Most of my library is 1080p and x264. When remote users view videos, it usually transcodes down to 720p due to default settings. But the franscoding is causing my cpu to max out. My upload speed should be good enough for direct play withoit causing such high cpu usage. Is there a way to forcr them to direct play where possible?
You cannot influence the settings of the clients used by those users.
Best talk to them and tell them about how they can help improving their viewing experience (and not impacting your server so heavily).
If they knowingly and on purpose ignore you, your last resort will be to unshare your library 
There’s a new setting in the latest beta release of the Plex Media Server (v1.18.5), that allows you to disable transcoding entirely
Settings > Server > Transcoder > Disable video stream transcoding
This does however not distinguish between your own and others’ streams nor by the stream playing in your home network or from remote.
What NAS do you have? I HW transcode from 1080p to 720 and my CPU load stays under 10% easy.
TS-453Be here
If I may augment,
Server Network Playback settings + the presence of subtitles & their types + playback settings will greatly influence processor load.
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TVS-473 and subtitles are user regularly so that could be a factor.
If the subtitles are text-based, and the player supports overlays (most do), and the player is not set to “always burn”, load will be lower
I see, If I recall correctly AMD versions do not hardware encode so yes you would be doing everything on the CPU.
Ahh thats a shame
They’re all text based near enough so ill have to try and them to change settings. (some are not great with technology)
Any idea if I can add a graphics card to boost hardware transcoding?
I don’t think so. Your model has an AMD version of a GPU, problem is Plex does not support HW encoding for that GPU. While your model has an expansion slot it pretty much only supports SSD and Network expansion cards, not GPU expansions.
If I may augment here?
There is lingering question as to which models QNAP provides external GPU card support for in the PCIe slot.
TS-x77 devices are currently allowed.
I don’t know if the x73’s allow it / QNAP will allow it in QTS 4.4.2.
I do know they’re making a lot of changes in GPU management for 4.4.2
It’s probably best to ask QNAP directly. Their tech support (phone call in the US) is great.
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