I’m hoping that this will be a quick little discussion (maybe not), but my current PMS is rocking an i7-4790. Needless to say, I’ve tried HW transcoding to take some load off of the CPU, but the integrated HD4600 isn’t cutting it for a single 1080p stream.
I’m looking to add a cheap-ish GTX 1050 that should be able to handle 2 1080p streams, but I want to ask this question first:
Since I would enable HW transcoding, and from everything I have read so far on that topic, first choice for any applicable format would be the HD4600 (that doesn’t pass muster). Would Plex be able to tell that the QSV wasn’t transcoding well, and switch to the GTX 1050, or would it go back to the CPU?
Asked another way - can the QSV be “skipped over” when HW transcoding, so that the GPU is utilized when the QSV can’t keep up?
I’m not looking to spend $125ish to take load off of my CPU only to find out that the GPU would just sit there behind the QSV, never really being utilized. Thanks for any help!
Plex uses the primary video display set in your system BIOS.
If you install the 1050 and make it the primary video display for your system, it will be used for the first two supported, concurrent transcodes. Plex will use the 4790 CPU for the third and subsequent concurrent transcodes, not the HD4600.
Below is a picture from my motherboard manual. I have a 750ti video card & a 4790K CPU.
If I set the Initial Display Output to PCIe 1, Plex uses the 750ti for transcoding. Starting with the third concurrent transcode, Plex uses the CPU, not the HD4600 iGPU, for transcoding.
If I set the Initial Display Output to IGFX, Plex uses the HD4600 in my 4790K for all transcodes, ignoring the 750ti.
How is it not cutting it? I have a Haswell i5, slightly worse than your CPU, that can handle hardware acceleration of 1080p with no sweat. Is this video file encoded with AVC or HEVC? AVC should decode/encode in hardware just fine. Even with HEVC, it should be able to decode in software, then encode to AVC in hardware.
Software transcoding will look a bit better than hardware at the same bit rate. But it should certainly be working.
I have a feeling that it’s struggling with the Live TV catch up - I usually have, on a normal nightly load, 2 Live TV streams and 1-2 MKV transcodes. When I did enable hardware acceleration, the Live TV was stuttering/buffering every other second or two, which made Live TV unwatchable. With the normal Live TV being watched on Roku sticks (3600R), MPEG2 needs to be transcoded on the fly with little delay, so I’m guessing that the HD4600 can’t keep up. I hadn’t tried it with an MKV file on the Roku stick, but it may perform better.
This is fantastic - and very, very much appreciated. I’m glad to know that it’s a simple BIOS setup and the GPU will be used before the iGPU. I’ll definitely be investing in a GPU soon thanks to you!
