Quadro P2000 hw transcoding not working fully

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hey all,

working on getting gpu transcoding working on my new quadro p2000 and it only seems to be encoding and not decoding. I feel like im just missing something sillly here as i know others have done this.

Unraid with a Windows VM and the P2000 is passed through to the VM.

Thoughts?

2

Hey all,

figured it out in case anyone runs into the same issue.

I saw a few folks in threads that mentioned having issues if the gpu doing the transcoding was not the primary gpu and in unraid i had the VNC adapter as the primary (only way it would let me set it up). I enabled remote desktop so i can get into the box and then removed the VNC adapter so the only Display adapter was the Quadro P2000 and it is working now and boy this quadro p2000 is great :smiley:

3

hmm, spoke too soon,

it only seems to work if i am actively RDP’d into the box, if i disconnect (but still logged in) it no longer hardware decodes

edit2: if i connect a monitor to the video card that fixes it

edit3: rebooted the server and now its not working, starting to regret not just getting a huge cpu lol

4

On Windows, here are some key rules:

  1. You always need to have a monitor plugged in, or else use a “dummy plug” to make the card think there is a monitor. RDP won’t be enough, but once there is a monitor attached, you can RDP anytime you want with no effect.
  2. Hardware transcoding is unreliable at best if you use Plex as a Service.
  3. I’m forgetting the third one.

Here’s an example of an HDMI dummy plug:

https://www.amazon.com/Headless-Display-Emulator-Headless-1920x1080-generation/dp/B06XT1Z9TF/ref=sr_1_3

And a displayport dummy plug:

https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-DisplayPort-Display-Emulator-Fit-Headless/dp/B077CZ6JC3/ref=sr_1_3

5

Thanks, luckily my server lives near my desk so i just have it hooked to the 2nd input of my monitor so i dont need the dummy plug.

I do not have plex running as a service (I have to log in each reboot and let the app actually start)

I just hope i can get this working reliably, otherwise i might sell the P2000 and go back to a monster cpu

6

You don’t need a monster CPU. My Kaby Lake i5-7400 transcodes great.

7

You are probably using quicksync i am assuming?

If i cant get hardware transcoding to work i am going to go back to software, which then yes i would need a monster cpu, my previous setups would a Ryzen 7 2700X and before that dual E5-2670s

1 Like
8

FWIW: I, too have been wanting a P2000 for transcoding purposes. I (mistakenly) thought I really needed it because remote users’ streams were being transcoded, and I didn’t want to “make my CPU hurt”.

I’ve since revised my perceived necessity based on a few factors:

  1. My internet connection is 1000/1000 Mbps, so even 50 streams of the average movie title in my collection wouldn’t saturate the link

  2. Based on some terrific information on other threads in this forum, I now realize that transcoding was being enabled from the client side… defaulting to 2 Mbps, in fact! Since all of my remote users have broadband connectivity (generally in the 200 Mbps+ download range), instructing them to change the “Internet Streaming - Video Quality” setting to Maximum has all but eliminated any video transcodes across the board.

  3. My server is an older Tyan board sporting a pair of Xeon X5675 CPUs (6 physical cores / 12 virtual cores each @ 3.06Ghz), so it’ll easily handle any audio transcodes (which are always done on CPU anyway), and they are plenty beefy to handle the occasional video transcode (necessitated by a temporary slow connection i.e. public WiFi).

Of course, YMMV… and I still want my P2000 for use as an NVEnc platform (specifically for re-encoding existing content into H.265). Of course, the decoding portion would be great as well, but all of my remote users’ devices currently support H.265 natively (Amazon Fire, Apple TV 4 / 4K, etc).

9

Yeah most of my users have <20mbps internet (many under 10) so a lot of them transcode. I also like it because it frees my cpu up for other things that i would like to use it for, and yeah H265 content is brutal on a cpu right now so it is awesome for that

10

It might be worth considering “optimized versions” if you have very many users with low internet speeds… re-encode it once instead of every time any of those users watch that title.

I’m considering maintaining a separate library of smaller file size / lower bitrate copies of all my titles. Such a mirror library would be great for synchronization to mobile devices as well as for users with low bandwidth.

The average file size of a 1080p 5.1 movie in my library is around 10 GB, so I figure a 720p copy with stereo sound will probably be under 2 GB per movie, especially if it’s encoded with H.265. Although H.265 ancoding is processor intensive, if the bit rate / file size is small enough and your client device is compatible, it will simply direct play…

So I could achieve my goal with about 20% file system overhead. With refurbished enterprise hard drive prices hovering around $20 per terabyte, it’s a pretty easy sell for me…

If there were enough interest in a group buy, I recently saw an eBay listing for 50 used 3TB SAS drives for $1600 shipped, bringing the cost per TB down to only $10.33. Combine those drives with a 20-25 bay SuperMicro storage server or a NetApp appliance and you’d have the headroom to store your library in several resolutions LOL

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