Intel Arc B580 Transcoding support?

Plex Media Server
1

Hello everyone,

I have an Intel Arc B580 installed in my server, and I’m trying to use it for transcoding in Plex. While I can select it as the preferred device in the server settings, any video I transcode still ends up being processed by the CPU instead of the B580.

Has anyone successfully used this card for transcoding on Linux? I’m currently running Proxmox Kernel 6.11. The card is recognized and loads without any issues, as shown here:

1
11686×393 22.4 KB

    Kernel driver in use: xe  
    Kernel modules: xe

2
21496×362 76.5 KB

Has anyone managed to get this card working? Since it’s such a new model, I’m not sure if the issue is caused by my system / config, the xe drivers being used, or simply because Plex doesn’t support the card yet.

I’m not sure where else to look or what might be causing the issue with the CPU being used instead of the B580.

I’d be grateful for any help or advice!

PS: Yes I have an active Plex-Pass :slight_smile:

2

I found following error in the logs:

ERROR - [Req#134a/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - libva: /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/va-dri-linux-x86_64/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
ERROR - [Req#134a/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: 18 (invalid parameter).
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: I/O error
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Could not create hardware context for h264_vaapi
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Codecs: testing h264 (decoder) with hwdevice vaapi
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi for device '/dev/dri/renderD128' (Intel Battlemage G21 [Intel Graphics])
ERROR - [Req#134a/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - libva: /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/va-dri-linux-x86_64/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
DERROR - [Req#134a/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: 18 (invalid parameter).
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: I/O error
DEBUG - [Req#134a/Transcode] Could not create hardware context for h264

I have the same issue on my Ubuntu Test Server with Kernel 6.12.3-061203.

Does anyone have an idea if and how this could be fixed, or if it even works with plex?

3

Can you provide the output of sudo dmesg | grep -i i915? I don’t have this GPU but the output of the command will provide some info as to whether some fundamental initialization is not occurring properly.

Plex Transcoder (FFMPEG) can fail with that error for a couple of reasons. One is a condition which would leave the card otherwise detectable and usable, but where it wouldn’t be usable in the Plex fork of FFMPEG. I’m specifically thinking of a failure to load/initialize the HuC firmware needed for low-power bitrate control modes.

Of course, it’s possible that it’s just a case where the GPU isn’t supported by the version of the Intel Media Driver Plex builds and bundles with Plex. If the strings output for ‘Plex Transcoder’ is to be believed, that is version 24.1.5-3 which is before support was added to the driver for BattleMage (24.3.4). However, they could have back-ported support into the earlier driver :man_shrugging:.

4

The log snippet shown is indicating the VA-API files which are supporting the ARC GPU don’t support the B850.

It’s showing the communication to the card is failing / unable to probe the card and get a valid reply.

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dmesg | grep -i i915
[   24.508425] xe 0000:03:00.0: [drm] Finished loading DMC firmware i915/bmg_dmc.bin (v2.6)
[   25.267173] snd_hda_intel 0000:04:00.0: bound 0000:03:00.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [xe])
6

I installed “apt-get install intel-gpu-tools” to test it and now I get the following error message:

DEBUG - [Req#ec00/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi for device '/dev/dri/renderD128' (Intel Battlemage G21 [Intel Graphics])
ERROR - [Req#ec00/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - No VA display found for device /dev/dri/renderD128

But I’m not sure if I really need the installed package or if what I’m trying to do is generally correct… :wink:

7

Now reinstall the DPKG package.

The package looks to see if you have a GPU installed ( /dev/dri )
when it finds a GPU, user ‘plex’ group membership is updated to join that group.

When PMS restarts, it will have permissions to it.

(it might not be permissions but can’t hurt either)

Not sure what impact this will have other than being needed for the card.

[drm] Finished loading DMC firmware i915/bmg_dmc.bin (v2.6)

I will look at the version Intel Media Driver we have and see if that card is included.

8 
PlexMediaServer install:   Processor:           Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-10100 CPU @ 3.60GHz
PlexMediaServer install:   Intel i915 Hardware: Not found
PlexMediaServer install:   Nvidia GPU card:     Not Found

Nothing seems to have changed :confused:

9

give me a ls -la /dev/dri ?

you should minimally have support for QSV

the i915 minimal interface not being found is the root problem.

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ls -la /dev/dri
ls: cannot access '/dev/dri': No such file or directory

If a Plex developer happens to read this, I’d be happy to provide a test server on my Proxmox setup with a passed-through graphics card, should there be interest in making this currently very popular graphics card usable for Plex servers. Of course, only if this might be an issue with Plex and not something specific to my system. :wink:

11

what do you get from this?

[chuck@lizum drivers.2009]$ pwd
/sys/module/i915/drivers
[chuck@lizum drivers.2010]$ ls -la pci\:i915
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Dec 23 03:17 pci:i915 -> ../../../bus/pci/drivers/i915/
[chuck@lizum drivers.2011]$

[chuck@lizum drivers.2012]$ cd pci\:i915
[chuck@lizum pci:i915.2013]$ ls -la
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    0 Dec 15 12:06 ./
drwxr-xr-x 40 root root    0 Dec 15 12:06 ../
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 Dec 23 03:20 0000:00:02.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Dec 23 03:20 bind
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    0 Dec 16 13:32 module -> ../../../../module/i915/
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Dec 23 03:20 new_id
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Dec 23 03:20 remove_id
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Dec 15 12:06 uevent
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Dec 23 03:20 unbind
[chuck@lizum pci:i915.2014]$

^^ we can see the kernel has enumerated the hardware (which is at 00000:00:02.0 – inside the CPU )

12

I can’t follow this because I don’t have the directory “/sys/module/i915/drivers” on my server
Subsequent commands therefore also fail:
ls -la pci:i915
ls: cannot access ‘pci:i915’: No such file or directory

13

which CPU are you using?

14

Intel(R) Core™ i3-10100 CPU @ 3.60GHz

15

Which OS distro?

your CPU does indeed have QSV built in just like mine.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/199283/intel-core-i310100-processor-6m-cache-up-to-4-30-ghz/specifications.html

16

Proxmox:
pve-manager/8.3.2/3e76eec21c4a14a7 (running kernel: 6.11.0-2-pve)

However, I fail both with the host itself and with a VM such as Ubuntu (6.12 kernel) with a passthrough graphics card.

17

Did you pass everything through (physical device passthrough) ?

Did you also blacklist the i915 so proxmox doesn’t grab control of it?

18

I installed plex on the host itself

19

you’re running Plex on a proxmox host?

20

I have tried both and currently to rule out errors I test it directly on the host.

In the VM I failed with the same errors as in the host.