Jellyfin hardware transcode doesn't work (Intel iGPU)

TrueNAS General
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1

Hello,

I built a home server and I’m using TrueNAS Scale 25.04. First time using it.

But I’m having a problem with Jellyfin, can’t make the hardware transcode (Intel iGPU) work. I’m using the community app.

My system is a Intel Core i5-12400, Asus B760-Plus D4, 32Gb DDR4 3200Mhz.

I think the OS isn’t detecting the iGPU properly.
Under System > Advanced Settings > Isolated GPU Device(s), there is no GPU.

Is there anything I can do to fix it?

2

In my ASRock motherboard I had to enable in BIOS:

iGPU Multi-Monitor = Enabled

Hope that helps.

3

I already enabled Multi-monitor, it didn’t work.

4

I updated the BIOS, tried to enable IOMMU, and another option related to virtualization but nothing worked.
I’ve re-installed TrueNAS also, and re-installed the CPU (even checked if there’s any problem with the socket), but also nothing.

TrueNAS detects the VGA (iGPU) and I think the drivers is in use:

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ lspci | grep -i vga                       
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-S GT1 [UHD Graphics 730] (rev 0c)

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ lspci -knn | grep -E "i915|xe|VGA|Display"
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-S GT1 [UHD Graphics 730] [8086:4692] (rev 0c)
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915, xe

But no iGPU shows on isolated GPU option, and no GPU resource on Apps…

Can anyone confirm it should work or not with TrueNAS?

5

I have a similar problem. I’m using an N100 with an integrated i915 UHD GPU, and while the kernel sees it doesn’t seem to be isolatable. I vaguely remember something about TrueNAS not isolating a GPU unless you have more than one, so consider this untested advice.

Something I’m testing myself:

  1. Try to see if TrueNAS can be booted in true headless mode, without console output (not just “console disabled”) to free up the GPU.
  2. Try blacklisting some of the drivers, but have backups because you can definitely bork your system. Note that lsmod and modinfo show that i915 depends on drm,drm_display_helper,drm_kms_helper,video,ttm,cec,drm_buddy,i2c-algo-bit so there may be other things that need to be blocked from loading the driver if blacklisting helps.
  3. There’s a newer DKIM module for the i915 that’s highly experimental, and would definitely not be unsupported by iX, so it may or may not help you.
  4. Possibly reboot and see if that helps.

The i915 is not a very powerful GPU, but it’s (possibly) better than nothing if you’re trying to run Ollama or llama.cpp on an underpowered device like an N-100 for inference. If you’re running lower-end appliance level hardware, especially headless, some of them max out at 16GB of RAM which seems perfectly adequate for my own use case but definitely seems to be unsupported for certain use cases by the out-of-the-box TrueNAS kernel, configuration, and various system assumptions.

I’ve never had to isolate an integrated GPU before, so this is new territory for me. Please consider that, and definitely do your own research. And PLEASE back up before you brick your install. As long as you don’t change your BIOS I’m pretty sure you won’t brick your system by trying these things, but you could certainly brick your existing boot pool. YMMV.