Choppy or laggy stream

A choppy or laggy stream almost always comes down to the Wi-Fi connection between your computer and your phone. The good news: the live HUD tells you whether the network is to blame, and a few settings smooth things out fast.

Improve the Wi-Fi first

Most stutter is a network problem, so start here:

• Move closer to the router. Distance and walls weaken Wi-Fi quickly.
• Use 5 GHz Wi-Fi if your router offers it — it's faster and far less congested than 2.4 GHz.
• Avoid congested networks. A busy office or café network shares bandwidth with everyone on it. A quiet home network is ideal.
• Keep heavy downloads and other streaming off the network while you work.

Lower the encoding load

If a better network isn't an option, ask PreviewMonitor to send less data. Tap the screen, open the gear, and:

• Lower the Resolution Limit. Dropping from 720p to 540p (or lower) dramatically cuts the bandwidth needed and is the single most effective fix.
• Try a shorter GOP Mode. On a tight network, Long is the most bandwidth-efficient; if recovery from glitches feels slow, Short ("Smooth") or All-Intra ("Snappy") recover faster (at a higher data rate).

Use the HUD to diagnose

Turn on the stats HUD (Settings → Developer Tools → Show stats) and watch the loss number on the network row. Its colour tells you what's happening:

• 🟢 Green (≤ 0.5%) — the network is healthy. If it's green but the picture still stutters, the bottleneck is more likely the encoder load — lower the Resolution Limit.
• 🟡 Yellow (≤ 3%) — some packet loss. You're near the edge; lower the Resolution Limit or improve the Wi-Fi.
• 🔴 Red (> 3%) — heavy loss. Expect stutter and artifacts. Move closer to the router, switch to 5 GHz, and drop the Resolution Limit.

Also watch the OWD (one-way delay) arrow: a persistent ↑ means the network path is backing up, another sign your Wi-Fi is the limit.

See Live stats HUD for a full explanation of every number, and How networking works for why PreviewMonitor adapts the way it does.