HW Transcode Quadro P2000 within VM (VMware)

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.21.0.3711

Hello All,

I have a Plex server running as VM through vSphere with a Quadro P2000 passed through to the Windows OS. I am having issues where I can’t get the hw transcoding feature to work properly and it shows the client an “unknown error”. Upon disabling hw transcoding, it being to work properly as expected.

I suspect this has something to do with the transcoder trying to use the default display adapter which in this case would be the VMware SVGA adapter that comes with VMware Tools. Will I have to get a headless adapter to simulate a display in order to switch this over to the P2000? Anyone who has experience with a similar setup and is willing to share how they got it to work would be a lifesaver!

Best,
Max

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From the support article on using hardware accelerated streaming:

Can I use Hardware-Accelerated Streaming inside of a virtual machine?

Hardware-Acceleration Streaming is not currently possible inside of virtual machines, as virtual machine hosts do not expose low-level video hardware to the guest operating system. While some virtual machines expose generic 3D acceleration to the guest OS as a virtual driver, this does not include support for accelerated video decoding or encoding.

So not sure you can get this to work…

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Thanks for the reply although i’m pretty sure this does not apply in an instance where the GPU is passed through directly to the guest. This in turn does expose video hardware and allows acceleration.

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It doesn’t look like VMware supports video encoding/decoding through the shared card, only 3D acceleration.

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If anyone from Plex is reading, you may want to update this section from the using hardware accelerated streaming section to be more specific.

“Can I use Hardware-Accelerated Streaming inside of a virtual machine?
Hardware-Acceleration Streaming is not currently possible inside of virtual machines, as virtual machine hosts do not expose low-level video hardware to the guest operating system.”

This is inaccurate…I was able to get this to work. It seems that Plex will use the GPU if it is the primary display adapter.

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