Recent change in Unraid / intel driver to hinder iGPU performance?

[KooKoo102]

OK... I feel I need to start off by saying I am not crazy! lol

With that out of the way... here we go.

 

I recently decided to take the plunge in changing up my home server setup.

Long story short I purchased:

2x i9 13900k

2x Gigabyte Z690 Elite AX motherboards

2x 64GB DDR5 ram

And supporting hardware like HDDs and NVMe SSDs

 

 

The 1st system was going to be the "main" Plex / content server.

I built in on my desk to setup and test. I was able to get 18 4k transcodes before I started to notice buffering. Side note: I did test a 12600k and got 12 4k streams.

Either way, I was happy with the results of the 13900k and was ready to install it in the chassis and get all the hardware in. (20TB hard drives and so on) maybe a day later or so... started doing some testing again and I noticed I was not able to get anywhere near the same amount of transcodes... I am now at only about 9 before streams start buffering! (12600k was able to get 12 streams... wtf) I started paying attention to resources to make sure there is nothing I am missing. the first thing I noticed is that the CPU cores are not being utilized in a way that makes sense... only half of the P-cores have any usage. the others never go above 1%. at first I got hung up on that thinking that was my issue. Got some help from a couple people to test some things and everything seems "ok" there. Due to this motherboard and CPU taking place of a previous Threadripper build, I decided to setup a whole new unraid flash keeping the files on the flash drive to retain my array and cache. New OS did nothing... still the same. I then noticed something that has taken my attention off the CPU cores... and towards the iGPU. And this is where I am stuck now.... Prior to installing the motherboard in the chassis, when I was getting 18 streams out of this setup I would see 99% utilization on the iGPU and eventually drop and float around, but not stay at a specific %. I also was able to bring up "intel_gpu_top" and see the information for the individual transcodes listed. But now.... things are different. Now the iGPU will hit 95-96% and lock there. it does not drop ever. also "intel_gpu_top" does not show transcode info anymore. I do not know what to make of it... what would make this change? I know whatever is causing this is the reason I am having this performance drop out of the CPU / iGPU. I even have a pic I have taken when the setup was at my desk... with the transcodes listed in "intel_gpu_top" with the % showing other then 95%. Right now I have 9 streams going for the last hr... buffering happens every now and then... iGPU load locked at 95%

 

Further testing included swapping of:

power supply

ram sticks

CPU

Motherboard

HDD / SSD

network card vs no network card (on board 1GBe vs 10GBe card)

Streaming the files from another server vs stored on local server

I have essentially swapped every part and nothing makes a difference. so... not the hardware. Did something change in unraid / drivers or something?

 

I am on recent stable (6.12.3)

have tried recent and previous firmware on my motherboards

everything else is up to date (dockers and such)

I have tried 2 versions of PMS, official and "binhex"

If you need anymore information, please let me know.

 

My 2nd CPU cooler will arrive later today, so will be testing the other hardware on the desk again.

 

Here is a screen shot of current stats... 

 

Here is a pic I took a few days ago when testing...

all this pics proves is that there was a time where the iGPU ran "normally" and would not lock at 95% when transcoding, also shows when it used to list transcodes. something has changed in the OS or driver or something. I just have no Idea what.

 

If anyone has any ideas, I am all ears.

Thank you!

[KooKoo102]

Not sure if this is of any help:

 

[casperse]

Any fix? Did you find the problem?

[KooKoo102]

6 hours ago, casperse said:

Any fix? Did you find the problem?

No... this is still an issue, and a very annoying one. both systems are up and running. one is my main plex server with all its content. 90% of its purpose is Plex. it still has the same issues described in the original post. not being able to 100% (or 99%) utilize the iGPU... transcoder information does not show up in the "intel_gpu_top" information. I had to stop focusing on this system to build the other 13900K system. The other is built to handle a lot.. backups, game servers, VMs, (non- transcoding) 4K Plex server, TDARR, and many other things. for the time while TDARR gets caught up with all my TV episodes, I have my last gaming PC CPU (8700K) also crunching some frames. the odd thing is the iGPU in the 8700k is outperforming the 13900K... I would see them both working and while I understand that the files need to be exactly the same to get an accurate comparison... the 8700k is ALWAYS processing more frames. I have both the 13900K and the 8700K processing 4 videos at a time. What is funny... 8700k system shows to be running correctly. when i bring up "intel_gpu_top" on both systems... I get the correct information on the 8700k showing transcode info and iGPU at 100%.... while the 13900K does not show transcode and will never go above 96%.

Long story short... both my 13900K systems are not running at full potential and I have no idea why. whatever is causing this issue is allowing my 8700k to essentially outperform my 13900k in TDARR. I wish this would get more attention.

 

I added the snap shot of both ( 13900k on the left, 8700k on the right)

[mikeyosm]

On 8/14/2023 at 7:33 PM, KooKoo102 said:

No... this is still an issue, and a very annoying one. both systems are up and running. one is my main plex server with all its content. 90% of its purpose is Plex. it still has the same issues described in the original post. not being able to 100% (or 99%) utilize the iGPU... transcoder information does not show up in the "intel_gpu_top" information. I had to stop focusing on this system to build the other 13900K system. The other is built to handle a lot.. backups, game servers, VMs, (non- transcoding) 4K Plex server, TDARR, and many other things. for the time while TDARR gets caught up with all my TV episodes, I have my last gaming PC CPU (8700K) also crunching some frames. the odd thing is the iGPU in the 8700k is outperforming the 13900K... I would see them both working and while I understand that the files need to be exactly the same to get an accurate comparison... the 8700k is ALWAYS processing more frames. I have both the 13900K and the 8700K processing 4 videos at a time. What is funny... 8700k system shows to be running correctly. when i bring up "intel_gpu_top" on both systems... I get the correct information on the 8700k showing transcode info and iGPU at 100%.... while the 13900K does not show transcode and will never go above 96%.

Long story short... both my 13900K systems are not running at full potential and I have no idea why. whatever is causing this issue is allowing my 8700k to essentially outperform my 13900k in TDARR. I wish this would get more attention.

 

I added the snap shot of both ( 13900k on the left, 8700k on the right)

Did you ever fix this? I am about to splash out on a 14700K but want to make sure that plex etc work properly before I do.

[KooKoo102]

On 1/27/2024 at 12:22 PM, mikeyosm said:

Did you ever fix this? I am about to splash out on a 14700K but want to make sure that plex etc work properly before I do.

Unfortunately everything is still the same. Shy of doing a 100% wipe on my USB and starting over, I have given up and using the system as it is. Don’t get me wrong, it runs great, but there is 100% something up with my setup that is not allowing it to run its full potential. Don’t be discouraged, yours may be just fine, mine was at 1st lol.