Streaming struggles with bitrate over 2Mbps

Plex Players
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1

For a while now I’ve had an issue with stuttering and buffering when streaming content above 2Mbps.

In this instance, I was playing a film in original quality which was 2.2Mps. When playing, it would constantly buffer. If I set the quality to 2Mbps, perfectly smooth streaming, albeit with reduced quality.

My media is stored on a 5400 rpm HDD, with 16BG RAM and an AMD Ryzen 5 2600.

Client download speed is 10Mbps
Server upload speed is 10Mbps

I’ve forwarded port 32400 for the server.

Any tips are appreciated!

2

Do your streams show as “remote” or “indirect/relayed” when you’re checking the “now playing” tile for that playback on the Plex server dashboard?
Exemplary screenshot from the "now playing" section
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200871837-status-and-dashboard/

If the connection is indirect, Plex was unable to establish a direct connection from your client to your server – instead the traffic will be relayed through a Plex relay. This indirect/relayed traffic is limited to a relatively low bitrate.

If that’s your issue you might want to troubleshoot your remote access configuration.

If the connection itself is showing up fine, best check the client video quality configuration to verify if you’re playing in direct quality or if playback will be transcoded to a lower quality.

Your CPU should be perfectly capable to transcode a higher-quality video (if needed) – 4K video will probably be an exception.

3

My dashboard says remote:

image

It seems to be connecting fine, but the buffering is still an issue. 2Mbps is still the highest I can manage.

4

Do you experience the same if you’re using the native desktop clients (e.g. Plex for Windows or Plex HTPC)?