Cannot get hardware acceleration to work with .rpm and Arc A310

[kabsdk 0]

I’m currently running Emby on an AlmaLinux 9 VM in Proxmox, installed using the CentOS RPM.

Problem:

Hardware acceleration/transcoding is not actually being used.
During transcodes, CPU usage hits 100% across all cores, there is no GPU utilization, and there is no “hardware” icon beside the transcoding stream (as shown in my screenshots).

Emby does recognize the GPU, at least I'd think so with Emby displaying the GPU name under "Transcoding" in the settings menu. A Plex instance on the same physical server performs proper hardware acceleration (Plex is deployed bare metal, like Emby), so the GPU drivers should be installed and working correctly.

Emby settings are configured as follows:
Preferred Hardware Decoders are all set to VAAPI, and Preferred Hardware Encoders are set to QuickSync (the only available option).
Software tone mapping is disabled.
Hardware Accelerated Tone Mapping is enabled.
Intel QuickSync tone mapping is disabled, and VAAPI tone mapping is set to VAAPI HW Tone Mapping.

Hardware and versions:

Emby version is 4.9.3.0, also tried with the latest "official" RPM, version 4.9.1.90-1

GPU is a SPARKLE Intel Arc A310 ECO.

Permissions and setup:

User/group and device permissions look like this:

[kabs@plex01 ~]$ id emby
uid=985(emby) gid=986(emby) groups=986(emby),39(video),998(render)

[kabs@plex01 ~]$ ls -la /dev/dri
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 120 Feb 19 23:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 3360 Feb 19 23:14 ..
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 100 Feb 20 07:08 by-path
crwxrwxrwx 1 root video 226, 0 Feb 19 23:13 card0
crwxrwxrwx 1 root video 226, 1 Feb 20 07:08 card1
crwxrwxrwx 1 root render 226, 128 Feb 19 23:14 renderD128

Systemd service configuration:

[kabs@plex01 ~]$ systemctl cat emby-server

/usr/lib/systemd/system/emby-server.service
[Unit]
Description=Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device
After=network.target

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/emby-server.conf
WorkingDirectory=/opt/emby-server
ExecStart=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-server
RestartForceExitStatus=3
User=emby

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

/etc/systemd/system/emby-server.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
User=emby
Group=emby

The GPU is passed through to the VM.

Logs have been attached. Any help is appreciated.

ffmpeg-transcode-dba49dd1-1f16-47b7-8361-526236cef54f_1.txt hardware_detection-63907892050.txt

[Luke 42113]

Hi, how does it compare with sdr content?

[kabsdk 0]

SDR content briefly showed the green "hardware acceleration" icon in the dashboard, but it disappeared almost instantly. Restarting the stream does not seem to make the icon reappear, but starting a completely new episode very briefly shows the icon (<1 s)

ffmpeg-transcode-cc8831af-cf45-4d26-be71-0ffd843e4053_1.txt

[kabsdk 0]

@LukeAny help is greatly appreciated. If you are lacking any information to assist, please say so; I'll provide it ASAP.

I also tried a reboot of the VM; same result (plex transcodes using hw; emby does not).

[Eigeplackter 91]

Your are not alone, there's currently a bug in 4.9.3.0 that disables HW Decoding for Intel GPU.

There are 2 options:

• Change to Version 4.10.0.4 beta and use this fix
• Wait for the next stable release

 

I decided to switch to the beta and can confirm that my ARC GPU is now recognized again.

[kabsdk 0]

@EigeplackterUnfortunately, this did not work for me; still no hardware accelerated transcoding. The entire server has been rebooted after install of version 4.10.0.4.

As I don't have the patience, nor the interest, in debugging hardware accelerated transcoding for a product that I pay for where it's marketed as a basic feature, I am going to revert to Plex and call it a day. Just to be clear - I don't expect a largely community driven product to solve all questions that could be answered by simply looking at documentation; but I do expect basic product features to work in a paid product and I am sad that I have to revert since Emby looked like a promising and fresh alternative.

Edited 3 hours ago by kabsdk

[Eigeplackter 91]

If you have the patience for one more check, look into your settings for transcoding.

Mine were unchecked after I installed and maybe give it another reboot after replacing the text and checking

the settings.

[kabsdk 0]

@EigeplackterI already double checked all settings - but thanks for trying, it's appreciated.

"Enable Hardware Accelerated Tone Mapping" is enabled and "Enable hardware acceleration when available" is set to "Yes" (I also tried setting it to "Advanced" with multiple combinations with no luck).

The "Parameter Adjustment" fields in Diagnostics seem to always be empty after a restart; I double checked that I pressed and also got the "Setting saved." message, so I don't know why it's not saving. With that said, it still didn't use hardware accelerated transcoding when the parameters were set (changed tab, changed back to Diagnostics, pressed ctrl + f5 to confirm setting was saved)

[Lessaj 471]

Diagnostic Options are reverted to default after restarting the server.

What do you see when it's set to Advanced?