Performance Demo on Low-End Hardware

[allecsc]

I’ve been getting a lot of reports about playback issues, performance problems, A/V desync and specific formats (AV1, high bitrate, etc.), often on high-end systems.

To clarify things, I recorded a real-world demo of Stremio Kai running on my daily driver media PC, which is by no means high-end:

Reference system:

• CPU: i5-9300H (4 cores) → Undervolted to keep temps in check
• GPU: GTX 1650
• RAM: 16 GB
• Output: 4K HDR TV
• All features enabled (SVP, Anime4K, automation, etc.)

The demo shows:

• AV1 playback
• High bitrate content
• Real-time upscaling + motion interpolation
• No desync happening
• No special tweaks or custom user configs

This system represents the minimum performance target Kai is designed around.

If the app runs correctly here (and it does), then:

• Kai itself is functioning as intended.
• Any performance issues on other systems are almost always caused by local hardware limitations, drivers, OS configuration, external tools, or custom mpv tweaks.

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Important note about FPS

In the demo you may notice that SVP does not always lock perfectly at 48fps.
This is expected on this hardware and with all features enabled.

It fluctuates around 44–46 fps, which is still within normal limits for this setup.

The FPS overlay itself affects performance which results in less than stable 48 FPS for some titles. This is also the reason why the demo was recorded externally (phone, not screen capture) since screen recording with SVP + Anime4K upscalers enabled is simply too heavy for this GPU and screen recording crashed every time.

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Check these first if you are having playback issues

• AMD GPUs tend to crash when gpu-api=vulkan is used for MPV. It's recommended to keep Vulkan rendering OFF.

• Make sure Windows uses your dedicated GPU for running Stremio Kai instead of your iGPU. Sometimes, Windows decides to use the integrated GPU instead of the dedicated one, if kept on "Let Windows decide", which can cause choppy playback.

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Support policy going forward

Stremio Kai is a preconfigured system, not a managed service.

I cannot realistically debug:

• Individual PC setups
• Driver stacks
• Custom mpv configs
• Third-party overlays
• Capture software conflicts
• OS-level tuning issues

If Kai works on the reference system, it is considered working correctly.

From this point forward, performance issues that cannot be reproduced on the reference setup will not be investigated further.

[allecsc]

This is how fast-forward should look like when it's working correctly:

fast-forward-demo.mp4

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Trailers work correctly when using Cinemeta, using other metadata sources might break this:

trailer-working.mp4

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Auto-skip works ONLY with files that have embedded chapters:

auto-skip-working.mp4