names.
Vsync is one that I looked at more carefully because I know how important it is. What I found was that with the settings as shown but Vsync off, I had smooth pans with tearing in parts of the image. I could see the original hitching problem I was chasing had been corrected even as the image was unwatchable in a new way. Then when I turned Vsync on, everything was good.
In my overall Nvidia settings, I had turned Vsync on long ago, because my display is only 60 Hz and I really hate tearing in games. So, in my original problem report of unsmooth pans, it was definitely not a Vsync problem. The glitches I saw looked like the whole image freezing for a split second during pans–not sync tearing.
