VLC: Play 4K videos - you have to be aware of that
Many users choose to play 4K video for the VLC player. To optimize the load on the graphics card and CPU, make some changes in the software.
Improve playback of 4K videos in the VLC player
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To play 4K films optimally with the VLC player, first navigate to the settings.
Under Input / Codecs you will find the options for hardware acceleration. Windows users choose DirectX, while Linux users choose VDPAU or VAAPI.
Put the point in "All" in the lower left corner to access the advanced settings and optimize the cache.
With file caching, VLC buffers part of the film on the hard disk. Other useful settings would be the cache value for online streaming (see network) and the disk cache value.
The standard settings of VLC do not require hardware acceleration, which can lead to jerky playback of 4K films. With the following tricks you can get these problems under Windows and Linux under control.
- Upgrade to the latest version of the VLC player. In version 3.0, support for high-resolution films was further expanded.
- Enable hardware acceleration under VLC by going to Tools> Settings> Input / Codecs . In Windows, choose DirectX for hardware-accelerated decoding.
- If the original NVIDIA driver is installed under Linux, use the VDPAU video recorder, otherwise the open source variant VAAPI .
- If VLC does not play the videos smoothly, films can also be buffered. Under Tools> Settings, click Show Settings> All .
- Then switch to the Input / Codecs menu and scroll down until you reach the advanced settings. Under File cache value, enter a value between 10000 and 20000 milliseconds.
- Since 4K videos are computing-intensive content, you also need video acceleration that displays the content in real time. To do this, switch to the video menu in the settings and set the output to DirectX or OpenGL as mentioned above.
In the next practical tip you will learn how to convert files with the VLC player.