Plex with an NVIDIA GPU?

puppydog

puppydog

I'm preparing a new server to replace my current server that, for one of its roles, is a Plex media server. I was thinking I might put a dedicated nvidia GPU in it, but I've never used a dedicated GPU in FreeBSD before so I thought I'd ask here to make sure I'm going about this correctly.

What I'm going to get is probably just a decent cheap card like a 3GB Nvidia 1060. From what I understand, I should just need to install ( pkg install nvidia-driver) and enable the driver in rc.conf ( kld_list+=nvidia-drm), and that's it? Plex will use it when appropriate?

Also, Plex will be running in a jail - do I need to install and enable the driver in the jail, the host, or both? Do I need some certain extra parameter in my jail.conf for the plex jail to be able to use the gpu?

Is there anything I'm not thinking of here?
 
As far as I know, hardware transcoding on FreeBSD has been suspended by Plex until further notice, something to do with FreeBSD video drivers being too old, IIRC... You might want to try setting up a VM with a Linux distro and run Plex in that to use hardware transcoding, I think I remember someone on Plex's forum saying they were using a VM to get hardware transcoding, but don't hold me to that...
 
bjs said:
As far as I know, hardware transcoding on FreeBSD has been suspended by Plex until further notice, something to do with FreeBSD video drivers being too old, IIRC... You might want to try setting up a VM with a Linux distro and run Plex in that to use hardware transcoding, I think I remember someone on Plex's forum saying they were using a VM to get hardware transcoding, but don't hold me to that...
Click to expand...

Plex on FreeBSD has the option for hardware acceleration available in its settings, unless it's just a dummy checkbox.
 
I stand corrected... Intel hardware transcoding was removed from the FreeBSD Plex port in version 1.32.2.7002 according to the release notes on the Plex forum...
 
puppydog said:
… 1060 … nvidia-driver …
Click to expand...

The table at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-configuration-nvidia is outdated. <https://github.com/FreeBSD/freebsd-...8ea6e4ea911587f40aaf8#commitcomment-139010254> (24th February) referred to:

FreeBSD Display Driver – x64 | 535.146.02 | FreeBSD x64 | NVIDIA

For the more recent update to the driver <https://github.com/FreeBSD/freebsd-ports/commit/fbde2bdc53a59e3d9190ff4653e20e0678ba012f> the relevant NVIDIA page is:

FreeBSD Display Driver – x64 | 550.54.14 | FreeBSD x64 | NVIDIA

puppydog please, can you identify the 1060 more specifically?

Whilst <https://www.freshports.org/x11/nvidia-driver/#message> currently does not show the existing package message (a known issue), I do know that the nvidia-drm kernel module is not directly related. Instead (if your card is supported):

<https://www.freshports.org/graphics/nvidia-drm-kmod/>
 
i have Nvidia hardware transcoding working with obs studio and handbrake

i wonder if the same trick will work with plex

install libc6-shim

Code: 
sudo pkg install libc6-shim

using desktop entries

obs studio

Code: 
Exec=sh -c 'LD_LIBMAP="`nv-sglrun printenv LD_LIBMAP | grep -v libGL`" obs'

Code: 
~/.local/share/applications/com.obsproject.Studio.desktop

Code: 
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=OBS
GenericName=Streaming/Recording Software
Comment=Free and Open Source Streaming/Recording Software
Exec=sh -c 'LD_LIBMAP="`nv-sglrun printenv LD_LIBMAP | grep -v libGL`" obs'
Icon=com.obsproject.Studio
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=AudioVideo;Recorder;
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=obs

handbrake

Code: 
Exec=sh -c 'LD_LIBMAP="`nv-sglrun printenv LD_LIBMAP | grep -v libGL`" ghb %f'

Code: 
~/.local/share/applications/fr.handbrake.ghb.desktop

Code: 
[Desktop Entry]
Name[af]=HandBrake
Name[bg]=HandBrake
Name[ca]=HandBrake
Name[co]=HandBrake
Name[cs]=HandBrake
Name[de]=HandBrake
Name[es]=HandBrake
Name[eu]=HandBrake
Name[fi]=HandBrake
Name[fr]=HandBrake
Name[he]=HandBrake
Name[it]=HandBrake
Name[ja]=HandBrake
Name[ka]=HandBrake
Name[ko]=HandBrake
Name[nl]=HandBrake
Name[no]=HandBrake
Name[pt_BR]=HandBrake
Name[pt]=HandBrake
Name[ro]=HandBrake
Name[ru]=HandBrake
Name[sk]=HandBrake
Name[sl_SI]=HandBrake
Name[sv]=HandBrake
Name[th]=HandBrake
Name[tr]=HandBrake
Name[zh_CN]=HandBrake
Name[zh_TW]=HandBrake
Name=HandBrake
GenericName[co]=Trascudificatore di medià
GenericName[de]=Medientranscoder
GenericName[es]=Transcodificador de medios
GenericName[nl]=Media-transcodering
GenericName[sv]=Mediaomkodare
GenericName=Media Transcoder
Comment[co]=Trascudificheghja DVD, Blu-ray è altri medià
Comment[de]=Transcodiert DVD, Blu-ray und andere Medien
Comment[es]=Transcodifica DVD, Blu-ray y otros medios
Comment[nl]=Transcodeert DVD, Blu-ray en andere media
Comment[sv]=Omkodar DVD, Blu-ray och andra media
Comment=Transcodes DVD, Blu-ray, and other media
Exec=sh -c 'LD_LIBMAP="`nv-sglrun printenv LD_LIBMAP | grep -v libGL`" ghb %f'
Icon=fr.handbrake.ghb
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GTK;AudioVideo;Video;
Keywords[co]=Cunvertidore di furmatu ; Cudificatore video ;
Keywords[de]=Formatconverter;Videoencoder;
Keywords[es]=Convertidor de formato; codificador de vídeo;
Keywords[nl]=Formaatconverter; Video-codering;
Keywords[sv]=Formatkonverterare;Video-kodare;
Keywords=Format Converter;Video Encoder;
MimeType=application/ogg;application/x-extension-mp4;application/x-flac;application/x-matroska;application/x-ogg;audio/ac3;audio/mp4;audio/mpeg;audio/ogg;audio/x-flac;audio/x-matroska;audio/x-mp2;audio/x-mp3;audio/x-mpeg;audio/x-vorbis;video/mp4;video/mp4v-es;video/mpeg;video/msvideo;video/quicktime;video/vnd.divx;video/x-avi;video/x-m4v;video/x-matroska;video/x-mpeg;video/x-ms-wmv;video/ogg;video/x-ogm+ogg;video/x-theora+ogg;x-content/video-dvd;x-content/video-vcd;x-content/video-svcd;
 
bjs said:
puppydog,

Just curious if you ever got hardware transcoding working with the Nvidia hardware in Plex???
Click to expand...
Unfortunately no. I gave up on it pretty early on. I made the original post before I'd even ordered my components, and while I did get an RTX 3060 for the project, I ended up not using it in the server.
 
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