hi all I am new here I am away to start the process or shifting to Unraid as my primary server but I just have one question I see there are dockers for plex server but I can't find information on using hardware transcoding with the docker, what with the nivida patch for consumer GPU's available on Linux. which allows more than 2 streams at one time or would I be better running a Linux vm and passing through a GPU to that. instead?    

Hey Muzzy,

 

Welcome to the forum.  You're going to be better off using a VM and passing the GPU through to that VM at this point.  These processes are well supported.  

 

Docker versions of plex can use some Intel IGPs but you are going to run into pain trying to get plex to use the nvidia gpu in docker. 

 

-Good Luck

Thanks for the reply I did think that might be the case. Thanks for the reply

I have been doing some further research so it looks like nvidia have made a docker plug in that allows all dockers to use host gpus so for plex if you had a p2000 would mean that your plex docker would now have access to that that card. 

 

https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker/wiki/nvidia-docker-plugin

 

Anyone tried this? 

Hey Muzzy,

 

I've seen that too in the past.  There's a thread on these forums that talk about this issue too:

Ability to Install GPU drivers for Hardware Acceleration

 

I'll just reiterate:

If you want GPU encoding in plex on unraid your best bet right now is to either run something with a newer intel IGP (which is supported in docker) or spin up a VM and pass the card through.  It's fully supported and shouldn't break during OS updates.  

 

The big issues that hold back using plex in a docker on unraid with nvidia gpu acceleration are as follows (as best as I understand them)

 

https://www.funkypenguin.co.nz/note/gpu-transcoding-with-emby-plex-using-docker-nvidia/

Quote

To summarize, nvidia-docker is a wrapper around docker, which (when launched with the appropriate ENV variable!) will pass the necessary devices and driver files from the docker host to the container.

Unraid doesn't currently have an available video driver that would support this.  Now, unraid is basically slackware so you could install it, but you are then running unraid in an unsupported configuration.  OS updates could break your server, your docker, both, or you could end up with bugs that might not be adressed due to your custom config. 

 

https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-to-setup-nvidia-hw-acceleration-in-ubuntu-docker/288625/5

Quote

Currently I am able to run inside the container Nvidia-smi and my GPU shows up with Plex docker because I run it with the Nvidia runtime. (Note I was able to get Plex to use the GPU when running Plex on bare metal outside of docker)  This has all been good signs but I am still unable to get Plex to encoded or decode with the GPU. I have tried giving the Plex container privilege as well as specific device privilege for all /dev/nvidia Dev’s.

Plex itself doesn't use the gpu when its passed through the container.  Plex just recently added support for intel IGPs to do this because they are running on things like little nas boxes with the quad core atom processors.  The p2000 is just a normal quadro card.  There might be some driver level issues due to having the driver installed on the host (GTX cards aren't supposed to be able to pass through, gets blocked by the driver) so a quadro may be required in the end, but there are a bunch of other things that need to happen before we get to that point.

Edited November 6, 20187 yr by Iciclebar

Have you tried running the Plex Docker as is and see if it suits your needs without over complicating it with VM's and using Hardware Transcoding?

 

Everybody has different needs of course, but just thought I'd throw that out there. 

 

Even with my simple Hardware I'm able to serve multiple devices on my network pretty effortlessly.