i'm in middle of looking how to get hardware accelerated video for Plex on my Unraid server.

 

I believe these are the options:

 

1. Plex in a docker container.  Can only do acceleration with the Intel "QuickSync" CPUs using the official hardware acceleration feature of plex since a docker container can't get access to a dedicated GPU. (Using QuickSync requires some extra steps to get working in a container)
2. Plex in a VM. Can do either Intel QuickSync CPU acceleration, or acceleration with a dedicated video card.  Most people recommend the Nvidia Quadro P2000 and looks like with a patched version of Plex this works?
3. Plex natively on Unraid. Instead of QuickSync, can just use a dedicated video card (again, probably the Quadro P2000). The advantage is no overhead of the VM, and can use a dedicated video card for acceleration which is better than QuickSync CPU.  I believe this option requires me to use the LinuxServer special "Unraid Nvidia" version.

 

Are there options I'm not considering?  I don't love option 3 since while it works, using a separate version of Unraid seems risky and a hassle.  Browsing through the thread looks like lots of people are having issues (but to be fair, lots of people have it working).

 

I can do Option 1, which keeps me running Plex as I am today.  But it requires me to upgrade my motherboard, CPU and RAM since my gear is pretty old and my Xeon CPU doesn't have QuickSync.

 

So I think the front running option is Option 2 (Plex in VM with dedicated video card).  The Nvidia Quadro P2000 is about $250-$300 on eBay but since it's PCIe 3.0 x16, I need to change my motherboard anyways since I only have a single PCIe 3.0 x8 slot (not x16) on my existing motherboard.  But I should be able to find an LGA1150 board to upgrade to that is far cheaper than replacing my CPU, RAM *and* motherboard.

 

What do you all think? Am I thinking about this the right way?

You never listed your plex needs so kind of hard to answer. Few days ago I setup a low powered ml30 g9 and a gt 710 using lsio docker and nvidia unraid. Its fast and fantastic. If you don't need a ton of transcodes at once, don't waste your money on an overkill gpu.


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You never listed your plex needs so kind of hard to answer. Few days ago I setup a low powered ml30 g9 and a gt 710 using lsio docker and nvidia unraid. Its fast and fantastic. If you don't need a ton of transcodes at once, don't waste your money on an overkill gpu.

 

I have multiple people who access my server and various devices which trigger transcoding. Mostly 1080p videos but some 4K. Plan is to To never transcode 4K but I could see myself running into it.

 

Again, I’m not sure I like using “nvidia unraid” since it’s a community project and not officially supported. Perhaps my fears are unfounded?

7 hours ago, tmchow said:

Again, I’m not sure I like using “nvidia unraid” since it’s a community project and not officially supported. Perhaps my fears are unfounded?

Strictly speaking, everything on CA is a "community project" so if that's your fear then you practically can only run VM + use NAS functionality + set up your own dockers (which likely will still be based on some other community projects, just different communities :D)

The only thing you need to be very careful with Unraid Nvidia is that you can only update using the Unraid Nvidia version and NOT the official Unraid version. Some people can't be bothered to read the post so they screw up and complain loudly.

On 7/26/2019 at 3:18 AM, tmchow said:

i'm in middle of looking how to get hardware accelerated video for Plex on my Unraid server.

 

I believe these are the options:

 

1. Plex in a docker container.  Can only do acceleration with the Intel "QuickSync" CPUs using the official hardware acceleration feature of plex since a docker container can't get access to a dedicated GPU. (Using QuickSync requires some extra steps to get working in a container)

Just to confirm but you still need active plex pass subscription for the hw to work in a first place, right?

6 hours ago, Januszmirek said:

Just to confirm but you still need active plex pass subscription for the hw to work in a first place, right?

AFAIK yes.

 

Btw, latest update on this is that I added a Nvidia P2000 and am using that with Nvidia Unraid and Plex in docker.

6 hours ago, Januszmirek said:

Just to confirm but you still need active plex pass subscription for the hw to work in a first place, right?

Yes, you need a Plex Pass subscription and either an Intel iGPU (what I use) or a supported Nvidia GPU.  Quadro P2000 seems to be very popular as it is single slot GPU, has "unrestricted" transcoding strean capabilities and is smaller and consumes fewer watts than many other options.

 

Supported GTX GPUs are limited to 2 concurrent transcoding streams. 

 

Any of the Nvidia GPU options require the use of the unRAID Nvidia plugin and associated unRAID build with Nvidia drivers.

@Hoopster Are you using plex in a docker container or native?

 

 

Just now, parisv said:

@Hoopster Are you using plex in a docker container or native?

I am using the Linuxserver Plex docker container.

6 minutes ago, parisv said:

@Hoopster Are you using plex in a docker container or native?

If by native, you mean your option 3

On 7/25/2019 at 9:18 PM, tmchow said:

Plex natively on Unraid. 

that isn't an available option anymore and hasn't been for a very long time.

 

I am sure others have noted that you can:
Run Plex in a Docker with any NVIDIA Card
Using LinuxServer's Plex and Unraid build (video below)

 

Also, I would recommend the 1660, it is the cheapest card that can do both

 

I got this one, it can both Encode (4K - which plex doesn't do yet) and Decode 4K H.265 (HEVC) 4:4:4   
This means if you have 4K movies in your library (which I do) Plex (in a docker) can decode it (in hardware) and 
Encode it into what ever your uses wants (in hardware). 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZHWQ81N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

This shows what all the different cards can do

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix