SOLVED: Hardware Acceleration Problems

[Frostlike15]

Hello Jellyfin Forums

I'm trying to set up hardware acceleration for trans-coding support on the 2024042215 (latest nightly build). I've tried both an Nvidia RTX 3060 using NVEMC and a RX 6600 with VA-API. When HW acceleration is turned on, I always get a playback stopped saying Playback failed due to a fatal player error.

I also followed these guides https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/admini...on/nvidia/ 
and https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/admini...ation/amd/ 

They mention something about modifying the user permissions of the jellyfin user account. How do I go about doing that? 

I tried the command sudo usermod -aG video jellyfin but hw accerlation still didn't work.

I also used the default settings that was laid out by the Jellyfin official docs.  

My logs: 

https://pastebin.com/h8fSjADX


My specs: 

Operating System: Debian Bookworm 12.5 - I installed Jellyfin with no docker, just baremetal. 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 8GB 
AMD Radeon RX 6600 are the GPUs that I tried, but not using at the same time. 

RAM 64GB 3200Mhz CL22 DDR4 ECC 

Yes I have root access to this server.

[TheDreadPirate]

You enabled AV1 encoding, but the RTX 3000 and RX6000 series only support AV1 decoding.

[Frostlike15]

Thank you so much for that suggestion <3.. I turned off AV1 encoding and now Jellyfin works. Now.. which GPU should I use? Nvidia or AMD? According to the hirearchy, Nvidia is preferred.. but why is that? Can you go into more detail why that is? Or should I get an Intel GPU for the Jellyfin?

[bitmap]

TDP is a better authority than I am, but if you're thinking about a build explicitly for JF and need a card to do the work, you can't get better than the Arc series. They're cheap and capable of nearly everything (save for a few "retired" codecs). For this type of application, they can't be beat.

[TheDreadPirate]

Quality. Intel was way ahead of the game when it came to media encoders and have, arguably, the best encoders. Nvidia is a close second. Especially with RTX 3000 and 4000. AMD is, and always has been, a distant 3rd in terms of quality. The RX 7000 series closed the gap, though.

[Frostlike15]

TDP is a better authority than I am, but if you're thinking about a build explicitly for JF and need a card to do the work, you can't get better than the Arc series. They're cheap and capable of nearly everything (save for a few "retired" codecs). For this type of application, they can't be beat.

Should I go for the A380? Or the A770 for maximum amount of streams? Would that be overkill?

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Quality.  Intel was way ahead of the game when it came to media encoders and have, arguably, the best encoders.  Nvidia is a close second.  Especially with RTX 3000 and 4000.  AMD is, and always has been, a distant 3rd in terms of quality.  The RX 7000 series closed the gap, though.

When you say quality, are you referring to the quality of the image?

[TheDreadPirate]

The entire Arc lineup has the same media engine. So getting an A770 wouldn't improve transcoding performance. It will improve tone mapping performance (HDR to SDR) since tone mapping is VRAM intensive. But whether you need that or not depends on your circumstances. The A380 can handle 5-6 tone mapped transcodes and about 20 regular transcodes.

And I am referring to image quality.

[Frostlike15]

So if I get an ARC and I don't plan to use SDR to HDR tone mapping and I want say 10 to 15 4k to 1080p transcodes at the same time, is it worth going A770?

[TheDreadPirate]

If the majority of your content is SDR, just get the A380. Heck, even the A310 will perform the same when not tone mapping. Like I said, they all have exactly the same media engine configuration.

[Frostlike15]

If the majority of your content is SDR, just get the A380.  Heck, even the A310 will perform the same when not tone mapping.  Like I said, they all have exactly the same media engine configuration.

I trust what you're saying. But I'm just wondering... does vram matter very much if at all? Also... from what I read, tone mapping converts sdr to hdr. I found out that my TV is HDR compatable. So... if most of my content is SDR, would it matter to have tone mapping?