Hi, I am currently on Skylake E3 Xeon and using the integrated graphics. Everything was OK until my son started playing on the WIndows gaming VM and I couldn’t watch Youtube in the background while doing something else on the host. I am planning platform upgrade when the next gen Intel and AMD processors are released so I need a graphics card mainly for HW accelerated Youtube playback. My requirements are:
As cheap and low power as possible. (second hand is also an option)
Hardware accelerated VP9 Youtube playback. (no h264fy doesn’t cut it)
Enough 3D acceleration for a Desktop Environment (KDE) and nothing more. All gaming is on my VFIO W10 VM.
Easy to manage, supported drivers (I am on Arch so running latest and greatest is not an issue)
From what I have investigated so far:
I will have to use chromium-vaapi for the Youtube hardware acceleration
My best bet for the HW acceleration to work will be an intel GPU but this will require platform changes and now is not the best time
The best match from NVDIA will be GT1030 + vdpau-va driver
The cheapest option from AMD with hardware VP9 decode will be X5500 which is more money than I am willing to spend right now and will consume more power anyway.
My best bet seems to be the GT1030 but I couldn’t conclusive find information that it will work with vdpau-va driver + chromium-vaapi. Can somebody confirm this?
The AMD HW acceleration support seems a bit convoluted with the open/closed source driver option and the multiple different generations of video acceleration blocks. Also they seem to support VDPAU but not clear statement for the VAAPI.
Any other suggestions? Did I missed something?
Thanks.
If I were second handing something at the price difference between. The 1030 and the RX 480 I’d say get an RX 480 or if you prefer Nvidia … a GTX 1050 Ti.
They are both ultra cheap. both do what you want. eBay is a good place to find them.
From here and the other sources I have checked the first AMD UVD version which supports full VP9 HW acceleration is in the RX5500. The older models have “hybrid” acceleration which is not what I am looking for.
I don’t prefer NVIDIA but they seem the only one to cover the requirements. Also 1050TI is more than I need and is not different than the 1030 in supported formats, etc.
Your best bet for a GPU is actually a 3400G, because it features a new UVD, and you have 8 lanes for VFIO (but it’s just 4 cores 8 threads.)
The lowest end GPU with a fully featured NVENC/NVDEC from Pascal is the GTX 1050 non-Ti. The lowest end in terms of Turing is the 1650 Super. The 1030 is not a good choice for NVENC, in case you want to do Plex transcodes in the background. If it’s a gimped NVENC, you can be sure VP9 decode might not be there neither.
I have been checking the same table and for decoding it should be OK. I don’t have use case for encoding. @FurryJackman I know some of the new Ryzen APUs would be the best but I will need more cores and I don’t think AMD will provide higher core APUs.
I personally would recommend the GTX 1050 nonetheless, because most responsive design websites make heavy use of OpenGL 2D and the 1030 will lag in that for modern sites.
even a 950 can decode VP9 profile 0.
profile 2 is only used for HDR.
did you think about disabling hardware acceleration decoding VP9 is no hard task for a CPU like yours. i still don’t understand how a computer game can stop hardware acceleration i know that intel needs are different then nvidia and AMD in this regard but still. so i kinda interested why your videos stop working in more detail.
…On Windows. This is Linux, and it requires newer drivers to enable VP9 decode. 418.52.05 had no VP9 Decode at all, and only until 440.48.02 did VP9 decode get added.
I’m suspecting it’s unpinned cores and both the VM and kernel are sharing the same cores, in which case I highly recommend a move to Ryzen X570 and potentially a 3900X.
VDPAU to VAAPI is also kind of a mess. You’ll have to get really obscure AUR packages.
Since VFIO is also involved, you gotta be 100% sure the stubbing is working if you get a 1050. The 1050 will handle KDE compositing a lot better than the 1030. Just be sure to use X11 and not Wayland.
Dude the GT1030 supports NVENC just fine what are you talking about?
This isn’t what he is asking stick to his needs… He asked for VP9 and NVENC the GT1030 does it just fine. The latest drivers are simple as all hell to obtain on any mainstream distro. Recommendations are nice but he clearly stated in his post he’s not willing to spend that money. This is a stop over. Help him choose a stop over not something that will perform over an extended period of time (i.e 1050 Ti)
But it will still handle it. He’s just using the graphics card for Linux not the rest of the system and gaming . I assume the other GPU is delegated to that task
Oh I’m sorry, did that actually really matter? The big thing right now is he needs accelerated hardware decode and how much silicon is reserved for that for headroom matters slightly. Windows drivers might be better when pegged with the decoder at 100%, but the headroom is better with the 1050.
The GT 1030 also has the DDR4 model which performs half of what the GDDR5 model does. EVEN if it’s a stopover, a risk of low performance with modern web standards is the highest with the DDR4 version of the card.
@Huhn_Morehuhn you are correct that VP9 decoding is not that hard of a task and even a 1080@60 frames takes to only 30-40% of my CPU. The ussie is that I have 2 core 4 threads passed to the gaming VM, pinned, another 2 threads for I/O and qemu process and the processor is out of resources. So when a video is played the games start stuttering.
@FurryJackman I know I am due to upgrade and most likely I will go with Ryzen. I just wanted to see what the Intel upcoming s1200 will offer as it will have integrated graphics and I will not need second GPU for the host. But if I go with Ryzen the 1030 will be needed anyway.
Thanks guys as I see at this point there is nothing better in the lower end of the market besides Intel iGPU or the 1030/1050.
P.S. I am aware of the DDR4 model and actively ignoring it
You’re painting me like I would recommend the RTX 2080 Ti. NO, that wouldn’t work. The Ti would also be overkill in terms of the 1050, so the non Ti 1050 IS a good holdover. Get a grip.
Quadro P series also is good, but it has issues in Vulkan as the Linux drivers have said.
put your sticks away boys. theres no need to measure them in this thread, especially when I have the bigger one.
the 1030 works fine. I use one in my bedroom HTPC running linux mint. I know its more than enough for what OP wants right now.
@idimitro the DDR4 model is fine. Thats what I use. So long as you understand what it is you’re getting, theres no reason to avoid it for your use case.
what?
