Yes that’s first thing I tried, unfortunately the problem persists after a fresh install.
Now I have tried the PMP Version as well with the same result. Changing the config didn’t do jack ■■■■ either, excuse the language. Plex is almost unusable on Windows atm. The Plex Team needs to fix this and in the meanwhile at least tell us that they acknowledge the issue. This is really annoying.
As a workaround, I downloaded a portable version of chrome and use the web client. This chrome is then my dedicated Plex player. After all, the windows app is just an Electron app which is Chromium displaying the web client. So there should be no difference in the experience.
Well… It doesn’t work for me in installed Chrome so I guess this won’t fix it for me. Thanks for the suggestion though and great that it works for you.
Well, you mean besides the inability to play surround sound, or 10bit color using the browser.
But besides those two things sure. No difference.
I mean, who cares about your videos playing in surround or HDR?
(Yes. That was sarcasm.)
All right, calm down. I’m just trying to provide a potential workaround to not have to experience the stuttering. I don’t have surround sound nor HDR so I didn’t know about that part.
I think I found a solution to the stuttering issue so hopefully it helps someone else. After seeing mistic100 post about the AppData\Local\Plex\plex.ini.lock file constantly being created and deleted when the stutters occur, I took a look at the file and didn’t notice anything odd. But what I did do was set the plex.ini file as read only and oddly enough that solved my problem with the stuttering. Hope it helps!
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James, I can confirm this as working. I just tried it for myself. Great find! I just switched back to Plex for Windows because of this.
Have just tried this and made no difference at all for my H.265 videos.
But the solution provided by JamesKrauseIII with plex.ini file works, so thank you for this! Again, we have to find spend our time to find work arounds because Plex’s QA is so good.
I’ve been trying to find a solution to this stuttering issue.
Enabling the Native OpenGL setting in PlexMediaPlayer does work for me, but I was curious on why it doesn’t work with the default settings, especially since I don’t need to use PlexMediaPlayer, I need the normal version “Plex for Windows” and there’s no way to enable Native OpenGL there.
As noticed above, well, at least for me and others, the issue is definitely tied to this “plex.ini.lock” being created every 5-10 seconds or so, and the playback gets frame drops when this happens.
Setting the main file “plex.ini” as “read-only” solves the issue for “Plex for Windows”.
What about PlexMediaPlayer?
After further testing, I’ve noticed the same thing happens with the file “storage.json” for PlexMediaPlayer, setting this to read-only solves the issue on PMP as well.
These 2 files get updated every 5-10 seconds with some metadata that Plex uses, not sure in what way, but comparing the data that gets changed, it doesn’t seem relevant to me for the playback. I guess that’s why it doesn’t cause a crash setting these files to read-only.
I’ve tested this on 4 computers, only 2 have this stuttering issue, the other 2 rarely do it.
At first I thought it was about video card and drivers, but it looks like it’s about “writing this file to disk”.
The 2 computers that have the issue use an HDD drive, the other 2 where it seems it works ok both have an SSD drive.
I’m hoping the developers test this out more, the issue is definitely on this, at least for me.
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Does this resolve the issue of the Server logs being filled with errors relating the to client every second Plex for WIndows is open and connected?
Interesting find. I’ve forwarded this info to the team.
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Yep, same issue. Currently trying the read-only work around.
Weird problem resolution but can confirm this fixed my stuttering as well.
This worked for me as well. Solved a problem that’s been driving me nuts for months! Thank you 
Thanks so much! The solution works! much appreciated!
I’ve confirmed that there is something going on with that plex.ini file. I’m working with the team to narrow down the cause.
I can also confirm that setting the plex.ini file to read only resolves the issue.
Thanks a ton to @JamesKrauseIII and @mistic100 for investigating !!
Thank you James, that seems to have fixed it. It’s probably just a temporary solution but it should do until there’s a real fix in hopefully the next update. 
Edit: I’ve just noticed that there still is the tiniest bit of jittering every couple of seconds or so, barely noticeable. I can live with it but it still shouldn’t be like that.
I’ve got a workaround in review now. Thanks mint @JamesKrauseIII for spotting this and you too @anon18523487!
Locking plex.ini against writes will prevent saving of settings changes as well. I’m hoping to get the change out soon to avoid knock on bugs from users with locked plex.ini. 
