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I just installed an RTX 2060 card in my Windows Plex Media Server and I have “Use hardware acceleration when available” and “Use hardware-accelerated video encoding” enabled, but when I try to transcode an HEVC 4k file to my phone remotely, PMS crushes my server CPU and it doesn’t seem like the new GPU is doing anything. What am I doing wrong?
Monitor playback via Plex Dashboard → Not Playing (expanded view).
It will show if hardware accelerated transcoding is in use.
Note that Plex does not support HDR → SDR tonemapping using Nvidia GPUs on Windows systems. Tonemapping will use the CPU. That might be what is causing the high CPU utilization. See HDR to SDR Tone Mapping.
Plex Dashboard showing hardware accelerated transcoding.
So, I’m an idiot and not used to working with these newer video cards. I completely forgot that it needs additional power, but of course, the 4 year old Dell T30 that I’m running Plex on doesn’t have an 8-pin power connector. I have an adapter coming tomorrow though.
Thanks for the info, I will keep an eye on this situation after I get the RTX 2060 actually working properly.
What type of CPU is in that machine?
Intel E3-1225 v5.
I purchased that T30 in December of 2018 (just to run Plex), but it looks like even then that processor was pretty old. The machine itself has been great (running Windows 10 on it) - serves out 4k content via direct play over my wired network with no issues (there is some content where I have a 720/1080p version AND a 2160p copy in separate libraries) and it’s also done pretty well with transcoding 720/1080p content for remote viewing.
I typically don’t do more than 2-3 streams at a time, but I wanted to see about having it transcode the 4k files, which is why I looked at upgrading the GPU.
That CPU has a “Skylake” generation GPU in it. Which should enable it to transcode HEVC, but only in the 8bit color depth (which is pretty rare).
But you can only use it if the mainboard has on-board graphics present (and enabled in BIOS) and suitable drivers installed.
With such a CPU, you will have trouble transcoding 4K, if it uses HDR – even with the new GPU card. PassMark - Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5 @ 3.30GHz - Price performance comparison
It does technically transcode HEVC content, but it buffers constantly (even when setting the client quality to pretty low), which is doesn’t do with H.264 files. I thought the new GPU might help.
I just looked and it does seem to be using the hardware to transcode H.264 content as you can see in the screenshot (it should be using direct play in this situation, I’ll have to check the settings on that client). Like I said, I thought the 2060 card would help with transcoding HEVC files, but I’m realizing that I might be wrong now.
A bandwidth of 2 mbps is pretty low. You might wanna verify the bandwidth settings of the client software.
Oh yeah, I know. That example was mainly to show that it does use hardware for transcoding already, even without the 2060 card in the mix. My son installed Plex on his gaming PC to watch TV in his room recently, but didn’t change any of his settings…it should be using direct play because his PC is hard wired to our network.
I was mostly hoping that the 2060 would eventually let me transcode 4k content (if needed by some clients) so that I could stop having multiple copies of certain files and free up some space on my NAS.
I wouldn’t get my hopes up, because of the HDR → SDR issue.
Ugh, that’s disappointing. Well, I purchased the 2060 directly from Amazon, so returning it shouldn’t be an issue. From what you and FordGuy are saying, there probably isn’t much I can do in my situation to improve performance in the area I’m looking to, right?
No, you can only throw additional storage space onto the problem and create SDR 1080p versions.
Or get a newer, much faster CPU.
Gotcha. If I wanted to upgrade my setup, which generation CPU should I be looking at to do the tonemapping when transcoding HDR to SDR content?
As a rule of thumb on Windows you will need at least ~12,000 passmark points. Prefer CPUs with higher single-thread rating.
Thanks.
Btw, when I say “upgrade”, I obviously mean an entirely new PC to run PMS. I know that 4+ year old Dell I’m currently using won’t support a CPU upgrade.
Yes, that is the unfortunate reality in the computing world.
Significant CPU upgrades almost always mean a nearly completely new system.
Yup, it is what it is.
Thanks for the all of the help and advice. Really appreciate it.
I finally got the RTX2060 working over the weekend and have been playing around with various settings and transcoding options. It seems I can tanscode HDR content fine with “Enable HDR tone mapping” disabled and it doesn’t look too bad, IMO. My out of town family are the only ones who would be transcoding 4k content anyway and they don’t really care too much about quality. I stream everything in my house via direct play, so I’m good there.
I installed the 64-bit plex media server on Windows 11 and can now transcode 4K with HDR tone mapping enabled and a Nvidia GPU.
Are you saying that you’re doing tone mapping via the GPU? My CPU is pretty outdated, which is why I’m relying on the newly installed RTX 2060 for transcoding. As mentioned, the tone mapping is done via the CPU and newer processors handle that particular workload much better than mine does.
