Upgrade NIC?

[jachin99 82]

Hello, at times I stream games from via steam from my emby server machine.  If someone is watching TV while I'm doing this I get complaints about the video freezing.  Would it be beneficial to upgrade my nic card and what other things should I consider before doing so?  I also get some complaints when playing rom files over the network that live in my emby server.  Thanks

[Luke 37066]

Hi, what do you have now?

[mastrmind11 717]

doubt it's you NIC.  more likely an underpowered CPU.

[jachin99 82]

I can't tell you the exact model but I can tell you it's a gen 6 it.  I have to wait for an opportunity to turn it off to check exactly what's in there.  I remember the mobo holds 6th or 7th gen Intel cpus.  What kind of CPU would you guess I need?

[jachin99 82]

Here is the mobo https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/H270 Pro4/index.asp

[Q-Droid 643]

Your OS should be able to tell you exactly what CPU you have without having to put eyeballs on it.

 

 

[jachin99 82]

I have an i5 650 @ 3.2ghz  I checked task manager really quick and its showing emby server as having around 80% CPU usage.  Here are some logs.  

embyserver.txt hardware_detection-63771811056.txt

[Q-Droid 643]

I'm guessing the CPU is actually an i5-6500 which would make more sense.

A couple of things...

If you're streaming games then it means your GPU is being used for the game and not video. I don't know enough about how a discrete GPU could be used for simultaneous split workloads such as render games, stream games and also handle video encoding/decoding by other applications. Maybe it can be done, I just don't know.

Also, it looks like you don't have the iGPU enabled or allowed for Emby.  It doesn't show up in HW detection. It could be that you haven't enabled "IGD Multi-Monitor" in the BIOS so that both the iGPU and discrete GPU are active. If this is the case then you could split the usage between Steam (GPU) and Emby (iGPU).

Finally, your MB can support gen 7 (Kaby Lake) CPUs. So if after checking/trying any of the above you still find that performance is lacking and if you get lucky (pricing) then could swap out for a significantly more capable CPU/iGPU.

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Q-Droid

[jachin99 82]

I turned on igd multi monitor and CPU usage looks like its much lower.  I still have to test this change with steam, etc. Bit it looks like that might have helped for the time being.  Thanks for the help

[jachin99 82]

for good measure, here are more logs

ffmpeg-directstream-2c95b23a-ab03-48dd-b29a-546f72d8e3e7_1.txt hardware_detection-63771820517.txt embyserver.txt

[jachin99 82]

I fired up a game real quick while watching TV and things seem much better.  I glanced at the log I just uploaded though and it looks like it's still trying to use the gpu, even with h/w acceleration off.  Do I need a monitor plugged into the igpu to get emby to see it?

 

[Happy2Play 8282]

3 minutes ago, jachin99 said:

Do I need a monitor plugged into the igpu to get emby to see it?

Depends on the Transcoding HWA Advanced options you have enabled and order.  But yes plugging in a monitor changes menu options just like RDP can/will change options.

[Happy2Play 8282]

21 minutes ago, jachin99 said:

I fired up a game real quick while watching TV and things seem much better.  I glanced at the log I just uploaded though and it looks like it's still trying to use the gpu, even with h/w acceleration off.

How did you determine this?  The log above is a Direct stream so HWA is not used at all.

>>>>>>  Processing Plan
Info    Name                                        CanDoInHardware      WillDoInHardware     Reason                                  
Info    Copy video stream                        >> False                False                Software Codec                           
Info    VideoInput                               >> False                False                Not a hardware decoder                   
Info    VideoOutput                              >> False                False                Not a hardware encoder                   
Info    Copy video stream                        >> False                False                Software Codec  

18:36:47.935 Stream mapping:
18:36:47.935   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
18:36:47.935   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)

Unless you have another log showing something different.

[Q-Droid 643]

1 hour ago, jachin99 said:

I fired up a game real quick while watching TV and things seem much better.  I glanced at the log I just uploaded though and it looks like it's still trying to use the gpu, even with h/w acceleration off.  Do I need a monitor plugged into the igpu to get emby to see it?

 

I don't see detection for Intel graphics in the log. As Happy stated you might need a monitor or at least a dummy load. I don't use either so wouldn't know what to recommend or if there are software options.

 

[jachin99 82]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

How did you determine this?  The log above is a Direct stream so HWA is not used at all.

>>>>>>  Processing Plan
Info    Name                                        CanDoInHardware      WillDoInHardware     Reason                                  
Info    Copy video stream                        >> False                False                Software Codec                           
Info    VideoInput                               >> False                False                Not a hardware decoder                   
Info    VideoOutput                              >> False                False                Not a hardware encoder                   
Info    Copy video stream                        >> False                False                Software Codec  

18:36:47.935 Stream mapping:
18:36:47.935   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
18:36:47.935   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)

Unless you have another log showing something different.

I looked at the detection log.  I think I turned on the buffer in the middle of my logs or shortly after.  For the time being I'm not having any noticable issue.  I bet I still have to install drivers for the igpu so once I can occupy that port I'll install those.  I'm also going to keep an eye out on my CPU usage.  Is there a tool out there that I can use on Linux that lets me keep an eye on CPU and GPU resources being used on a windows machine

[jachin99 82]

Is there a way to rerun hardware detection without restarting emby server?

[jachin99 82]

I plugged it in, and installed drivers.  I now have QSV enabled in the emby transcoding options, and steam seems to be using my GPU for streaming games.  My cpu usage is still way down from 80 percent but I still want to try streaming games while someone watches TV (with seeking, pausing, etc. enabled) to make sure things still keep running smoothly.  Thanks for the help.  

[jachin99 82]

I'm still having some issues with this but for others here are some things that have shown some improvement...  I had my games library on the same hdd as my games library.  Moving my transcoding folder to an SSD showed some improvement.  I also moved my my recordings folder to a drive other than the one I store my games on.  Doing this somehow fixed a channel or two that just wouldn't play, and improved live tv performance while playing games.  I still get some hickups while just playing tv under normal circumstances so I grabbed a NVME drive and I plan to reinstall windows.  Aside from that Emby see is still averaging around 30 to 40 percent CPU usage on a erage. Is this normal or should I plan to grab a stronger CPU at some point?  I'm hoping reinstalling windows helps with CPU usage also.  I won't be putting steam on the new windows install.

[jachin99 82]

Yet another update.  After moving my TV buffer to the SSD and still having problems in the post above, I noticed the transcoding temp files weren´t being deleted, and they were filling up the drive.  After deleting 17 gigs worth of temp files playback worked fine, and I moved my transcoding file to a dedicated mechanical drive that is entirely empty.  So I have one HDD to store recordings, a dedicated HDD for transcoding, and a third drive where I store my games.  After making these changes I was able to stream most games over steam without too much issue but I suspect my CPU is still being overworked.  There is still one game that crashes TV like this but most others play.  Also I noticed performance suffers a little more on games that require launchers like those by Ubisoft, and EA.