Ockingshay Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 I'm starting to think about upgrading my server and one of the main usages of it is Plex. So that I can future proof it as much as possible, it got me thinking of 4K, HDR, and HVEC. When plex finally gets to supporting all that and 4K becomes the norm, it's going to start putting a lot of pressure on servers and their ability to transcode when required. To that end with the advent of GPU transcoding support, and moving the heavy lifting off the CPU, is there a best environment to run plex? i currently have plex installed via docker, but does this support either iGPU or GPU passthroug? If not, should I be thinking of running it in a VM? Or does the plugin work? i love the ease and simplicity of dockers but "stuff" is becoming more complicated and our poor little servers are doing a lot more than they've ever done. Link to comment
kri kri Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Does Plex even support GPU transcoding apart from the nvidia shield? Link to comment
Ockingshay Posted June 8, 2017 Author Share Posted June 8, 2017 Yes, it's currently in preview (plexpaas only) https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/250946/plex-media-server-hardware-transcoding-preview-3-1-6-0-3720/p1 Link to comment
bnevets27 Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 Well Ockingshay I'm not sure if i should be happy or upset that you posted this. I knew gpu transcoding was in the works but I didn't look too deeply into it. I have an older Radeon that looks like it might work so I'll likely play with trying to get that to work at some point in the future. I would now also like an answer to this question. Passing the gpu through to the docker would be my preference if that's possible. Would be nice to off load some work onto the gpu. So I'm glad you brought it up as it be work out well but now it's just one more thing to play with. Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk Link to comment
Ockingshay Posted June 10, 2017 Author Share Posted June 10, 2017 There have been a few topics on it, even here on these forums. Intel uses quicksync and nvidia uses nvenc. i think unRAID would need to have the drivers built into its docker manager for this to work, but this would be a great feature. Link to comment
Ockingshay Posted June 10, 2017 Author Share Posted June 10, 2017 The other option is to use the plex's official unRAID package. In the preview thread listed above, you can download it directly from their forum. And new if you search the thread for the word "unRAID" you will see people having success with it. I'm going to have to give it a go, but currently use docker, so got a work out how to convert. Link to comment
CHBMB Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 1 hour ago, Ockingshay said: The other option is to use the plex's official unRAID package. In the preview thread listed above, you can download it directly from their forum. And new if you search the thread for the word "unRAID" you will see people having success with it. I'm going to have to give it a go, but currently use docker, so got a work out how to convert. You'll need to make sure you install all the dependencies as well from the slackware packages site. Link to comment
bnevets27 Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 This may be useful to users that want to use the gpu in their cpu:https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/53388-enabling-i915-for-host/?page=2So looks like the first hurdle is having the drivers for what ever you want to pass through to a docker loaded into the unraid kernel. That's a steep first step if you can't compile kernels (that would be me) Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk Link to comment
Ockingshay Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 With the inferior quality of GPU transcoding and now that AMD are releasing their threadripper and Intel their i9, there appears to be a simpler, albeit a more expensive solution. Im really looking forward to upgrading my server in the summer with a lot more cores! Link to comment
bnevets27 Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Well personally I could care less about about the transcoding quality, the quality of my transcodes is likely going to be terrible anyhow do to remote connections being bad. Nothing locally will be transcoded anyway. And with the fact that it will take some stress off my cpu will help. Cost wise for me is nothing for the gpu because I already have it so it would a free addition and finding a useful purpose for the card. I agree the newer hardware will benefit and work more easily but that's tends to always be the case. Sent from my SM-N900W8 using Tapatalk Link to comment
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