Kodi/VLC lagging playing 4K videos - i5 3rd - Win 10

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Kevin Lane

Kevin Lane

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As I mentioned in my other thread, I installed SSD in my Old laptop. It works fine now. But, One issue remains. Kodi stutters badly when I play 4K videos size >20G. CPU usage goes to 100%. Smaller MKVs and FHD videos are fine, CPU just at 10-20%. Same for VLC.

My machine has Nvidia M635 Graphics card. I did tweaks in setting so that Kodi/VLC use it but no improvement.

Is there any workaround, or it's just old Proccy limitation? (I see that humble FireStick, MiBox play these files easily though).
 
Intel 3rd gen doesn't support 4k video decode that's for sure. IDK about M635 but as per the model no. 6XX I'd highly doubt that. So you're only left with software decoding which basically means using your CPU and yeah that's not enough.
 
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Try libreelec from USB drive instead of playing in windows. Not using OS gives that extra resources required for video playback.
 
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As pointed out by enthusiast29 and ibose, your hardware does not have native 4k decoding support. They do have Full-HD decoding support, which is why full-HD not only runs fine, but also uses very little CPU, since there is dedicated hardware to do the decoding.

4k decoding falls back on the CPU/GPU, and it seems they are struggling to deal with 4k content.

This is also the reason why fire stick, Mi TV etc. play these files just fine, because they have specialised hardware. Even a Raspberry Pi 4 will play 4k videos with ease. In fact, for a while, Raspberry Pi 4 with LibreELEC was my main media player.

What display are you using? If it's a smart TV, you can try playing directly on the TV. If it's a monitor or non-smart TV, you can get a media player like Fire stick 4k in the upcoming sale. It should be available for 3k.
 
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gourav said:
As pointed out by enthusiast29 and ibose, your hardware does not have native 4k decoding support. They do have Full-HD decoding support, which is why full-HD not only runs fine, but also uses very little CPU, since there is dedicated hardware to do the decoding.

4k decoding falls back on the CPU/GPU, and it seems they are struggling to deal with 4k content.

This is also the reason why fire stick, Mi TV etc. play these files just fine, because they have specialised hardware. Even a Raspberry Pi 4 will play 4k videos with ease. In fact, for a while, Raspberry Pi 4 with LibreELEC was my main media player.

What display are you using? If it's a smart TV, you can try playing directly on the TV. If it's a monitor or non-smart TV, you can get a media player like Fire stick 4k in the upcoming sale. It should be available for 3k.
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I have LG C1 55. But, it's short coming is lack of DTS support. For which I am forced to use Kodi. Files with Dolby audio, I use TV media player. I generally try to get files with Dolby audio, but many times MKVs with good quality audio available have DTS, DTS-HD.

I guess I will need to get something like MiBox or get used to labours of Audio Converter! :banghead:
 
Update - I factory reset my old 4K Android Box (Performance of which had also gone to dogs over the time which was the reason I had to use Laptop!) and now only Kodi installed on it. Things seem to be working reasonably. The Box is Beelink GT which I had got from GearBest a few years ago. Performance is satisfactory enough with 4K MKVs playing without any issue.

Only thing is I suspect there is a bit more noise in picture compared to LG C2 image processing.
 
Kevin Lane said:
Update - I factory reset my old 4K Android Box (Performance of which had also gone to dogs over the time which was the reason I had to use Laptop!) and now only Kodi installed on it. Things seem to be working reasonably. The Box is Beelink GT which I had got from GearBest a few years ago. Performance is satisfactory enough with 4K MKVs playing without any issue.

Only thing is I suspect there is a bit more noise in picture compared to LG C2 image processing.
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These boxes mostly use the Amlogic SoC, which will have a fixed way of decoding the video (which varies by the chipset and differs from Intel or Nvidia's equivalent), in addition to which post-processing is done in software. Expect the no-name boxes to be nowhere close to having the same clarity or colour accuracy.
 
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Kevin Lane said:
Everyday I wish for Kodi on WebOS! :drowning:
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I have a Samsung TV and was able to compile and load Jellyfin on its Tizen OS which works for me as I use a Jellyfin server and it substitutes well for Kodi (which I run on an Android box that is laggier). Not sure if it is available for WebOS as well.
 
t3chg33k said:
I have a Samsung TV and was able to compile and load Jellyfin on its Tizen OS which works for me as I use a Jellyfin server and it substitutes well for Kodi (which I run on an Android box that is laggier). Not sure if it is available for WebOS as well.
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There is a One. But, I seem to be out of my depth to execute it! :depressed:
 
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