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Plex supports Nvidia GPUs for hardware transcoding, so you could pick up a cheaper Nvidia GPU and stick it in the build, but that will probably not be possible

Plex supports Nvidia GPUs for hardware transcoding, so you could pick up a cheaper Nvidia GPU and stick it in the build, but that will probably not be possible for small builds.

lostlogin 6y ago
I wanted AMD but quicksync for a Plex server is just so good. I bought an I7 NUC10 for this role and it’s great. Virtualised OS, Docker for Plex and it’ll do 11x transcodes (1080p to 720p) in hardware while also hosting several other machines. The first time you pass though the GPU to the Vm, then into Docker is a bit of a head scratcher, but it’s actually fine and works well. It has a maximum of 64gb ram and is tiny. With an nvme drive (Samsung Evo) it is really really fast. The next best option as far as I was concerned was the NUC8, and while I’d love to have the PSU onboard and no brick, a Mac Mini is a lot of money. The Nuc8 is a better option than the 10 for anything that’s needing actual graphics. The 10 has a very anaemic GPU compared to the 8, but has 2 more CPU cores when comparing i7s.
- joshstrange 6y ago
  I hadn't considered a NUC to run the plex server, right now I enjoy managing everything through UnRaid but I'm not opposed to another device that would manage plex alone. QuickSync is CRAZY good, I stumbled onto a post about it a month or so ago and thought "Ehh, I'm probably already using it, w/e" then saw I needed to run some commands and mount a device in my plex docker container to actually enable it and I was blown away by how little load there was on the CPU. I know there has been some grumbling about QS not producing the best output but that seems to be mainly related to the earlier iterations of it, I have not noticed any issues. It kills me how long I waited to try this, it literally took <10min to setup and has been a huge performance boost. To everyone else: If you have an Intel CPU that supports QS and you are running Plex in a docker container then I HIGHLY recommend you look into enabling HW acceleration (both in plex settings and by mounting a device, /dev/dri, into your container). Here [0] are the directions I followed. Make sure you read the instructions, the first time I tried to follow this I misread the instructions and thought my CPU didn't support it or there was some other issue but it couldn't have been easier when I actually stopped and read instead of skimming. [0] https://forums.unraid.net/topic/77943-guide-plex-hardware-acceleration-using-intel-quick-sync/ https://forums.unraid.net/topic/77943-guide-plex-hardware-ac...
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    This is similar to my experience. There are some great guides on Reddit too. I found it a bit tricky in a VM as the ESXi default kept taking over and breaking it. I figured this out by poking about from within the container and discovered it had two GPUs and was picking the wrong one. Once I’d deleted the card VMware made (which means you can’t see the console in ESXi GUI interface, but can still ssh in) it all started working. As you say, it’ll do a lot of work, CPU usage is almost nil and I can’t see a quality issue. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/749hnc/hardware_transcoding_with_plex_docker/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/... > I hadn't considered a NUC to run the plex server Mine is more of a Docker host. Home Assistant absolutely flies on that hardware (it was previously on a Synology 918). It has a few other well used containers too - Wireguard, several Minecraft and some administrative tools. There are several testing machines for pfsense and some Linux machines I wanted to play with too.

Plex supports Nvidia GPUs for hardware transcoding, so you could pick up a cheaper Nvidia GPU and stick it in the build, but that will probably not be possible for small builds.

lostlogin 6y ago

I wanted AMD but quicksync for a Plex server is just so good. I bought an I7 NUC10 for this role and it’s great. Virtualised OS, Docker for Plex and it’ll do 11x transcodes (1080p to 720p) in hardware while also hosting several other machines. The first time you pass though the GPU to the Vm, then into Docker is a bit of a head scratcher, but it’s actually fine and works well. It has a maximum of 64gb ram and is tiny. With an nvme drive (Samsung Evo) it is really really fast. The next best option as far as I was concerned was the NUC8, and while I’d love to have the PSU onboard and no brick, a Mac Mini is a lot of money. The Nuc8 is a better option than the 10 for anything that’s needing actual graphics. The 10 has a very anaemic GPU compared to the 8, but has 2 more CPU cores when comparing i7s.

joshstrange 6y ago
I hadn't considered a NUC to run the plex server, right now I enjoy managing everything through UnRaid but I'm not opposed to another device that would manage plex alone. QuickSync is CRAZY good, I stumbled onto a post about it a month or so ago and thought "Ehh, I'm probably already using it, w/e" then saw I needed to run some commands and mount a device in my plex docker container to actually enable it and I was blown away by how little load there was on the CPU. I know there has been some grumbling about QS not producing the best output but that seems to be mainly related to the earlier iterations of it, I have not noticed any issues. It kills me how long I waited to try this, it literally took <10min to setup and has been a huge performance boost. To everyone else: If you have an Intel CPU that supports QS and you are running Plex in a docker container then I HIGHLY recommend you look into enabling HW acceleration (both in plex settings and by mounting a device, /dev/dri, into your container). Here [0] are the directions I followed. Make sure you read the instructions, the first time I tried to follow this I misread the instructions and thought my CPU didn't support it or there was some other issue but it couldn't have been easier when I actually stopped and read instead of skimming. [0] https://forums.unraid.net/topic/77943-guide-plex-hardware-acceleration-using-intel-quick-sync/ https://forums.unraid.net/topic/77943-guide-plex-hardware-ac...
- lostlogin 6y ago
  This is similar to my experience. There are some great guides on Reddit too. I found it a bit tricky in a VM as the ESXi default kept taking over and breaking it. I figured this out by poking about from within the container and discovered it had two GPUs and was picking the wrong one. Once I’d deleted the card VMware made (which means you can’t see the console in ESXi GUI interface, but can still ssh in) it all started working. As you say, it’ll do a lot of work, CPU usage is almost nil and I can’t see a quality issue. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/749hnc/hardware_transcoding_with_plex_docker/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/... > I hadn't considered a NUC to run the plex server Mine is more of a Docker host. Home Assistant absolutely flies on that hardware (it was previously on a Synology 918). It has a few other well used containers too - Wireguard, several Minecraft and some administrative tools. There are several testing machines for pfsense and some Linux machines I wanted to play with too.