Correct setup for headless Intel HW encoding?

[ziphnor]

I am trying to setup up a Hetzner dedicated server as a remote workstation using Ubuntu 24.04.

The server is an i5 13500 (alder lake).

I have ensured modeset is enabled and removed thehetzner modprobe blacklist for i915, i915_bdw and drm. The OS image is Ubuntu Base with ubuntu-desktop-minimal ubuntu-restricted-extras and ubuntu-drivers applied and gdm3 disabled (to allow nomachine to start its own). In addition I have tried installing lots of libva and intel related packages suggested in various places. NoMachine is installed from nomachine_9.1.24_6_amd64.deb.

ffmpeg is able to use libva to encode h264 (in a terminal opened inside the nomachine session)

My user is in the render and video groups

I have setup the plugin links i have seen suggested:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/intel/mediasdk/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri /opt/intel/mediasdk/plugins

I have tried various variations in node.cfg:

AgentX11VectorGraphics 0

EnableHardwareEncoding 1

EnableDisplayServerVideoCodec 1

DisplayServerVideoCodec h264

No matter what I still end up with SW encoding 🙁

I would greatly appreciate any tips on further debugging this, because I am going a bit crazy here.

[Britgirl]

Hi,

there are some instructions for setting up with Intel, so take a look this article https://kb.nomachine.com/AR09O00938. Uninstall all the plugins you have already tried and start again using the article. Does that help?

[ziphnor]

Okay, so the old mediasdk is not needed at all for newer hardware? There are so many posts and guides out there that are partially out of date 🙁 And the plugin symlinks are not needed either?

When you say uninstall “plugins”, what exactly do you mean?

[Britgirl]

“When you say uninstall “plugins”, what exactly do you mean?”

I mean that you should revert what you did here:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/intel/mediasdk/plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri /opt/intel/mediasdk/plugins

and start again following the instructions in our article.

[ziphnor]

I really thought I had replied here, sorry about that. I ended up doing a complete reinstall but overall I think the issue I had (and have) is simply one of resolution. My home office monitor is 5120×1440. When I use no machine on my laptop screen (2560×1600) or my office monitor (3440×1440) I actually do get hardware encoding and decoding.

[Author]

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