Intel GPUs - Anyone tried them?

[murky024 3]

So with Battlemage out, and Intel's continued improvement in the GPU space from their first product, has anyone tried an Intel Arc GPU?

[Luke 42077]

Hi, some were interested in it here: 

 

[all4dom 101]

@LukeI thought if you use an intel processor with  integrated graphics you don't need to use a graphics card?

[Luke 42077]

5 minutes ago, all4dom said:

@LukeI thought if you use an intel processor with  integrated graphics you don't need to use a graphics card?

You may not need to. It just depends on what integrated graphics and what you are doing with it.

[RanmaCanada 494]

Many people have used first gen Arc. As Battlemage has only just been released, I doubt many people have experience with them. You really don't need it if you have a modern Intel CPU.

[murky024 3]

44 minutes ago, RanmaCanada said:

Many people have used first gen Arc. As Battlemage has only just been released, I doubt many people have experience with them. You really don't need it if you have a modern Intel CPU.

Given how much I see you comment about how much you recommend Intel's Quicksync is for transcoding and other comments related to AMD's APU transcoding being sub-par, it felt like maybe another to consider. Having the Intel transcoding into a dedicated graphics card, so maybe the best of both worlds if you are building a multi-use system instead. (IE light gaming and primary emby-server)

 

I picked up the NUC N150 you recommended in a prior post so I will try that out compared to transcoding with the 1070 on the computer. Seems like an inexpensive way to try and offload emby-server from that light gaming system when the 1070 meets the gaming needs my child has but is weaker on the transcoding side.

 

Thanks by the way for your contributions and feedback. It is greatly appreciated...

[RanmaCanada 494]

10 hours ago, murky024 said:

Given how much I see you comment about how much you recommend Intel's Quicksync is for transcoding and other comments related to AMD's APU transcoding being sub-par, it felt like maybe another to consider. Having the Intel transcoding into a dedicated graphics card, so maybe the best of both worlds if you are building a multi-use system instead. (IE light gaming and primary emby-server)

 

I picked up the NUC N150 you recommended in a prior post so I will try that out compared to transcoding with the 1070 on the computer. Seems like an inexpensive way to try and offload emby-server from that light gaming system when the 1070 meets the gaming needs my child has but is weaker on the transcoding side.

 

Thanks by the way for your contributions and feedback. It is greatly appreciated...

Great! Please report back your findings as it's a "new" chip from Intel and it is supposed to be slightly better than the N100. The more experience the community can get with these inexpensive mini systems, the easier it will be for people to have dedicated servers that they can either hide, or use with low power requirements (like the EU). I would eventually like to replace my i5-1235u laptop that I am using as my server as I don't like using a USB-C NIC (it's also bios limited to 15 watts, thanks HP).

If you are going to go the route of a multi-use system yes an Arc card would be "ideal", specially if you are going to use an AMD processor as they are superior to Intel currently for gaming systems.

[sh0rty 714]

On 1/17/2025 at 6:02 PM, murky024 said:

I picked up the NUC N150 you recommended in a prior post so I will try that out compared to transcoding with the 1070 on the computer. Seems like an inexpensive way to try and offload emby-server from that light gaming system when the 1070 meets the gaming needs my child has but is weaker on the transcoding side.

Did exactly that a month ago (but with a N97 in Blackview MP80). Runs rock solid since one month including simultanous Transcoding sessions after I installed the right Intel Graphics Driver version on Windows 11 Pro. Additionally it runs paperless-ngx, an *arr-Stack, audiobookshelf and Romm for retro-gaming in the Browser, all of that in Docker Desktop (17 containers). It does all that without blinking an eye.

 

Edited January 22, 2025 by shorty1483

[OwnWebServers 0]

Yes, Intel GPUs like Arc series are gaining traction. They're decent for gaming and creative tasks but need driver maturity. Good value for budget builds; anyone else tested them?

[Borsk 450]

They are not bad with the current driver set, I have a A580 in my current media sever has been flawless for that task.

[SikSlayer 249]

I have been considering the N305 and the N355 since last year. I owned an i7-4771 that I ran Emby on from 2014-2023 and the N305/355 have comparable single and higher-thread scores than my i7, with a maximum of 15W TDP, whereas the i7 was 65W. Additionally, the newer iGPU can decode AV1 and supports HEVC encode/decode. This should be more than sufficient to run a low power Emby server.

shorty's post verifies it. And that's just an N97.

[thezfunk 1]

On 3/3/2025 at 11:30 AM, SikSlayer said:

I have been considering the N305 and the N355 since last year. I owned an i7-4771 that I ran Emby on from 2014-2023 and the N305/355 have comparable single and higher-thread scores than my i7, with a maximum of 15W TDP, whereas the i7 was 65W. Additionally, the newer iGPU can decode AV1 and supports HEVC encode/decode. This should be more than sufficient to run a low power Emby server.

shorty's post verifies it. And that's just an N97.

I built my new Xpenology system on an N305 board.  Transcoding works great.  4k to 1080p uses about 6% usage.

[RanmaCanada 494]

2 hours ago, thezfunk said:

I built my new Xpenology system on an N305 board.  Transcoding works great.  4k to 1080p uses about 6% usage.

How many simultaneous transcodes can you do before it barfs? Could you test 4k to 1080p and then 1080p to 1080p (lower birate)? It's really hard to find this info and I think We should have an entry in the wiki that has this information for users.

[all4dom 101]

@RanmaCanadayou don't need an arc card if you have the new intel processor...correct?

[thezfunk 1]

16 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

How many simultaneous transcodes can you do before it barfs? Could you test 4k to 1080p and then 1080p to 1080p (lower birate)? It's really hard to find this info and I think We should have an entry in the wiki that has this information for users.

Could you point me to the wiki with this information?

[Happy2Play 9780]

19 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

I think We should have an entry in the wiki that has this information for users.

You mean something similar to what the other guys have here.  But haven't really seen much in the Intel/igpu side.

[RanmaCanada 494]

5 hours ago, thezfunk said:

Could you point me to the wiki with this information?

as @Happy2Playpointed out, it's very limited information. The only real information we have is from users and other forums like Doom9 and Youtube. We need to add information to the Emby wiki about transcodes so that people can make an informative decision. BytemyBits on youtube did a test 2 years ago with transcodes from an NVME and he got to 18 4k transcodes before his 13900k barfed.

[RanmaCanada 494]

13 hours ago, all4dom said:

@RanmaCanadayou don't need an arc card if you have the new intel processor...correct?

Honestly you don't need one if you're on at least 12th gen as that is when they upgraded the ASICS. Gens 8-11 are basically the same and don't perform anywhere near as well as 12th gen and newer. Even an i3-12100 would make a fantastic transcode server. Remember, I run mine on an i5-1235u laptop.

[thezfunk 1]

2 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

as @Happy2Playpointed out, it's very limited information. The only real information we have is from users and other forums like Doom9 and Youtube. We need to add information to the Emby wiki about transcodes so that people can make an informative decision. BytemyBits on youtube did a test 2 years ago with transcodes from an NVME and he got to 18 4k transcodes before his 13900k barfed.

I see, something would have to get created.  My next question would be, what is the benchmark standard?  H.265 to H.264?  4k to 1080p?  1080p to 720p?  People are starting to use AV1 encodes, is that included?

[RanmaCanada 494]

20 minutes ago, thezfunk said:

I see, something would have to get created.  My next question would be, what is the benchmark standard?  H.265 to H.264?  4k to 1080p?  1080p to 720p?  People are starting to use AV1 encodes, is that included?

Currently I believe there should be several standards. 4k to 1080p, 1080p to 1080p and 1080p to 720. The only HEVC would really be 4k to 1080p as Emby only has HEVC encoding as a beta feature currently I believe. Typically any media at 1080p encoded in HEVC should have a low enough bitrate to get past settings, unless said user is on a crApple TV that loves to throttle to 3mbit no matter what settings you use. Yes I hate that POS box with a passion. Nothing but problems. AV1 is not really useful at the moment as anyone who has AV1 has a device that will direct play it, and encoding AV1 without said hardware is a monumental task unless you use the inferior SVT-AV1. You would not want to go from AV1 to H264 as it would just create a mess as the goal of AV1 is to be 25% more efficient than HEVC.

[thezfunk 1]

1 hour ago, RanmaCanada said:

Currently I believe there should be several standards. 4k to 1080p, 1080p to 1080p and 1080p to 720. The only HEVC would really be 4k to 1080p as Emby only has HEVC encoding as a beta feature currently I believe. Typically any media at 1080p encoded in HEVC should have a low enough bitrate to get past settings, unless said user is on a crApple TV that loves to throttle to 3mbit no matter what settings you use. Yes I hate that POS box with a passion. Nothing but problems. AV1 is not really useful at the moment as anyone who has AV1 has a device that will direct play it, and encoding AV1 without said hardware is a monumental task unless you use the inferior SVT-AV1. You would not want to go from AV1 to H264 as it would just create a mess as the goal of AV1 is to be 25% more efficient than HEVC.

I watch in the web browser quite a bit on my computer and I notice that Emby will transcode any of my HEVC files to H.264 to stream in the webpage. 

[rbjtech 5282]

So the issue with benchmarks is every transcode will be different as different source and parameters will be used - thus while the numbers will give you a ballpark, they cannot be directly compared.

This has come up before (a few times) and @softworkzdid some work to combat this by producing a plugin called 'Transcode Tests' (it's in the Catalog - under General)

The output of this, once user approved and anonymised, could probably be uploaded and start to form some sort of Emby related database - accessable on the Emby wiki etc.   To start with, maybe having a thread dedicated to people posting their output from the above may be a good start ..

Run_1_33E600592723_ffmpeg.txt

edit ..

So I had a play, as this was early beta when I initally looked.  It now looks like a pretty comprehensive set of tests, with auto download of the source.

The only thing that appears to be missing - is a summary of the actual meaningful transcode results in fps.

The ffmpeg log - which will be the same for everyone, assuming they use the same test run, contains all the info we need - attached, as it doesn't appear to contain any user specific data.

It's a shame the plugin doesn't summarise this - in my case, 4K h264 >1080p h264 via QSV on a UHD 770 = fps=178

I think the fps is much more valuable that the time taken for the encode - as this 'should' roughly translate into parallel encodes.  ie 178/24 = approx 7 encodes.

 

Edited April 8, 2025 by rbjtech

[rbjtech 5282]

So this is using the h265 provided source - for 3 scenerio's of transcoding - typically what emby does, Run 1 - no scaling (just reduce bitrate), Run 2 - Scale to 720p, Run 3 - Scale to 240p

but rather than just give me the 'time' taken - translated into fps (via the ffmpeg log) this is actually :-

Run 1 = 203 fps / 24 = 8 x 1080p encodes

Run 2 = 485 fps / 24 = 20 x 720p encodes

Run 3 = 832 fps = 34 x 240p encodes

There is of course a lot more to it than the above (I/O etc), but if everyone used the same method, metrics and calculations, then the results are relative.

@softworkzAny thoughts here ?

 

 

 

 

[RanmaCanada 494]

9 hours ago, thezfunk said:

I watch in the web browser quite a bit on my computer and I notice that Emby will transcode any of my HEVC files to H.264 to stream in the webpage. 

That is because no browser supports HEVC in an MKV container. You need to mux them to mp4, and then update your codecs and stuff.

 

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, RanmaCanada said:

That is because no browser supports HEVC in an MKV container. You need to mux them to mp4, and then update your codecs and stuff.

 

Actually chromium based browsers unofficially support the mkv container, so I would think if they play hevc then mkv should work.

If you saw transcoding while testing this, it could be for some other reason.