UnRaid with Plex docker - new hardware question

[bkastner]

I'm looking at refreshing the core of my UnRaid server - new CPU, motherboard and RAM, and I am looking at the AMD 3900X as the CPU of choice, however I know it doesn't have integrated graphics, so I will need to purchase a graphics card for that.

 

One of the things I was looking at introducing to the system was a higher end GeForce GPU to provide hardware transcoding in Plex. 

 

My question is whether anyone has a similar setup and can tell me if I can use the GeForce card for basic UnRaid graphics as well as for Plex transcoding or if I need a separate card. I haven't really dug into the process to assign the GPU to the Plex Docker, but I don't know if this prevents it from being generally used by the system as a graphics card.

[ramblinreck47]

4 minutes ago, bkastner said:

I'm looking at refreshing the core of my UnRaid server - new CPU, motherboard and RAM, and I am looking at the AMD 3900X as the CPU of choice, however I know it doesn't have integrated graphics, so I will need to purchase a graphics card for that.

 

One of the things I was looking at introducing to the system was a higher end GeForce GPU to provide hardware transcoding in Plex. 

 

My question is whether anyone has a similar setup and can tell me if I can use the GeForce card for basic UnRaid graphics as well as for Plex transcoding or if I need a separate card. I haven't really dug into the process to assign the GPU to the Plex Docker, but I don't know if this prevents it from being generally used by the system as a graphics card.

You only need one card for booting Unraid and Plex. No need for an additional GPU.

[bkastner]

1 minute ago, ramblinreck47 said:

You only need one card for booting Unraid and Plex. No need for an additional GPU.

 

Thanks. I had seen elsewhere that assigning the GPU to the Plex Docker would make it unavailable for other things like VMs, etc, but wasn't sure of all the limitations of this scenario. I'm glad I only need the one card so I don't have to waste another PCI slot.

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, bkastner said:

 

Thanks. I had seen elsewhere that assigning the GPU to the Plex Docker would make it unavailable for other things like VMs, etc, but wasn't sure of all the limitations of this scenario. I'm glad I only need the one card so I don't have to waste another PCI slot.

Assigning the GPU to a VM DOES make it unavailable for any other use while the VM is running as the VM will have dedicated use of the GPU.   As a general principle any resource assigned to a VM is not available for any other use while the VM is actively running.

[bkastner]

9 hours ago, itimpi said:

Assigning the GPU to a VM DOES make it unavailable for any other use while the VM is running as the VM will have dedicated use of the GPU.   As a general principle any resource assigned to a VM is not available for any other use while the VM is actively running.

Thanks for the clarification. This doesn't apply when assigning to a docker container though?

[GroxyPod]

15 hours ago, bkastner said:

Thanks for the clarification. This doesn't apply when assigning to a docker container though?

 

This video might answer a lot of your questions regarding hardware transcoding with an nVidia GPU.

 

 

[bkastner]

10 hours ago, GroxyPod said:

 

This video might answer a lot of your questions regarding hardware transcoding with an nVidia GPU.

Thank you. That helped clarify a lot.