So I have built a Plex Media Server:
CPU: AMD® Ryzen 7 3800x 8-core processor × 16
RAM: Corsair Vengence 32GB 3200MHZ
GPU: NVIDIA EVGA RTX 2080TI
STORAGE: I used to mine Chia which was a proof of storage coin so I have about 200TB of HDDs (18 Drives) all connected to a SAS card.
NETWORK: I have Verizon fios 1gigabit connection
SOFTWARE: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS (Running all Plex-related apps in a Docker container)
What is the problem:
So everything is setup such as Plex, Heimdall, *arr apps, etc. I have also edited my compose file to enable HW encoding for plex and paid for plex pass and enabled in-app the HW encoding feature. But when it comes to playing content, it does not do so with much ease for users connecting remotely from another state. It seems their stream connection is either poor or having issues when trying to run 4K REMIX files on their NVIDIA Shield Pro. And when I try to watch the content on my TV with my Shield, it is slow to skip ahead and sometimes buffers. My upload speed is around 300 Mbps so I am unsure as to what I am doing wrong and I fear that HW encoding isn’t actually happening. I am down to share any files that may be needed but I am unsure as to what might share private info so I have refrained from doing so as of now. From my understanding, my system is fully capable of streaming at least 2-3 4K streams at once, but it can barely handle 1. The sole purpose of this server is to provide content for my entire family around the country. Any advice would be great. Thank you!
You can quickly tell if Plex is hw encoding by looking at the server dashboard while someone is watching a stream. It will say (hw) next to transcode like this: https://i.imgur.com/rxDxbeV.png
How is your plex server installed, docker or directly on the system?
Docker. Most tutorials and help were found on the subreddit but unfortunately, Spez is stupid so I can’t find much help elsewhere. I will check is i see HW encoding being done.
edit: Looks to be exactly as you mentioned. So it is nice to see HW encoding is functioning. May be a bottleneck somewhere else then. But unsure where.
edit2: Have noticed the network peaking to 96 Mbps. I am unsure if that might be the issue as my upload speed is 130 Mbps last seen on speedtest.
When you say peak do you mean like a one off large spike, or it constantly hovers around 96Mbps? If it hovers around 96 Mbps that is really high if you aren’t serving multiple clients at the same time. You can also try turning up the “Transcoder default throttle buffer” setting in the transcoder section of the server settings. This makes the server pre-transcode farther ahead and can help with making sure the stream is constant.
Also, what version of the nvidia drivers and CUDA are you on? For best results you should be on at least version 525 and cuda 12.
Lastly, you say you are on gigabit, so why is your upload only 130-300 Mbps? Is the pc conncted to your network via wifi?
Are you using raw rips? Those can be huge and might be hard to encode in real time. If you wanna both use raw files and have encoded media, I would make encoded versions beforehand, rather than encoding them on the fly.
I am unsure but can check next time I get a torrent going. One movie i have is WEBDL 2160p 20gb. That was the one running 96Mbps peak and constant buffering.
Oh…wait, what is the bitrate of your file? After doing testing I’ve generally found that anything above 15 Mbps can cause problems over WiFi due to varying conditions unless you live in optimal networking conditions