For the many of us that use unraid as a Plex server the new intel Arc a380 looks to be an amazing card for the job. Full hardware AV1, VP9, HEVC, and H264  support. Absolutely perfect for a Plex library. 

 

what would it take to get support for this into unraid? 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/128576-intel-video-driverspassthru/?do=findComment&comment=1174726

 

Ok so it’s supported in the new Linux kernel (had already read that). Is there an answer to my question of how to get it supported in unraid? 

Well from what JorgeB posted up above ich777 is our resident baking things into drivers which supports a lot of Nvidia cards here. He has nothing to test it with so I'm guessing its going to be a while. 

 

I'm sure if somebody was willing to work with him maybe he can get it done with some help. 

 if the driver is already there in the the latest kernel is there anything that needs to be tested? Wouldn’t that have already been done to put it in the kernel?

2 hours ago, FlyingTexan said:

 if the driver is already there in the the latest kernel is there anything that needs to be tested? Wouldn’t that have already been done to put it in the kernel?

I don't think so,  Arc support should be linux kernel 6.0

You need to wait for an Unraid release with kernel 6.0 for experimental support, production support is expected for kernel 6.1.

Was anybody lucky enough to get their hands on a ARC GPU?

 

If yes, please contact me... why, because of this:

 

On 10/4/2022 at 11:57 PM, FlyingTexan said:

If the driver is already there in the the latest kernel is there anything that needs to be tested? Wouldn’t that have already been done to put it in the kernel?

Yes and no, if the driver also uses /dev/dri, like all currently Intel based iGPUs, it should work OOB or better speaking at least on the Host and how it behaves after that, in terms of usage in Docker containers and so on is to be seen and needs to be tested.

 

Also keep in mind that maybe the Intel Media Driver needs to be updated inside the containers but these are all things that need to be seen if someone can get there hands on a ARC GPU.

4 hours ago, ich777 said:

Was anybody lucky enough to get their hands on a ARC GPU?

 

If yes, please contact me... why, because of this:

 

Yes and no, if the driver also uses /dev/dri, like all currently Intel based iGPUs, it should work OOB or better speaking at least on the Host and how it behaves after that, in terms of usage in Docker containers and so on is to be seen and needs to be tested.

 

Also keep in mind that maybe the Intel Media Driver needs to be updated inside the containers but these are all things that need to be seen if someone can get there hands on a ARC GPU.

Hello,

I'm cdurkinz from the reddit post. You asked me to contact you here. I have an Arc A380 in hand and tried it on my unraid server without much luck. My main goal was trying to get it to work with Plex to see how it does at transcoding.

 

The only way I know how to do that is with Nvidia GPUs so far is using these steps, which there doesn't seem to be a way to do for Arc as of yet. 
 

Quote

 

To utilize your Nvidia graphics card in your Docker container (s) the basic steps are:

 

Add '--runtime = nvidia' in your Docker template in 'Extra Parameters' (you have to enable 'Advanced view' in the template to see this option)

Add a variable to your Docker template with the Key: 'NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES' and as Value: 'YOURGPUUUID' (like 'GPU-9cfdd18c-2b41-b158-f67b-720279bc77fd')

Add a variable to your Docker template with the Key: 'NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES' and as Value: 'all'

 

 

Any help I'd appreciate it, thanks!

53 minutes ago, gamertaboo said:

Any help I'd appreciate it, thanks!

I‘ve sent you a PM.

On 10/2/2022 at 7:06 AM, FlyingTexan said:

For the many of us that use unraid as a Plex server the new intel Arc a380 looks to be an amazing card for the job. Full hardware AV1, VP9, HEVC, and H264  support. Absolutely perfect for a Plex library. 

 

Just wanted to note that from the reviews that Intel Arc GPUs have extremely high idle power draw, around 40 Watts. It's enough to make it a non-starter for some in regions of higher cost power. Hopefully it doesn't impact all of the cards.

Edited October 7, 20223 yr by BRiT

2 hours ago, BRiT said:

 

Just wanted to note that from the reviews that Intel Arc GPUs have extremely high idle power draw, around 40 Watts. It's enough to make it a non-starter for some in regions of higher cost power. Hopefully it doesn't impact all of the cards.

That's likely a driver issue.  Everything I'm seeing suggests it's like last gen AMD cards... hobbled by bad drivers.

 

From what I can tell, ARC is not bad for 1st gen.

 

I wouldn't advise anyone get these full size GPUs for Plex transcoding.  Get one of the Arc Pros... they are Quadro competitors and have all the workstation/server features you want but in lower power.

On 10/7/2022 at 3:18 AM, ich777 said:

Was anybody lucky enough to get their hands on a ARC GPU?

 

If yes, please contact me... why, because of this:

 

Yes and no, if the driver also uses /dev/dri, like all currently Intel based iGPUs, it should work OOB or better speaking at least on the Host and how it behaves after that, in terms of usage in Docker containers and so on is to be seen and needs to be tested.

 

Also keep in mind that maybe the Intel Media Driver needs to be updated inside the containers but these are all things that need to be seen if someone can get there hands on a ARC GPU.

I'm picking one up from my local Microcenter in just a few minutes.  If you've got something that's needing testing, I'd be happy to give it a shot!

12 hours ago, JaredC01 said:

I'm picking one up from my local Microcenter in just a few minutes.  If you've got something that's needing testing, I'd be happy to give it a shot!

Sent you a PM.

Kernel 6.0.1 is stable since today, chances are high that the next Unraid release includes it.

2 hours ago, ich777 said:

Kernel 6.0.1 is stable since today, chances are high that the next Unraid release includes it.

Awesome!  I'll have mine up and running tomorrow, so I'll send you a DM back once I have it ready!

man, i'm really close to backordering an ARC from newegg, seems like the A380 would be the one to get?  But man, that A770 looks soooo good

I too am looking at an Intel Arc GPU, either the a380 or the a770. But now that I see this: 

On 10/7/2022 at 4:39 PM, aidenpryde said:

I wouldn't advise anyone get these full size GPUs for Plex transcoding.  Get one of the Arc Pros... they are Quadro competitors and have all the workstation/server features you want but in lower power.

 

I didn't even know about Arc Pros (there's an A40 and A50). Those might be worth a look too

Newegg has them in stock so just ordered one. My goal is to take 4k REMUX and start encoding them to AV1 to transition the whole library to 4k. 

On 10/14/2022 at 4:50 PM, FlyingTexan said:

Newegg has them in stock so just ordered one. My goal is to take 4k REMUX and start encoding them to AV1 to transition the whole library to 4k. 

You'll likely have to use a VM for Plex hardware transcoding, as I don't believe the current Linux version Unraid is using supports the Arc GPUs.

9 hours ago, aidenpryde said:

You'll likely have to use a VM for Plex hardware transcoding, as I don't believe the current Linux version Unraid is using supports the Arc GPUs.

I’m willing to wait a little. I can’t imagine it being much longer. I’ve never done a windows VM in unraid I’d probably screw more things up rather than help lol. 

On 10/12/2022 at 9:46 AM, ich777 said:

Kernel 6.0.1 is stable since today, chances are high that the next Unraid release includes it.

When we say “next” do you mean 6.12 or 6.11.2? If it’s already in 6.0.1 is there a means to add it to current unraid 6.11.1?

36 minutes ago, FlyingTexan said:

6.0.1

This is the linux kernel vers, Unraid 6.11.1 is on 5.19.14. So will would have to be in a next release. >6.11.1

 

Will do some testing when my card arrives.

Edited October 16, 20223 yr by SimonF

2 hours ago, FlyingTexan said:

When we say “next” do you mean 6.12 or 6.11.2? If it’s already in 6.0.1 is there a means to add it to current unraid 6.11.1?

This is a thing that I can't answer since I don't know if there will be a 6.11.2 or 6.12 next.

 

Anyways stable Kernel versions are as of time of writing: 5.19.16 and 6.0.1

 

I really can't tell what version did make it in the next build.

2 hours ago, SimonF said:

Will do some testing when my card arrives.

With Kernel 6.0.0 you have to unload the Kernel module first and then force the correct probe:

modprobe -rf i915
modprobe i915 force_probe=56a5

 

Or you simply create the i915.conf file in the modprobe.d directory:

mkdir -p /boot/config/modprobe.d
echo "options i915 force_probe=56a5" > /boot/config/modprobe.d/i915.conf

 

From our testing with Jellyfin it won't work currently with Kernel 6.0.0 but I will compile a custom build with Kernel 6.0.1 shortly and we will try again.