GPU for transcoding recommendations (Windows)

[Crestj 68]

It seems that my server CPU is getting a little hammered when having to transcode videos for streaming to Chromecast, etc.

 

The CPU is only an Intel i3 7100T as it needed to be low power for 24/7 operation. All other resources are plentiful (network, ram, etc) just need to boost transcodes.

 

I'm running Windows Server 2016 Essentials.

 

What is the most stable, cheapest GPU I can add that works best with Emby?

 

It only needs to cope with 1, and sometimes 2, transcodes at once.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Crestj

[Happy2Play 9780]

Are you using hardware acceleration?

[Crestj 68]

I have it set to no as every intel setting I used made things worse.

 

I've just noticed that it's now a yes or no option!

 

I assume it will now pick the right intel quicksync option?

 

Is that still going to be enough? Better than a sub £50 gpu?

 

Edit: sorry, that option is only in the android app. Using the web browser I've set it to Intel quick sync.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Crestj

[Charlie117 59]

On your Emby server Dashboard, there should be a tab called "Transcoding" where you can enable it globally for all your clients. You need an Emby Premiere subscription to use it.

 

Based on your CPU/iGPU, you should be able to get hardware decoding for most everything and for encoding H.264. Here is how my tab looks for my i7 6770 looks:

 

If working correctly, you should be able to hardware transcode multiple streams without stressing your CPU much.

 

 

 

Is that still going to be enough? Better than a sub £50 gpu?

 

Yes, definitely. Nvidia's hardware transcoding is probably still superior to Intel's in terms of quality, but it shouldn't differ too much. 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Charlie117

[Crestj 68]

Looks like you are using Video Acceleration API and not Intel Quick Sync.

 

Here's what mine looks like with Quick Sync:

 

 

 

What hardware acceleration have you got your set to?

 

 

 

[Charlie117 59]

VAAPI is a Linux implementation for the Intel Quicksync encoder, so we're both using the same encoder but with a different OS and driver. 

 

As far as I can tell, our settings are setup the same. Do you get any issues running it like this? If so, post a transcode log so we can see what's going wrong.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Charlie117

[Crestj 68]

Ah that makes sense.

 

To be honest I suspect the issues I have with transcoding may be down to the lack of Intel driver support for Server 2016. The Auto Driver Update utility they have doesn't support Server 2016 and most drivers I'm using are listed as Windows 10.

 

These drivers work fine (as you'd expect) but I am never quite sure how stable they are.

 

Attached is a transcode log I ran just now to a Chromecast. It starts playing then jumps ahead by a few minutes, then plays fine then jumps ahead again. It does this most of the time.

Log.txt

[Guest asrequested]

Just wait until 3.6 is released. Then you'll have full support for your i3

[Crestj 68]

Seems like 3.6 fixes a huge bunch of issues!

 

Hope it lands soon

[Luke 42077]

Yes that's correct.

[Armageus 78]

Is that still going to be enough? Better than a sub £50 gpu?

 

 

A Geforce 745/750/750Ti/950 are probably about the "best" option for a <£50 card - they support all formats of H.264 transcoding (although limited to 2 streams without modified drivers)

 

Don't be tempted by the newer 1030 as it doesn't have any hardware encoding support.

 

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