Hey guys,
I am looking into a new GPU for Plex transcoding inside my TrueNas Scale box. I believe since Dragonfish the Intel Arc GPU’s are supported from what I have read, but I was unsure if this also included the Arc Pro GPU’s?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
P
The A40 should be supported by the inbox i915 driver, since 24.04.2 - 24.10 will support it as well of course. There’s another user who installed one here - while intel_gpu_top wasn’t present in 24.04 to verify, the “average CPU load” of 0% under transcode seems to imply it’s working fine.
Thanks @HoneyBadger that certainly gives me hope. Once I have the GPU I will give some feedback so that others may benefit. P.s thanks for making the “intel_gpu_top” feature request, this will be helpful in diagnosing if everything is setup correctly 
Update.
So I ended up getting an Intel Arc A60. I have popped it in the system and all well so far, TrueNas scale detects it correctly and I have set it as a GPU to be used in the truenas Plex app configuration and ensured that within the app settings that the hardware transcoding is enabled and Intel is selected.
I went to the shell and entered intel_gpu_top to check that it is being used for transcode tasks but I presented with a “Command not found”
I am running Scale Dragonfish-24.04.2.2 (Not moved to Electric Eel just yet)
Any ideas?
That intel_gpu_top command is available out of box on Electric Eel once you update.
Ahh, Understood. I had for some reason thought it was implemented earlier. Will update to EE and run some tests.
Hello all.
An update for any one who is looking to go with an Intel Arc GPU, at least with respect to the Alchemist series and notably.
In essence, anyone looking to use an Intel GPU for a cheaper alternative for Plex transcoding, all is looking great. Considering that Intel Arc A series supports all the latest and greatest codecs including AV1 encode and decode, it is a no brainer.
I would also like to say that I only went with the Arc Pro A60 due to space constraints as I only have space for a single slot height GPU. I would actually recommend something cheaper to most such as the A40. The A40 has 6GB VRAM which will handle a decent amount of concurrent transcodes.
Great to hear it’s working @panzerscope - we have a couple users who have the even more junior ARC A310 4GB and report good results (albeit possibly with fewer peak transcodes) as the ARC A-series has the same media engine across the lineup.
Indeed the A310 would also be another winner. That was the first GPU I considered and is a steal for its transcoding abilities. My concern for my use case was the VRAM, based on the transcode traffic I have but I believe the A310 is ok for around 4-5 transcodes from my research. The A310 would be adequate for the majority of users to be honest.
Hi All,
This seems to be a good thread for me to jump on due to my current issue. I am currently running TrueNAS Electric Eel and am honestly loving it. I have an Intel Arc GPU in it which I know is difficult to begin with. My question is how do I know if its even being used. I have an Intel Core i5 12400 in it (which has integrated graphics). This poses a problem in the monitoring sense. If I run sudo intel_gpu_top I get GPU stats with Intel Dg2 (Gen12) displayed as the device. I am curious if that is the Arc Card or not. (I would test it with a CPU that doesn’t have integrated graphics but I don’t have one on hand)
Another test I ran was sudo intel_gpu_top without the Arc GPU in the system at all and found that “Intel Alderlake_s (Gen12)” was listed as the device.
If anyone could shed some light on this, that would be great.
Just curious if anyone else has come across a solution or this same issue.
P.S. If I run lspci | grep VGA with and without the ARC GPU in the system, it reports only one GPU (both with different devices). Does that mean Truenas only uses the additional GPU (not the iGPU) if there is one available?
Hey @boimouseorange
Intel Dg2 is the Discrete Graphics 2 or ARC A-series engine which should mean it’s correctly leveraging your ARC card.
It’s possible that your motherboard/BIOS automatically disables the iGPU when it detects a dGPU - you can probably check in the PCIe settings or similar section to see if there is a setting along the lines of “GPU priority” or “Multiple Displays” that can force it to remain enabled. It’s also possible that your iGPU won’t enable/enumerate render devices without a monitor plugged in - which an HDMI/DP dummy dongle will help resolve.
Awesome, I will report back after checking my bios and plugging in another display.
Just reporting back,
You were right, all it took was plugging a monitor into the back of the motherboard for the system to realize there is an iGPU along with my dGPU. Time to buy an HDMI dummy dongle.
Thanks!
Genuine question:
How did you get your hands on one? I’m planning a new server and those are on my radar but I’ve only found them in bulk.
Well I purchased my A60 Pro from Overclockers UK: Intel ARC PRO A60 12GB GDDR6 Ray Tracing Workstation Graphics Card | OcUK
The A310 is readily available on places like Amazon.
