Playback on HTPC and Desktop app is not smooth

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: 1.41.6.9685
Player Version#: HTPC 1.70.1; Desktop 1.108.1

Background:

Playing 4k resolution, 24fps video on Nvidia Shield, it played smoothly, but after a period of playback (maybe 30 minutes), it started to show loading for seconds, and played for seconds, and repeated.

Grok suggests it may due to the audio source is 5.1, but my hardware supports only 2.0. Audio transcoding on Nvidia Shield slows down the playback.

Hence I am not trying to use this i3 computer to replace Nvidia Shield.

My setup:
Media server (Plex Server):

  • Ubuntu 22.04
  • i5-11500
  • 64GB RAM
  • no disiplay card
  • system installed on PCI-E SSD drive
  • media files stored on RAID-0 7200rpm harddisks

Player:

  • Ubuntu 25.04
  • i3-10105
  • 64GB RAM
  • no display card
  • system installed on PCI-E SSD drive

Two computers are connected to 2.5gpbs LAN and WAN.

Playback on Plex HTPC is not very smooth. I have tried turing on “switching frame rate” but does not help. Plex for Linux is a little bit better, but same case.

Playing back full-HD video is even worse. I have tried turing on “switching resolution” and “switching frame rate”. The picture may even split.

However, mounting the directory from the server to the player computer via SSHFS, playback using MPV is very smooth.

But I want to control using “remote controller”, rather than keyboard and mouse. And I want the media library view.

How should I fix Plex for my setup?

Thanks.

2

Play with hardware acceleration settings both on the server and the client. My hunch is the problem is with the client.

Also look at your process load for both the CPU and drives (add network too), because that would be an easy thing to check and rule out. If you’re bottlenecking somewhere, then that would be the cause.

If you’re not bottlenecking somewhere, then these problems usually have to do with the graphics acceleration. It’s usually an invisible problem because your system will look totally fine and not under stress. It’s either a software or driver issue. But if you disable acceleration and it fixes the problem, then you’ve found the cause.

On the browser there’s a checkbox where you can disable acceleration.

3

I don’t think anyone is not having issues with Plex HTPC at the moment.
Not only is video playback laggy (used to always work perfectly for me) since the latest Plex client and server updates but Microsoft also removed the AC3 and AC4 codecs from Windows 11 24H2. It’s not looking good at the moment.

4

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.