I have an i7-3770 that I use for onboard video. It supports QuickSync, but it is older and only supports H.264 and 8-bit depth. I have an EVGA GeForce GTX 960 that I have connected using a PCIe 1.0 to PCIe 3.0 riser card. I use this GPU to mine cryptocurrency on the side. Before switching the GPU into the riser card, I had it in a PCIe 3.0 slot, however I only have 1 3.0 slot and since I’m simply mining with the GPU I moved it to the 1.0 port so I could add a 4-port SAS-to-SATA card. Now before I did that, I could hardware transcode easily. Without the GPU installed my i7 would transcode using hardware, with the GTX installed in the 3.0 slot it would hardware transcode up to 2 streams. However, with both installed now, and the GTX on the 1.0 slot, I can’t get hardware transcoding to work. I’m using my onboard video, which is what I want to use. My monitor is plugged into the HDMI port on my motherboard, in BIOS I had to select 2 options regarding onboard video as an always-on/always-use direction. The computer runs fine, the GPU works better than it did before for mining, the CPU will software transcode just fine. But if I select Hardware Acceleration, no one’s videos will play or they freeze quickly into them. Most errors are cant create a playback for this device or something along those lines. Plex and PlexPy don’t show the videos as being played either.
Win10Pro, 16gb DDR3 RAM, i7-3770, EVGA GeForce GTX 960, 256 GB SSD (Windows+Plex), 38+ TB in various HDD’s
@drinehart said:
Plex uses the primary display GPU for hardware transcoding.
Any idea why it would hardware transcode with the CPU without the GPU installed, but won’t hardware transcode with the GPU installed? Even though the CPU is set as the primary GPU
Probably a BIOS setting that is controlling the GPU would be my guess. Make sure PCIe is first and igpu is after that somewhere. Outside of that, no. I don’t use hardware acceleration, I just try to pay attention to posts and the support articles.
I’ve a i7-4790K, 750Ti video card, Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming5, Win10 Pro. Plex uses whichever GPU is selected as primary in the BIOS.
Suggest you break things down into smaller steps. When something breaks you’ll know where to further investigate.
Pull SAS-SATA card and GTX 960. Double check BIOS settings. Make sure the iGPU is selected as primary. Verify Plex uses the iGPU when transcoding video.
Install GTX 960 in PCIe 3 slot. Double check BIOS settings. Make sure the iGPU is selected as primary. Verify Plex uses the iGPU when transcoding video.
Move the GTX 960 to the riser card. Double check BIOS settings. Make sure the iGPU is selected as primary. Verify Plex uses the iGPU when transcoding video.
Install the SAS-SATA card. Double check BIOS settings. Make sure the iGPU is selected as primary. Verify Plex uses the iGPU when transcoding video.
Launch mining software. Verify Plex uses the iGPU when transcoding video.
Here’s a picture of relevant BIOS settings for my GA-Z97MX-Gaming5 and my settings:
With Initial Display Output set to IGFX, Plex uses the iGPU (monitor connected to motherboard).
With Initial Display Output set to PCIe Slot 1, Plex uses the 750Ti (monitor connected to video card).
Intel Processor Graphics = Enabled
Intel Processor Graphics Memory Allocation = 1024M.
DVMT Total Memory Size = MAX.
Sadly fordguy setup doesn’t work for me, defaulting my initial display as iGPU doesn’t make it my default for plex. That said I found something else to make plex transcode off of my iGPU!
Enable your iGPU in your BIOS then (As from my experience when a PCIe GPU is found in a desktop PC they disable the iGPU. Plus set the Memory as high as you can in your BIOS)
Check “Use hardware acceleration when available” in your plex media server settings under Transcoder
Open the Settings > Display > Graphic Settings > then click “Browse” & add the Plex applications to the Classic App. (ie plex media server, plex transcoder, plex tuner service, etc in C:\Progam Files (x86)\plex\plex media server)
Once all are added click “Options” & select “Power Saving” which should show you’re iGPU (note that high end 6/8/12/16 core Ryzen cards don’t have iGPUs. Same goes for Intel CPUs with “F” on the end like i7-9700F)
