Best Graphics Card for Hardware Acceleration?

[AgileHumor 123]

Looking to add a graphics card to my Windows Emby server to decrease CPU when transcoding. Peak at about 5 simultaneous streamers.

 

What is the best graphics card that works with a emby HW Acceleration for streaming?

[BAlGaInTl 288]

Looking to add a graphics card to my Windows Emby server to decrease CPU when transcoding. Peak at about 5 simultaneous streamers.

 

What is the best graphics card that works with a emby HW Acceleration for streaming?

 

What CPU are you using now?  I think that Intel Quick Sync is the most highly rated now, so if you are using a CPU that supports it...

Edited December 13, 2017 by BAlGaInTl

[AgileHumor 123]

I was using QuickSync already on an i7 with Intel HD 4000 Graphics, included with my MoBo.    This also runs my main Kodi display (1080p) over HDMI.

 

I thought maybe putting in a dedicated Nvidia would give me faster transcoding so I wasn't sharing it. 

Edited December 13, 2017 by AgileHumor

[Guest asrequested]

The HD 400 is a bit behind the times. If you want to use an Nvidia, a lot of them only handle 2 transcodes.

[AgileHumor 123]

The HD 400 is a bit behind the times. If you want to use an Nvidia, a lot of them only handle 2 transcodes.

 

Sorry, 4000

[Tur0k 148]

Windows Emby server builds supports quicksync (Intel) and NVENC (NVIDIA) directly through to the hardware.

 

Linux Emby servers should support VAAPI and Openmax. Either way you would need hardware to support the acceleration. I hear that this works with both quicksync and NVENC. I have also heard that some out there are able to get it working with AMD GPUs, and would like to hear more about how they are doing this.

 

Intel quicksync video is supported for hardware acceleration from gen 3 on to latest. Just note older Intel video will support fewer streams and lower resolutions. Intel quicksync hardware acceleration does not limit the total number of streams that it can support.

 

NVENC is supported on NVIDIA cards. I have seen it work on the 10 series. It does limit you to 2 streams unless you get one of their higher end cards that support 4 streams.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited December 13, 2017 by Tur0k

[Guest asrequested]

Sorry, 4000

It's old. I think it can handle one maybe two streams, and not that quickly.

[Tur0k 148]

Are the 5 streams transcoding? How many Emby server connection streams do you think your server would need to transcode simultaneously (meaning clients that are not direct playing)?

 

HD4000 I think is tied to the ivy bridge (3rd generation) i series Intels. From what I can tell it does support quicksync. You probably would do ok with 2-3 transcodes much more than this and you will feel the age of the CPU. It sounds like you also use your server as a streaming front end. are using the same Intel GPU to render your systems primary display? If so, you have to count that resource utilization that this takes.

 

 

Your could pickup a medium end NVIDIA video card for rendering your Kodi/Emby Theatre front end, then use your Intel GPU for transcoding only if you can get by with 3 simultaneous transcoding sessions.

 

Note Intel GPUs need to see a video output to work for transcoding. There are adapters you can buy to trick the Intel HD4000 to think it is connected to a display and work though.

 

Your other option is to pickup a new Intel CPU with the 600 series or better on chip video), motherboard, and memory.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited December 14, 2017 by Tur0k

[SHSPVR 123]

It sad that AMD are not support

[Waldonnis 148]

It sad that AMD are not support

 

Agreed.  Blame AMD for that, though, or at least "interested and capable" parties.  Anyone can submit patches to ffmpeg and it seemed like neither AMD nor anyone else even tried until very recently (there was a fork, but it wasn't ready for inclusion in ffmpeg proper for months).  It's clearly in AMD's interest to get this working, so the ball is/was primarily in their court....they just never picked it up.  Looks like they've finally come around, at least.  In fairness, both AMD's and nVidia's hardware/driver solutions are marketed more for live streaming gaming sessions and their own software reportedly works fine for that (no idea what Intel's strategy is; it's always seemed a bit vague).  I just don't think either of them anticipated a demand outside of that use case, and nVidia just pounced on it first.

 

That being said, I'm hoping for more competition on this front now that AMD seems interested.  "Team Green" and "Team Blue" have dominated this admittedly-small market segment for far too long.

[SkyBehind 23]

I have an i7-3770 with HD4000 graphics. I'd like to upgrade, but honestly haven't really had the need.  I used to use the server as my Kodi box as well, 1080p.  Even with Kodi, I never had a problem serving people, multiple streams, all transcoding.  I've since switched to a Vera4k for my main TV, so the server doesn't run Kodi anymore.  Even still, I haven't gotten to the point where people can't watch content.  I've had at least 8 streams going, though I don't think all were transcoding.  Granted, thats with hardware acceleration on, without it, it could only do maybe 3 streams.  I haven't found the limit with HW Accel, but I've tested with like 8 concurrent transcoding, all at the same time, and it was no problem.

 

Just to note, I have an NVME drive (not that it should matter), I have throttling turned on.  Also, sometimes I download at the same time too (at gigabit speeds, literally 108MBps)

[Luke 42077]

The beta server has some nice improvements for NVENC transcoding, for those interested:

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/56088-slow-hardware-decode-with-hevc-and-nvidia-p4000/?p=548844

 

Thanks.

[mbnwa 49]

Looking to add a graphics card to my Windows Emby server to decrease CPU when transcoding. Peak at about 5 simultaneous streamers.

 

What is the best graphics card that works with a emby HW Acceleration for streaming?

 

 

The HD 400 is a bit behind the times. If you want to use an Nvidia, a lot of them only handle 2 transcodes.

 

You can get around the two transcode limit if you pick up a Quadro P2000 or better card if doing HEVC/h265 transcodes or if you are strictly doing h264 you can pickup a K2200 and it works quite nicely. I personally have a K2200 that I just retired in favor of a P4000

 

Here is the matrix form Nvidia on supported number of streams and additional details 

 

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

Edited February 28, 2018 by mbnwa

[Swynol 375]

with 5 streams i dont think you will need hardware acceleration. 

 

I have an i5 3570k, the machine runs alot of services other than emby and supports 5 transcoded streams. Your i7 should handle at least 1 or 2 more

[AgileHumor 123]

You can get around the two transcode limit if you pick up a Quadro P2000 or better card if doing HEVC/h265 transcodes or if you are strictly doing h264 you can pickup a K2200 and it works quite nicely. I personally have a K2200 that I just retired in favor of a P4000

 

Here is the matrix form Nvidia on supported number of streams and additional details 

 

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

 

Thanks!  I ended up going with the P2000 as you recommended.

 

Now, deciding whether to Hyper-V/Remote FX: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/57969-to-hyper-vremote-fx-or-notthat-is-the-question/