16:42 MayeulC: I am considering buying a secondhand [Quadro 400](https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-400.c1317) for HW video acceleration in jellyfin. According to that site, it should use VP4, so that's nice for H264 decoding.
16:43 imirkin: i would discourage such a thought
16:43 MayeulC: However, I saw no mention of video encoding on [the project page](https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/VideoAcceleration.html), so I guess that's not supported at all?
16:43 imirkin: well, Quadro 400 is what ... fermi?
16:43 imirkin: so there's no video encoding in that hw
16:44 imirkin: but even if there were (as there is on kepler+), this is not supported by nouveau
16:44 imirkin: also the h264 decoding isn't flawless -- some videos don't work for unclear reasons
16:44 imirkin: if you're looking for something which 100% works (e.g. a tv-attached appliance), stay away from nouveau :)
16:44 MayeulC: That techpowerup mentions "Tesla 2.0"
16:45 imirkin: ah yeah, looks like GT216
16:45 MayeulC: Hmm, okay, thanks for the information :)
16:45 imirkin: which has even more problems, but on the bright side supports reclocking
16:46 MayeulC: I also encountered the following output when extracting firmware: Skipping gzip blob at 0x5d92e4 (33440 bytes), wrong magic: 0x2
16:46 MayeulC: Skipping gzip blob at 0x5da444 (7648 bytes), wrong magic: 0x100c
16:47 MayeulC: And the instruction at https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/VideoAcceleration.html mention it's python2 only, which it isn't anymore :)
16:49 MayeulC: Will look at AMD options :)
16:50 imirkin: MayeulC: did you use the 325.15 version? also iirc a couple errors don't matter
16:50 imirkin: look on the bright side -- i updated it to the new location.
16:51 imirkin: instead of pointing at my stupid repo
16:53 RSpliet: hahahahaha oh man, NVIDIA at it again
16:53 RSpliet: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/02/18/geforce-cmp/
16:53 RSpliet: "RTX 3060 software drivers are designed to detect specific attributes of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and limit the hash rate, or cryptocurrency mining efficiency, by around 50 percent."
17:01 imirkin: MayeulC: anyways, you're welcome to try it. and at some point, i was able to watch most movies with h264 hw accel
17:01 imirkin: however lots of software won't work
17:01 MayeulC: imirkin: Yeah, I followed the exact instructions on the fdo website
17:01 imirkin: due to some impl details, you effectively can't mix vdpau + gl
17:01 imirkin: which lots of "modern" video players like to do
17:03 imirkin: and also people like to break video decoding on nouveau every so often, so since i don't use it on a regular basis anymore, it can end up broken for multiple releases. usually an easy fix, but only if i know about it.
17:03 MayeulC: Ah, so that's the caveat. Well, it's only used for transcoding with ffmpeg before jellyfin sends the stream trough http, so I guess it is fine?
17:03 imirkin: yeah, that should be one of the most working use-cases :)
17:03 MayeulC: However, ideally I'd want something quite reliable, since users can't turn off HW acceleration themselves
17:03 imirkin: many people foolishly want to actually *see* the video
17:04 RSpliet: guilty
17:04 imirkin: and that's where the problems begin
17:04 imirkin: but note that if you want transcoding, hw with encoding may be better-suited
17:05 MayeulC: I might as well get it and try it out, since it's only 15€. But I wonder if just plugging the card might not double my power consumption (currently 20-30W)
17:05 imirkin: if you want to use nvidia blob drivers, i believe NVENC is supported from kepler and on (and there are some small fanless GT 7xx gpu's out there)
17:05 imirkin: tesla's run pretty hot, so i imagine power usage will increase
17:05 imirkin: the GK208 kepler's are pretty low power, may be better-suited to your use-case
17:05 MayeulC: I have little interest in blobs, TBH x)
17:05 MayeulC: Those usually come with an expiration date on the lid.
17:06 imirkin: i understand
17:06 imirkin: just pointing out practical solutions
17:06 MayeulC: Though without encoding, as you said, I am considering an AMD card instead
17:06 imirkin: intel is obviously the best thing, but you either got it or you don't
17:06 imirkin: AMD supports both decode and encode fairly well
17:07 imirkin: but they haven't made low-power GPUs in a very long time
17:07 imirkin: the ones you can find that are low-power are *ancient* and actually not too well-supported for video decode/encode
17:07 MayeulC: Hmm... This is a sandy bridge machine, it's fairly old, and upgrade options are limited for that socket, hence my looking at a cheap dgpu
17:08 imirkin: sandybridge supports all this
17:08 imirkin: it supports both decode and encode
17:08 MayeulC: (LGA1155)
17:09 MayeulC: I think it used to work (with Quicksync IIRC), but something broke recently...
17:09 imirkin: then complain to the intel guys
17:09 imirkin: they're pretty responsive
17:09 imirkin: i have a snb laptop - used to work fine
17:09 imirkin: libva-intel-driver or whatever
17:10 MayeulC: That one might be on ffmpeg or even jellyfin, I have to dig into it. That might indeed be a better option.
17:10 imirkin: well, it'll be the same problem with anything else
17:11 imirkin: va-api is used
17:11 imirkin: so if va-api is broken, you're sunk
17:11 MayeulC: Well, my options are clearer now. Many thanks for the tidbits on GPU power also.