How to best optimize JF for Intel ARC acceleration?

[gts250gamer]

Hey all!

I recently picked up an open-box Intel Arc A310 4GB for $70 at my local computer store. I am looking to install it in my current Jellyfin server for acceleration, and I have a few questions regarding the overall configuration of Jellyfin for such a card.

First, it is my understanding that the Arc does best with AV1 encoded media. Does this mean that I need to use a program such as Handbrake to transcode my saved movies to the AV1 format prior to importing them to my Jellyfin library in order to get the best performance? Pardon my lack of understanding here, I read a bit about different "container" formats and now I am more confused than ever.

Lastly, as far as installing the Arc goes, I am assuming that I can just install the latest drivers from Intel and then enable acceleration from the JF web UI? I am running a copy of Windows Server that I got from my university, and I previously had an NVIDIA Tesla card as my Jellyfin transcoder, and it worked great but I wanted something a bit more efficient.

My apologies in advance in case some of these questions are repeats of those that have been answered, I looked over as many past posts on r/jellyfin in order to get a better understanding of how the Arc cards play, and unfortunately I am still fairly confused on the matter.

[TheDreadPirate]

Re-encoding your movies to AV1 would be strictly to save disk space and bandwidth, if either is an issue. It does not "optimize" Intel Arc. Your Arc GPU only comes into play when transcoding, which means that the client can't play the video as is. If your clients can't play AV1 directly, converting your media to AV1 would only result in more transcoding, which we should be trying to avoid.

The only thing you need to worry about is checking the correct boxes in Jellyfin (Dashboard > Playback). The codec check boxes represent what your GPU can DECODE. Use this table to determine which boxes you should be checking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quic...d_encoding

Install the latest Intel driver, enable quick sync in Jellyfin, check the right codec boxes, enable tone mapping and low power encoding.

[gts250gamer]

Re-encoding your movies to AV1 would be strictly to save disk space and bandwidth, if either is an issue.  It does not "optimize" Intel Arc.  Your Arc GPU only comes into play when transcoding, which means that the client can't play the video as is.  If your clients can't play AV1 directly, converting your media to AV1 would only result in more transcoding, which we should be trying to avoid.

The only thing you need to worry about is checking the correct boxes in Jellyfin (Dashboard > Playback).  The codec check boxes represent what your GPU can DECODE.  Use this table to determine which boxes you should be checking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quic...d_encoding

Install the latest Intel driver, enable quick sync in Jellyfin, check the right codec boxes, enable tone mapping and low power encoding.

Thank you very much for your explanation. This is exactly what I was looking for!

I had the card installed, but realized that it was faulty (probably why somebody had tampered with it/swapped it out?), so I am returning it today in hopes of finding another... No wonder I couldn't get it to work!