How to Fix Discord Stream Lagging

Although Discord is ahead of its class in many areas, it still frequently experiences technical issues. So before you go smashing your device out of frustration, we recommend you to check the comprehensive guide below to know what went wrong with your stream lagging and how to fix Discord lagging issues.

Starting with a common one, your internet connection could be blamed for your discord lagging issue. It is already given that a slow internet connection lags everything you consume with it. Most times as well, an internet service provider can act really poorly at the times you needed it the most.

So to check this, you could visually see the wifi strength in your device taskbar or directly in your wifi router hardware. You could also do a simple internet speed test by searching it on Google and finding out how your internet speed performs.

One way to solve this is to unplug and plug back in your internet hardware in order for it to restart. Sometimes, as last resort, call the customer support of your internet provider to ask for assistance regarding your internet connection.

Note: Beforehand, ensure that your router is ideal for the area you installed it. This reason might be slowing down your internet signal. Many also pointed out that a VPN connection might work in speeding up your connectivity.

A bad internet connection does not only rely on the hardware but it could also be an issue within your device. For example, you encounter a bug that does not make your device recognize the network you are connected to. When this happens, you have no internet connection resulting in your streaming not performing as intended.

In cases like this, there is a need to take a network reset. This is one of the methods to solve non-connectivity which is effective and safe but you must know the risks in doing so.

Resetting network settings put everything back on default or factory state for your internet, local network, and paired devices’ data. It will delete this information in ways such as forgetting all connected networks and passwords, deleting connection settings, and resetting your network adapters. So expect that you will have to set up everything again.

To do this, follow the steps below:

1. step 1

   

   Open your device settings (shortcut: Windows key + I) and look for “Network and Internet”. Then proceed to click “Advanced network settings”.

2. step 2

   

   From what you see in the “More setting” category, click “Network reset”

3. step 3

   

   Proceed to click the “Reset now” button and choose “Yes” when prompted.

4. step 4

   Windows will then sign you out and restart your device to make these changes happen.

It might be Discord’s fault that your stream is lagging because of server downtime. For this, you have no control over it and will have to wait for the app’s programming end to solve the issues.

If you suspect that it’s Discord that makes your streaming quality bad, the platform fortunately is very transparent and tells users if its servers are down.

1. step 1

   

   On any browser on your device, search for “Discord server status”

2. step 2

   

   Select the first that will come up from the results, https://discordstatus.com/

   From there, you can check if Discord servers are functional and might coincidentally not be operational when you were holding your stream. It also provides the platform’s history of outages since its creation.

Discord constantly releases updates that either improve its features or resolve bugs in some of its services. Hence, it is very important that the app on your device is updated because your slow stream might be caused by an outdated Discord. To do this, refer below:

1. step 1

   

   Launch the windows run command by clicking the windows logo key and the r button at the same time. Then type “%localappdata%” on the data field and click “OK”.

2. step 2

   

   Once the pop-up window will load, find the “Discord” folder.

3. step 3

   

   Inside, you’ll find the “Update.exe” application file at the bottom of the list.

4. step 4

   Simply click it and let the update installation run until completion (Note: If the update won’t run, this might mean you are on the latest version of the app already. If still in doubt, you just might want to consider reinstalling the app. )

Multiple programs, especially those running in the background, not only compete with your internet connection but also your RAM making your device performance even slower. Because of this, your Discord app may not function properly. So, you have to end unnecessary programs which can be done in two ways.

1. step 1

   

   Choose any programs that can be found in your device taskbar and manually close them using the control buttons. You could also right-click the program and select “Close all tabs” or “Close all Windows”.

   Another way is to use Task Manager. Before doing so, you must be aware that ending a program will leave your unsaved data lost forever so make sure you saved all your progress from the running programs.

2. step 2

   Using your device search option, type in “Task Manager” and open it. You could also use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Esc to access it.

3. step 3

   

   From the “Apps” or “Processes”, select an item that you are familiar with and is still running despite the program being closed. Then click the lower right button that says “End Task”.

   Note: It’s best that you leave the programs that you are not familiar with because it’s necessary to constantly run them in the background for your device to work. Usually, programs that end with EXPLORER.EXE, or anything with SYSTEM, SYSTRAY, or SERVICE are not encouraged to be ended. If you think you mistakenly do so, just restart your device and Windows will automatically enable those again.

Windows have a default feature for start-up apps that opens automatically every time you turn on your device. Discord would then be less of a priority.

Two ways to do this:

Task Manager

1. step 1

   Access your Task Manager by pressing the Ctrl+Shift+ESC keys at once.

2. step 2

   

   From the top tabs, select “Startup”.

3. step 3

   

   Determine the unnecessary programs that run when you start your device. Click on it and select “Disable” located at the bottom right of the window.

Windows PC Settings

1. step 1

   

   Using the search button, type in “Start-up apps” and open the settings leading to it.

2. step 2

   

   From there, simply toggle disable or enable the apps that should not be running automatically at startup because these slow down your device.

Clearing discord corrupted cache files is also another way to make your stream laggy. Discord stores information on your device in real-time that you use the app, cache is what this is called. This is much better deleted because it takes up space in your device and needs to free up to speed up your device.

1. step 1

   

   Close the discord application and also quit the app from the notification icon.

2. step 2

   

   Launch the run command by pressing press windows and r keys simultaneously. Then type in “%appdata%”

3. step 3

   

   From the pop-up window, locate the “Discord” folder.

4. step 4

   

   Click the “Cache” folder and select all the files inside to delete.

Your device might have accumulated many temporary cache files from running different programs or services. These files might look necessary but are really safe to delete to give way for your device to work more smoothly.

1. step 1

   

   Launch run command by pressing press windows and r keys simultaneously. Then type in “%temp%”.

2. step 2

   Select all the files stored in the folder and click Shift-Delete then Enter to delete everything permanently. You could also simply click the Delete key alone and the “Yes” button. Then head out to recycle Bin to empty everything recently deleted.

3. step 3

   Restart Discord.

Discord screen share lag could also be attributed to your device’s internal hardware. Simply put, PC devices run on graphics processors such as CPU and GPU (low-end ones only usually only have CPU) keeping everything (software, programs, and services) performing efficiently. CPU has fewer cores but is the brain of your device and GPU with multiple cores can multitask commands and aid with smoothening your device’s performance.

So if your Discord stream lags, you could choose to either use a high CPU and a low GPU or a high GPU and a low CPU by enabling or disabling hardware acceleration on your Discord app settings. Enabling so takes up more of your device’s GPU and disabling requires high CPU usage.

It is better you know which graphics would work best to be adjusted because some devices might only want to rely to work smoothly on CPU rather than GPU or vice versa. From there, proceed to check if your Discord settings meet the internal hardware your device has.

1. step 1

   

   Open Discord and click the settings icon at the bottom left area.

2. step 2

   

   Then scroll down to the App settings category, and select “Advanced”. In the “Hardware acceleration” section simply enable or disable.

3. step 3

   Relaunch discord after changes were made.

Power setting dictates the priorities your device intends to focus on. There are three options for this which are, Balanced (used by most users), High performance (better system performance but high battery usage), and Power saver (saves more of the user’s battery life).

For a better Discord stream, your power setting should be set to High-performance mode. Below is how to do it:

1. step 1

   

   Access your control panel using your windows key or look it up through the search button.

2. step 2

   

   Look for “Hardware and sound” and proceed to click “Power options”.

3. step 3

   

   On the left pane, click “Create a power plan”.

4. step 4

   

   Select from the options, “High performance” then “Next”.

5. step 5

   

   You could tweak how this power plan works such as when to turn off the display or put the device to sleep. Once satisfied, simply click “Create”.

6. step 6

   Restart your computer and reopen discord after the reboot.

Alternatively

1. step 1

   

   Click the battery icon from your taskbar to access power settings.

2. step 2

   

   Under the “Power” category, then “Power mode” choose from the drop menu beside it “Best performance”.

   Once you set this, your device should be allocating more resources to the Discord app, and then it should affect for the better your stream quality.

If the voice quality in your Discord stream gets disrupted, this just means you have improper voice settings and need to be reset.

1. step 1

   Access your Discord user settings and head to the “App setting” category.

2. step 2

   

   Under it, choose “Voice and video settings”.

3. step 3

   

   Scroll down to the bottom until you see “Reset voice settings” then click it.

4. step 4

   Click the “Okay” button when prompted.

   Doing this will revert it back to Discord’s default state of the setting. Because maybe at some point, when you modified these settings, it was done incorrectly that then affected your streams. Eventually, the audio will be more high quality and in sync in real-time with your broadcast.

Gaming graphics cards (e.g. Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD) always have an installed graphics driver on your computer system. It is much more advisable to update these drivers for gaming performance improvement because apparently, the condition of your graphics drivers might not match what Discord requires hence why the streams lag.

1. step 1

   

   From your taskbar’s search box, type in “Device Manager” and click the first thing that comes up on the results.

2. step 2

   

   Select “Display adapters” and double-click a graphics card from the drop-down option.

3. step 3

   

   Click the “Driver” tab and select “Update driver”.

4. step 4

   

   You will then be taken to another window where you can choose for windows to automatically search updates or manually browse them yourself. Choose whatever from these depending on the availability of the resource on your end.

5. step 5

   

   Wait for the installation of the latest driver to start until completed. Then close.

   If skeptical that Windows did update your drivers, some graphic drivers allow automatic updates so you could take advantage of that feature as well. From the respective websites of the manufacturer, they provide scanning tools that will scan your PC and download the latest drivers for you.

Maybe users reported that reducing the motion settings on discord also makes a difference. Especially for servers with many channels where people converse mostly in gifs or animation, turning on the reduced motion will put halt to these animations for a smoother run. Refer to the below on how to do this.

1. step 1

   Launch discord and head to user settings.

2. step 2

   

   Go to the “App Settings” category, and select “Accessibility”

3. step 3

   

   Scroll down until you reach the “Reduced Motion” section. Then turn the toggle green for “Enable Reduced Motion”

   Doing this makes gifs and animated emojis you see on channels static and won’t require many resources to load up.

If nothing else works from the above, you are now left to reinstall discord as a last resort. Doing this should be easy and fast.

1. step 1

   

   Delete your existing Discord app first from your pc.

2. step 2

   

   Head to https://discord.com/download.

3. step 3

   Whether Windows operating system or Mac, choose to download the program according to your device. The installer file then will automatically download itself to your device.

4. step 4

   Follow Discord install instructions and wait until finished.

5. step 5

   Set up your account again on Discord and try to stream.