Setting up a deticated GPU for transcoding / Hardware acceleration

[RobertUnger]

Hi!

FIrst.... I'm new to this TrueNAS - Jellyfin thing but i do have a little bit experience with Jellyfin on Synology DSM.

I've build a DIY NAS with TrueNAS as the OS and installed Jellyfin on it (NO Docker!). Now i want to use my dedicated GPU for trranscoding.

CPU: i5-13600
GPU: Intel ARC B580

I looked around the Internet to find some guides, glues or something that could point me in the right direction but found nothing that fits my needs. Evene from the docs Intel GPU Jellyfin i could'nt extract infos for my usecase. Maybe it's just my missing knowledge thats holding me back....

So here are some pictures from my settings....

Jellyfin settings:


Jellyfin APP config:


TrueNAS shell:


Doesn't looks like that my dedicated GPU is properly installed....


Everytime i start a UHD movie the CPU Usage ramps up. So there must something be wrong.

Please help! Thanks!

Ps: pleas feel free to move this post to the right forum if i missplaced it.

[alleycat]

Hi!

FIrst.... I'm new to this TrueNAS - Jellyfin thing but i do have a little bit experience with Jellyfin on Synology DSM.

I've build a DIY NAS with TrueNAS as the OS and installed Jellyfin on it (NO Docker!). Now i want to use my dedicated GPU for trranscoding.

CPU: i5-13600
GPU: Intel ARC B580

I don't think the kernel update for the driver are ready yet for TrueNAS.

https://forums.truenas.com/t/intel-arc-b...port/38945

[RobertUnger]

I got the B580 because the older gpu's are just a few bugs cheeper, so i bought the better one. Well, so i have to use the iGPU till they add support for the B580.

But the question is... is my setup configured the right way?
I mean.... CPU usage goes up but i dont know if it is Software transcoding or if it is the iGPU. Is there a way to find that out other than activating hardware acceleration and thinking it's working?

[ArneR]

Remember that audio is being trancoded using the CPU, so a spike in usage is to be expected, unless you have a device that can direct play the spesific audio format. 

You could post a log, but a quicker answer is to simply click on the gear icon in the lower right corner when playing a video, and selecting playback info, it will state there if it is direct playing or transcoding. 
you might have to lower the bitrate to force transcoding.

   

EDIT: If you have the option, you should return that B580 and opt for buying an older Arc A310/A380, they have the exact same media encoders in the silicon, the B580 is just a waste of money and energy.

Besides that, the Arc A series should have the low power encoder options set, the B580 should be no different one should think.

[RobertUnger]

Remember that audio is being trancoded using the CPU, so a spike in usage is to be expected, unless you have a device that can direct play the spesific audio format. 

You could post a log, but a quicker answer is to simply click on the gear icon in the lower right corner when playing a video, and selecting playback info, it will state there if it is direct playing or transcoding. 
you might have to lower the bitrate to force transcoding.

I know that Playback Info, and i can force to transcode if i use my phone. But i don't see if it's transcoding with the iGPU (Hardware) or with the CPU (Software). I don't have just a spike in CPU usage... the overall CPU usage is around 10% if i play a 4kUHD HDR with Atmos (Video quality in Jellyfin playback settings on my phone is set to 480p audio is set to auto, Bitrate of transcoding is 241 fps (10.5x) acording to the playback info).
I would like to have GPU stats i could watch like the CPU stats but i can't find that.

I guess, the question would be.... Spikes the CPU usage on the dashboard if the iGPU is used too or can i just see CPU usage if the CPU cores are used?

I know, that sounds a bit strange but as a windows guy i don't know a better way of telling if the GPU is used other then using a tool wich is showing me a graph and some numbers . 

EDIT: If you have the option, you should return that B580 and opt for buying an older Arc A310/A380, they have the exact same media encoders in the silicon, the B580 is just a waste of money and energy.

Besides that, the Arc A series should have the low power encoder options set, the B580 should be no different one should think.

Well, sending back the GPU is an option for shure. Is this 100% true, the B580 is no upgrade for transcoding?

[ArneR]

Go to your dashboard  and look at the "Ffmpeg.Transcode" log after playing a few minutes of the movie on your phone or whatever device you want, and look for "Stream mapping".
An example of transcoding of a HEVC 4K BluRay to h264 with QuickSync will look like this:

Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (hevc (native) -> h264 (h264_qsv))
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (dts (dca) -> aac (libfdk_aac))

Notice the h264_qsv. If it was transcoding video with the cpu it would not say that. Nor would the performance be anywhere near what you mentioned I would think.
My guess is that it is using the iGPU, which is not slow by any means, especially your UHD770 with two media engines, as long as you're not trying to encode to HEVC at 4K HDR full bitrate.

EDIT: Forgot to answer the last part. There is zero benefit in going with Battlemage over Alchemist for QuickSync transcoding.
You can ssh into your truenas with ssh truenas_admin@truenas.local and run "sudo intel_gpu_top" while a movie is playing, it will then look something like this: