Server Version#:1.13.6.5339
Player Version#:5.3.7.4815
I am running the latest version of the Plex server on an Intel NUC8i7HVK which has the Radeon GPU as well as the Intel iGPU. This box scores 5600 in Passmark and it absolutely sucks when trying to watch live TV on my TCL Roku television. The player I am using is the Roku player built into the TV. It defaults to using the Radeon GPU for transcoding but still, it constantly freezes and is waiting for the server. I have tested with a NUC7PJYH running on Linux, since the support is not in the Windows version of the server for the GPU :(, and I don’t have this issue. Why in the hell is such a low powered NUC outperforming the much more powerful one?
Regardless of what is written in these forums, the Plex server should be capable of choosing which GPU it will use for transcoding. Other applications have this capability so it is just a lack of support for this in the Plex software that is preventing it. Saying that it has to be the primary display is just an excuse for lazy programming. Having a discrete GPU in addition to the Intel integrated GPU is a very common configuration and the Intel GPU is probably the best choice to use for transcoding in these cases since it is for the most part idle.
Seeing as how support for HW transcoding and live TV require a Plex Pass, you would think that they would actually make the features we are paying for work and work well.
I’m running Windows 10 Pro as well. Is your server transcoding live TV? That is where I see the issue. Roku is one of the few boxes out there that does not support Mpeg2 so the Plex server has to transcode the incoming stream from my HDHomerun Quatro. My playback is continuously freezing while the server is buffering even though the CPU is not maxed out. If the HW you are running the player on supports Mpeg2 you will not see this problem.
I have been doing some more testing and it appears to me the issue may very well be the TCL Roku TV itself. It is hard to compare the Roku built into this TV to any standalone Roku boxes since the specs aren’t documented anywhere. I’ve forced transcoding on other devices, like the iPad and by changing the quality on others. I don’t seem to have the same issues as on the Roku TV.
I just found by switching my Roku from a wired connection to wireless seems to fix the issue. It must be a 10/100 lan connection on the TV and it’s not cutting it for some reason.
