Hello.!
I’m new here, although I’ve been messing with Plex for some time.
My problem is that I have acquired a plex pass, to use hardware acceleration, and when I try to play a 4k file, it does not work.
My server is a i3 8100 / 8GB Ram / and a GT1030.
With that configuration in the HTPC it reproduces without problems, but when I do it through Plex on a Sony XF9005 . The file goes to jumps.
Thank you
You either need to remove the GT1030 and use the iGPU or upgrade it to a 1050(or better). The 1030 only has a decoder not decoder+encoder so transcoding will drop to the CPU.
Hi Tiebeirius!
Thank you very much for the answer, I will try now to remove the 1030, if it does not work, I will update to a 1050, not to put a more powerful GPU is for not having more consumption in the HTPC.
When I update, I will put the results … !!
Thanks again…!!
Regards
Hello again…!
I tried with a 1050 ti of my son in the htpc, nothing, I get the same result.
I have installed a server on my computer gaming, an i7 9700/1080 you, nothing I get the same result. I don’t understand how it doesn’t activate hardware acceleration.
I have looked at the Faq, and I have followed the configuration steps and it does not work for me.
My Gaming team plays perfectly, of course on the i7. I don’t know if I would have been more interested in buying the i7 and not the plex pass.
I do not know how to get activate hardware acceleration … Any more ideas ??
Thank you so much…
Windows requires a Monitor or Dummy plug be attached to the video card before it will initialize it and Plex must not be run as a service or auto login.
Could be caught in the middle of driver updates, the driver is too new for Plex but not something you want to roll back. Best way to find out what is going on is to up load the logs.
In a browser: https://app.plex.tv/desktop
Server > Troubleshooting
Put the log files into Debug mode(but not verbose)
Try to play a file and wait 3 minutes
Download the log files and attach.
There is no indication that the Plex server is detecting a GPU.
I will have to update to 1.16.5.1488 to see if it breaks HW transcoding, still on 1.16.4.1469.
What do you mean it doesn’t work? I don’t see any transcoding jobs in your server logs. I see you watched Aquaman, but it direct played so no hardware transcoding was needed.
Is your TV connected hard wired to your network, or wirelessly?
Also, define “Doesn’t Work”. Error message? Buffering Video? No video?
Thank you very much everyone for answering … !!
Ok, I’m waiting for your news in case I have to update.
It is not working because as I have seen in the faq, when opening “activity”, in the control panel, it should exit (HW), and not direct reproduction.
When I play like this the video goes choppy, the file doesn’t go smoothly.
I need it to go with hardware playback, because the processor is small to play mkv files. 70GB smoothly.
The TV is connected by Wifi AC, I have no way to test its speed, but the Netflix speed test gives me 250 Mb / s. I understand that it is enough.
The Htpc is connected by cable to a 1200 Mb PLC. The wiring and network are Cat6 and Gigabyte. And the Internet home line is 500 MB / s synchronous.
I have no problem connecting any device on the home network.
The problem is that when you play the video, it jumps, it doesn’t flow.
If I play it from the Gaming Computer i7 9700K @ 5.3Ghz and a 1080ti, it does not jump, it goes smoothly, but it still does not play by hardware.
Sorry for my English
Thank you very much to all…!!
If it’s a Sony TV, it has Android built into it, yes? You should be able to download a speedtest app in the play store for the TV. Preferably one with a graph so you can see if there are any low points…
That sounds like “Stuttering”, which could definitely be caused by dropped packets in your wifi. If possible, you should see if you could run a Cat-5 or Cat-6 cable from the TV directly to the router, and see if it fairs any better…
I have a Sony X850D, it used to have that problem. Where it’s located it wasn’t feasible to run an Ethernet cable all the way to it, But since I could get one into the same room at least, I ran an Ethernet cable into the room and setup a router as an Accesspoint, this made the wifi connection strong enough to play smoothly.
I think you are misunderstanding what the hardware transcoding feature does. It uses hardware (gpu) for transcoding video from 1 format to another. If the file is being direct played, there is no need for it. If your TV is having issues direct playing the file, that either means the file has errors so the TV is stalling on these errors, or the TV isn’t powerful enough to decode the file fast enough.
The solution for either of these is to lower the quality setting in the TV to force PMS to transcode the file to a lower bitrate. This will produce a cleaner file and a lower bitrate that the TV won’t struggle with. In this scenario, the hardware transcoding can be used, but until it does, I can’t tell if it is being enabled on your system or not until you can provide a log with transcoding kicking in.
It had not occurred to me to do that … !! I can try speedtest, which is what I usually use, thank you very much … !!
I understand what you say, but before posting I did those tests, I tried to have cable TV, I can do it, but the connector it brings is 10/100, and connected by Wi-Fi, it goes faster, I tried it to see Netflix in 4K
Besides, I don’t think that’s it, because if I play from gaming if the video goes smoothly, it doesn’t jump, and Gaming also goes by Wi-Fi.
At home I have a very good Wifi network, I can have my 500Mb anywhere in the house.
Thank you so much…!!
If that’s the case, then I would suspect it’s what @anon18523487 has advised is what’s happening. Your TV may not be fast enough to decode the content via directly play. You can go the route he has outline for you (Force it to transcode by telling plex to play it at a lower quality), or you can get a device that will decode it faster. Like a FireStick 4K, or an NVIDIA Shield TV, or something like that.
Yep. If low price is important, and you just want wireless, get a Fire Stick 4K or Roku Streaming Stick+. If price is not important, then you can get the wired options: Fire TV Cube, Roku Ultra (2018 edition), Nvidia Shield, or Apple TV. (Pricing may vary in your country, sorry!)
I have considered that possibility, but what I do not understand is how from the gaming pc it plays smoothly, without jumps.
If I have misunderstood the option of hardware reproduction, I am sorry. But it has always been said that hardware playback uses that option to use the gpu helping the cpu to play a heavy video. In fact on this page of Plex it indicates this
https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/
Thank you very much for the information…!!
But for that, I reproduce from the HTPC directly. The idea of using Plex is because it is on Android on TV and I don’t have to switch from devices.
Thank you so much…!!
Wooh, I didn’t know I knew Spanish. 
The GPU can be used for 2 things. 1 - transocoding. This is where a video is actually converted from 1 codec to another on the fly. This is done on the server side and very processor intensive and can eat up the CPU. This load can be transferred to the GPU on the server, which is what that PMS setting does. 2 - decoding. This is where the video is read from the file and translated to a signal that can be displayed on the screen. This is done on the client end. This takes some power but not as much as 1.
When your TV is direct playing, the GPU in your TV is doing 2. It has nothing to do with the GPU on your server. So it is basically reading the 70 GB file. The hardware in your TV may not be fast enough to handle this.
Your gaming machine will do the same but uses it’s own GPU. Since it’s a gaming machine, the GPU is probably much more powerful than the one in your TV so it has no issues.
Are you Spanish??
Ok, I have understood this perfectly. So Plex doesn’t use hardware acceleration like MPC for example?
I had not thought about this, so I just did another test, I copied 4 4k movies between 60 and 70 GB on a USB disk. And from there it reproduces without problems, I imagine that the hardware of the TV is the same to play through the network, that from usb, it is the TV chip that decodes that file, right?
Indeed, the GPU of the gaming machine is much more powerful than that of the TV and the HTPC, I have tried with another more powerful GPU without any result …
Thanks again for all the help … !!
No I’m not. Just wondering how your quotes of me are coming out as Spanish.
It can, but it depends on the client. i.e. Plex Media Play and the new Plex for Windows app both support this.
You imagine wrong. The Plex app mainly uses the devices hardware, while the built in video player can use something different called software decoding. This gives the player more codec compatibility. However, since the file was direct playing before, it means that the codec was compatible. It could be there is a flaw in the hardware and the built in player uses all software decoding bypassing the hardware.
It’s hard to say exactly what is causing the issue without further investigation.
