Some background… My PMS is setup on a Win 10 box using an older i7-860 CPU, 8gig ram, GTX275 video card, etc. holding my Bluray, DVD and CD backups.
While everything works ok and streaming via my home network is great, I occasionally watch a movie across the net when I’m out of the house, and I often sync movies to my iPad or Galaxy Tab S3. When streaming across the net or syncing, I select a lower resolution/bit rate so it doesn’t take up as much space on my tablets. Transcoding or re-encoding can often take a while for each movie. When we go on trips, between my wife, our son, and I trying to sync movies to our tablets, we have to start a few days in advance because of how long it can take.
As I read about Hardware-Acceleration on https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/ the Windows System Requirement section only lists Intel QuickSync Video making it appear that only QuickSync is supported. But the final sentence of that section says “…to make sure that Plex can use your dedicated graphics card when Intel Quick Sync Video becomes unavailable.” And the wording in the Compatible formats and limitations section talks about Nvidia, as well the Video encoder engines section of Tech specs section talks about NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC). So it looks like Nvidia might be supported too.
So my question is… IF I upgrade the video card in my server to a newer Nvidia card, will it use the GPU to help speed up the video re-encode on sync and/or remote playback? Or must I upgrade my CPU to newer that supports QuickSync?
@AmazingRando24 said:
To solidify, it’s stated in the requirements:
A recent Intel CPU meeting these requirements:
2nd-generation Intel Core (Sandy Bridge, 2011) or newer (we recommend 5th-gen Broadwell or newer for the best experience)
Supports Intel Quick Sync Video (Not sure? Look up your processor)
Thank you, but yes, I did mention that is how its listed in the requirements. But I also questioned the mention of other statements on the page which seem to conflict with that (like the final sentence of that section which ends with “…to make sure that Plex can use your dedicated graphics card when Intel Quick Sync Video becomes unavailable.”) hence the reason I asked for clarification.
As another stated example, I talked about the mention of NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) in the technical specifications section lower on that page, as well as other mentions of Nvidia on that page.
One statement I didn’t call out that also seems to imply Nvidia can be used is… “Windows and Linux devices using NVIDIA GeForce graphic cards are limited to hardware-accelerated encoding of 2 videos at a time. This is a driver limitation from NVIDIA.” from the Hardware-accelerated encoding section, just before the Tech Spec section, near the bottom of that same page.
Since NVENC (from Nvidia graphics cards) is independent of QuickSync (from Intel CPU’s built in video) it seems to imply that other methods are possible, at least for hardware accelerated encoding. Further, since Intel’s video (hence QuickSync) is disabled when an external graphics card is installed (unless you ALSO attach a monitor to the Intel video port), they are usually mutually exclusive.
So I’m trying to clarify if I am reading it correctly that QuickSync might be preferred (and appears to be required for 8 and 10 bit HEVC decoding), but if not available Plex Server can use GPU from Nvidia for hardware accelerated H264 encoding.
I haven’t tested the most recent release yet (Version 1.13.2.5154) but as of about 2 months ago Plex introduced a bug that crashes the server if you try to use hardware acceleration and run as a service. For the time being I think most are running with HW acceleration turned off
@“mike.marzano” said:
“…to make sure that Plex can use your dedicated graphics card when Intel Quick Sync Video becomes unavailable.”
Meaning, it’s already in use by another process on your PC. It still needs to be present. Everything you’re quoting is true, but having QuickSync must be true first before everything else follows.
I don’t suppose you heard if that particular bug has been squashed, have you? A couple of months back my PMS running as a service started crashing frequently. I’ve been running it as an application (service disabled) for the time being and its been solid as a rock, but it does mean I have to leave my Plex PC logged in 24/7, and if it gets rebooted for some reason, I have to log it back in again manually. A proper pain.
I don’t know if it’s been squelched or not. I’m no longer getting responses to bug posts since the new system was cast upon us.
I can’t find nor group anything the way I could in the old system. I know it sounds conspiratorial but it’s almost like they wanted to make it difficult for users to find and aggregate similar reports.
Tracking and reporting bugs is getting to be too much effort, especially since so many never get fixed. They’re off on to VR and other 1% user items. VERY disappointing
For instance, ROKU still leads by marketshare but doesn’t have a grid guide. FireTV and Apple do.
