Source
r/HomeNetworking•
NoNumber1

Plex / Gaming causing massive slowdowns. I’m a total network noob

Unsolved

I recently built a PC and have been running into significant buffering issues when trying to use Plex. 4K video which is about 50 mbps cannot play despite having an Eero 6 router and an Asus WiFi 6 card in my PC. Television can be either wired or wireless, neither is sufficient. Lastly, today when I was playing a first person shooter my girlfriend launched a movie on Plex and the game became unplayable. How can I be having a local network issue with so much available bandwidth? Any help is appreciated!

Posted Apr 6, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

25
SignalCelery7•

Have you run a bufferbloat test?

See what you get. Find out you need to change some configs.

2
TwoScoopsofDestroyer•

Assuming you are running the Plex server on your PC:

Sounds like Plex is trying to transcode the video, Transcoding 4K video on-the-fly is no mean feat. And transcoding even 1080p can load the CPU enough to cause games to slow down games

You'll need to set Plex to play the original files and not transcode them when playing videos over LAN. Not all players support all video types, so some may still force transcoding.

1
TiggerLAS•

Just for confirmation -

Are you saying that your PC is running Plex Media Server, and your PC is connected wirelessly to the rest of your network?

If that is the case, then there are probably 2 things contributing to your problems.

1.) Plex+Wireless . . . not the best performance. I'm guessing since it's on wireless, I'm guessing that your place isn't wired for ethernet. If you have Coax throughout the house, you could try a pair of MoCa adapters to bring ethernet over to wherever your PC is.

2.) As someone else mentioned, if you have Plex set to transcode, you could be taking a big performance hit on your CPU, and this is only exacerbated by using the PC for gaming while someone is attempting to stream.

 You can try it with transcoding turned off,
 though I'm not sure if your wireless will have issues
 keeping up with the bandwidth, or not.

 Or, you can turn down the level of transcoding,
 and see if you can hit the right balance.

I've got Plex running on a separate computer, with a 2nd Gen I7-3770 connected via ethernet, and transcoding set to "Make my CPU Hurt!" It seems to keep up quite nicely with multiple hi-def streams, though I haven't tried streaming 4K content yet.

2
Human-Byte•

Might need to look into enabling SQM on your router.

0
NoNumber1OP•

Thanks! I hadn’t heard of this. I will try it out and report back.

For anyone reading this thread down the line: SQM has been renamed “optimize for conferencing and gaming” and can be found in the discover tab of the Eero app

2