Youtube buffers with high frame loss on 4k videos

I've been having a problem for the last month or so with Youtube buffering badly on 4k videos. If I right click on the video and pull up "stats for nerds" the dropped frame number is very high. I can play 4k videos from Vimeo or ones I've downloaded just fine. Also I've got two smart tv's that have no trouble streaming 4k videos on Youtube. It's just on this pc. I've included screen grabs from the stats for nerds on a video that indicate the frame loss rate. This PC is 7 years old now but it's never had any problems with 4k Youtube videos until recently.

Windows version 22H2 OS Build 19045.2486

Try using WebGL..

Firefox also support WebGL2
How To Enable WebGL ? - DeviceMAG

Personally I use Firefox for YouTube.

WebGL 2 is enabled by default in Firefox Nightly. To enable it in a release version of Firefox, set the preference webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2 to true in about:config.

To use an experimental implementation of WebGL 2 in Chrome, you have to start Chrome with the runtime flag --enable-unsafe-es3-apis.

NTN said:

Try using WebGL..

Firefox also support WebGL2
How To Enable WebGL ? - DeviceMAG

Personally I use Firefox for YouTube.

WebGL 2 is enabled by default in Firefox Nightly. To enable it in a release version of Firefox, set the preference webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2 to true in about:config.

To use an experimental implementation of WebGL 2 in Chrome, you have to start Chrome with the runtime flag --enable-unsafe-es3-apis.

That's slightly better but I've still got the buffering and dropped frames. Just not quite as often but it's not smooth like it used to be.

I forgot to mention that videos will sometimes default start on the next lowest quality (1440 vs 2160) or if the buffering gets too frequent the video will reduce quality on it's own.

What browser are you using..?
Do you have hardware acceleration enabled?


javascript - How to try webGPU in Firefox Nightly now in fall of 2022? - Stack Overflow

You could also try WEBGPU in Firefox Nightly or Chrome Canary...

NTN said:

javascript - How to try webGPU in Firefox Nightly now in fall of 2022? - Stack Overflow

You could also try WEBGPU in Firefox Nightly or Chrome Canary...

I checked about:config in Firefox and I don't see webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2 but I do have webgl.enable-webgl2 and it is set to true.

Firefox is what I used to use for Youtube also. It is the better performing of the three I use, (Edge & Chrome being the other two) but again, only by a little.

Jezza819 said:

I checked about:config in Firefox and I don't see webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2 but I do have webgl.enable-webgl2 and it is set to true.

Firefox is what I used to use for Youtube also. It is the better performing of the three I use, (Edge & Chrome being the other two) but again, only by a little.

Try Firefox Beta instead....think they may have some extra "flags".
webgl.enable-prototype-webgl2 is present in Firefox Beta.

I also use Enhancer for YouTube™ extension in Firefox Beta.


Opera Crypto also have some settings for WebGL and WebGPU, and is pretty quick....and you don't need to buy bitcoin of course.
Opera Crypto Browser | Desktop & mobile Web3 browser | Opera