hardware acceleration for windows docker

[iwishiknewmore]

As the title states, is there a way to get hardware acceleration to work in windows 10/11 on docker (running WSL2)?
I believe the jellyfin wiki says that this isnt supported and i just wanted to confirm this as this really is the ideal solution for me.
If this in fact doesnt work what would you recommend i do instead? Should i just install jellyfin, prowlarr etc on windows or go with an ubuntu server?

Thanks for your help!!

[TheDreadPirate]

I've found some GPU "wrapper" options, but it is unclear if they allow the media engines to be passed through or if these are only compute/graphics.

IMO, it is probably easier to just install Jellyfin and your other apps directly on Windows. If you are familiar with Linux, install Ubuntu/Debian and run Jellyfin in docker.

[nyanmisaka]

The only way to use HWA with virtualization (Docker/WSL2) on Windows is to use NVENC/CUDA, which is officially supported by NVIDIA. For other vendors you have to run on the host.

[iwishiknewmore]

I've found some GPU "wrapper" options, but it is unclear if they allow the media engines to be passed through or if these are only compute/graphics.

IMO, it is probably easier to just install Jellyfin and your other apps directly on Windows.  If you are familiar with Linux, install Ubuntu/Debian and run Jellyfin in docker.

Thanks for the reply, i would preferably not install directly on windows, the reason being i like the convenience of remote management with docker/portainer and the fact that things are easier to troubleshoot. alternatively i should maybe use an ubuntu server? because i would like to have my media server run on my main pc, while also being able to use it as a normal pc. so a dual boot option wont work as only one can be active at the same time

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The only way to use HWA with virtualization (Docker/WSL2) on Windows is to use NVENC/CUDA, which is officially supported by NVIDIA. For other vendors you have to run on the host.

okay, thanks! id like to stock with an all AMD build, its much better price/performance here so i suppose ill have to either run it on windows or use linux

[nyanmisaka]

Instead of switching to Linux, you might be interested in this project. https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV

With Hyper-V you can access the GPU in a virtual Windows environment.

[iwishiknewmore]

Instead of switching to Linux, you might be interested in this project. https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV

With Hyper-V you can access the GPU in a virtual Windows environment.

Thnx! ill have a look at that that could work

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ive been looking into this a little more, is it possible to have windows 10/11 on one ssd, and install ubuntu server on another ssd? Would this kind of setup allow me to have the ubuntu server active while i also have windows active? that way i could install docker on ubuntu server, run the containers i already have and hopefully get hardware acceleration to work. is this doable? apologies if this is a noob question lol, im new to ubuntu and shared os's.
thanks in advance!!

[Efficient_Good_5784]

ive been looking into this a little more, is it possible to have windows 10/11 on one ssd, and install ubuntu server on another ssd? Would this kind of setup allow me to have the ubuntu server active while i also have windows active? that way i could install docker on ubuntu server, run the containers i already have and hopefully get hardware acceleration to work. is this doable? apologies if this is a noob question lol, im new to ubuntu and shared os's.
thanks in advance!!

You could have multiple drives installed on a system (each with a different OS installed) and choose to boot with a specific drive upon each restart. However, you can't boot up multiple at once. A "system" (motherboard + cpu + ram) can only handle one OS at a time.

If you want to use both at the same time, you'll basically need two full systems to run both.

The closest you'll get to something like this is by using Virtual Machines or something similar to VMs. That's how you're able to use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) within Windows itself. You can see more about this here: https://canonical-ubuntu-wsl.readthedocs...en/latest/

If you have an NVIDIA GPU, you could try this for WSL: https://canonical-ubuntu-wsl.readthedocs.../gpu-cuda/

[iwishiknewmore]

ive been looking into this a little more, is it possible to have windows 10/11 on one ssd, and install ubuntu server on another ssd? Would this kind of setup allow me to have the ubuntu server active while i also have windows active? that way i could install docker on ubuntu server, run the containers i already have and hopefully get hardware acceleration to work. is this doable? apologies if this is a noob question lol, im new to ubuntu and shared os's.
thanks in advance!!

You could have multiple drives installed on a system (each with a different OS installed) and choose to boot with a specific drive upon each restart. However, you can't boot up multiple at once. A "system" (motherboard + cpu + ram) can only handle one OS at a time.

If you want to use both at the same time, you'll basically need two full systems to run both.

The closest you'll get to something like this is by using Virtual Machines or something similar to VMs. That's how you're able to use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) within Windows itself. You can see more about this here: https://canonical-ubuntu-wsl.readthedocs...en/latest/

If you have an NVIDIA GPU, you could try this for WSL: https://canonical-ubuntu-wsl.readthedocs.../gpu-cuda/

Thank you for the reply! id like to stick to amd cpu and gpu because of local prices. darnit that sucks, i was hoping i could use windows while ubuntu was active in the background with scheduled/system tasks? would a VM be any better in terms of hardware acceleration support? since windows docker with wsl2 doesnt support it i believe.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

If you're comfortable with the idea, you could switch over entirely to Linux and ditch Windows. Like, you could try an easy-to-use distro like Linux Mint. This way, you could now run Jellyfin with Docker and pass it the AMD GPU since it would be on a Linux platform instead of Windows.

However, I'm going to say the that your easiest path right now would be to directly install Jellyfin onto your Windows PC. This should pretty much pick up the GPU on your system and allow for HWA.

[iwishiknewmore]

If you're comfortable with the idea, you could switch over entirely to Linux and ditch Windows. Like, you could try an easy-to-use distro like Linux Mint. This way, you could now run Jellyfin with Docker and pass it the AMD GPU since it would be on a Linux platform instead of Windows.

However, I'm going to say the that your easiest path right now would be to directly install Jellyfin onto your Windows PC. This should pretty much pick up the GPU on your system and allow for HWA.

i could potentially do that but would rather not as it would be worse for me in terms of gaming and work

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Instead of switching to Linux, you might be interested in this project. https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV

With Hyper-V you can access the GPU in a virtual Windows environment.

this is a great project, and i found a guide using it for hyper v, i cant get it to work however, its here: https://www.tenforums.com/virtualization...st-vm.html

i get stuck at step 4 as it cant find the drive letter.