UPDATE:
Success! I’ve got Hardware Acceleration working, I need to test with the HP Matrox GPU also enabled but currently I’m getting the below results:
30~% CPU utilization and extremely little GPU utilization (2-24% depending on buffering)
Compared to:
100% CPU utilization and no GPU utilization
Tested using a raw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 1080p Blu-ray rip and on multiple devices (Chrome Browser, Apple TV, Windows App and Android 8.0 (Sony Xperia XZ Premium)). It almost always transcodes the Audio which is expected.
It appears to be completely down to Plex running as a Service, it simply doesn’t Hardware Accelerate as a Service. Real shame, that would make it a proper “Server” so to speak but I can live with just disconnecting my RDP session.
I now have a very low power Plex Server that’s capable of (I think) 4K HDR movie playback (when they crack AACS 2.0 and I can start buying and ripping 4K Blu-ray’s). Even if not, I can now at least handle 2 Streams rather than one!
Note: I did not have to add any fake screens attached or anything, works without any screen being connected.
