Help with n100

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I've been using jellyfin on my pc (5600x+3060) as a server and my lg tv as a client, and have been happy, but i decided to build an fanless htpc with an Asus n100 prime mb and ax210 wifi card, to have a bit better performance and less issues with subtitles and everything.

I've installed W11 Pro, but after trying to play media in jellyfin client as well as youtube on the browser, the performance is not good, even at lower res than 4k. I don't know if there is something wrong, but i've turned on and off the ram xmp, the bios is the latest version, the gpu drivers are installed, windows updates also. On the jellyfin side i've turned on hardware acceleration.

Because of that i'll probably install linux, but i'm having trouble deciding which distro because of drivers, as i've read about issues with gpu drivers and wifi 6. What i would love would be to have a frontend that i can use with the tv remote.

thanks in advance

[Efficient_Good_5784]

The 3060 is more powerful than the iGPU from the N100 CPU. You may be confusing the drop in performance due to that.

Is the playback choppy? How are you determining that the playback/performance is not good?

[TheDreadPirate]

Ubuntu 24.04 should have no problem with drivers for the N100. Can't speak for WiFi. But PopOS 22.04 (based on Ubuntu 22.04) on my desktop has no issues with the WiFi 6 adapter on my Asus X570 board.

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The 3060 is more powerful than the iGPU from the N100 CPU. You may be confusing the drop in performance due to that.
Is the playback choppy? How are you determining that the playback/performance is not good?

I'm figuring that maybe it is playing in direct play so the heavy lifting is being done by the n100 instead of the server, so should jellyfin be transcoding on the server? I'm not sure if it is direct playing on my lg tv, so the difference in performance may be there, or could the tv be more powerful than the n100?

I'll have to try linux, just need to figure out which distro. I'm tech savvy but not an IT guy, so i need something very easy to use and configure.

[TheDreadPirate]

Many moons ago, I ran Plex, and briefly Jellyfin, on a Intel mini PC (J4205) running Windows. Even when a file was direct playing, Windows Defender CPU usage spiked massively. Transcoding was not viable due to Windows Defender consuming 60-70% of total CPU time on the J4205's 4 cores.

And this applied to both Plex and Jellyfin.

I disabled Windows Defender and the problem went away. But I had already decided to switch to Linux and it made a world of difference. Not just with Windows Defender not consuming resources, but the OS, in general, consuming less resources. I could support a few more streams, more transcodes, with the same low power hardware.

I strongly recommend Linux over Windows for low power CPUs, like the N100.

Stick with Debian or Ubuntu. Or any of the distros based on them. Theres a lot of documentation out there, lots of support, lots of users to help you along.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I'm figuring that maybe it is playing in direct play so the heavy lifting is being done by the n100 instead of the server, so should jellyfin be transcoding on the server? I'm not sure if it is direct playing on my lg tv, so the difference in performance may be there, or could the tv be more powerful than the n100?

Your Jellyfin server will only ever use the GPU when it needs to transcode something and you have HWA enabled.
Jellyfin is a media server. You're not watching on the server. The media server sends a video stream through the network and your client plays that.

Therefore, direct playing is handled by the client device you are using to watch.
If your client device can direct play something, it will receive the stream as is without modification.
If your client device can't direct play something, it will tell the Jellyfin server that it needs to transcode the stream so it can receive a stream it does understand.

When talking about GPUs on the Jellyfin server, it's to allow it to transcode a video for a client faster than what a CPU can provide.

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The reason i installed windows was because of compatibilities. I've used it in 15 year old pcs and it is pretty snappy. I've also got a 2008 iMac that plays youtube better than this.

I will install linux and report back. Any suggestions regarding the distro? I need obviously gpu drivers and wifi 6 working fine. I'll use this mainly as an htpc (jellyfin, youtube, and moonlight streaming for gaming).

Meanwhile here's some data:
https://imgur.com/gzYfBNR

Thanks for the help