[Chalklands]

Default is best

 This is a gross oversimplification.  Defaults are a great starting point, and often are the best, but not in all situations.  If defaults were always the best there would be no need to parameterize them.

FWIW, I have been getting some buffering via wireless AC on my upstairs Shield TV when streaming (local via NFS) 4k HDR on both KODI 17 and KODI 18.  I know there are a lot of wireless haters out there, but the facts here are that the networking was not at all being taxed, so I know for a fact that KODI wasn't asking for enough.  After starting low, I had the best luck with settings similar to example 5 @ https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache . 

xml:


<advancedsettings>

  <cache>

    <buffermode>1</buffermode>

    <memorysize>786432000</memorysize>

    <readfactor>1000</readfactor>

  </cache>

</advancedsettings>

I started with 100MB and got all the way up to 750MB.  My key takeaway was that these settings will work to address buffering issues, just not as documented.  The docs suggest that the above settings would 2+ GB of ram (750*3) and 30 Gbps (30*1000) for a 30 MBps movie.  I observed only a slight uptick in memory and network consumption with the above settings, but it was enough to rectify the frequent buffering/loading observed prior to adjusting.  My guess is that the documentation is misleading (at least in the case of the Shield TV) people into setting much lower values than are what actually needed.

I know it's nearly five years since this was posted. But I've just tried your recommended settings on my Nvidia Shield TV Pro. Not sure why exactly, but I have seen a notable improvement navigating through my skin (Arctic Fuse) on my Shield  Thank you!!

[fritsch]

The settings above are nonsense. Don't use them. Especially the factor (!) 1000 can actually kill more than it fixes.
With upcoming kodi v21, these settings have been moved to the GUI.

In general it is never good to instruct kodi to read media, which is streamed with a factor 1000 of the calculated weighted average bitrate.

[Chalklands]

The settings above are nonsense. Don't use them. Especially the factor (!) 1000 can actually kill more than it fixes.
With upcoming kodi v21, these settings have been moved to the GUI.

In general it is never good to instruct kodi to read media, which is streamed with a factor 1000 of the calculated weighted average bitrate.

Ah, OK. Thanks for letting me know. Settings reverted back to previous.