Cannot get H.264 encoding to work

[Sitron_No]

On my Linux workstation I have installed NoMachine Workstation for Linux, by doing the following steps:

1. Download and install NoMachine Workstation for Linux (Evaluation)
2. Copy my server.lic and node.lic file containing my license to /usr/NX/etc
3. Download and install libx264 by following AR09M00863
4. Rebooting my Linux Workstation.

Now, how do I know that my NoMachine Workstation are able to use H.264 encoding? I have tried different clients, and they all defaults to VP8 encoding. At the moment I use NoMachine Enterprise Client for Windows, but I have also tried NoMachine Enterprise Client for Linux. (Both Windows and Linux clients with several different 5.x versions.)

Am I doing something wrong, or how can I verify my workstation (server host)?

[Britgirl]

If you are connecting to virtual Linux desktop sessions, configuration wise there should be nothing to do other than disabling X11 vector graphics mode (previously known as “lightweight” mode) on the server. For more info see here https://www.nomachine.com/AR02L00779. We will detect what’s in place on the server side and tell the client to do the appropriate decoding.

On the client side if you have Win or Mac, then the system’s H.264 decoding will be used. If you’re using Linux, you’re going to need the FFMPEG libraries installed. See the article here for more details: https://www.nomachine.com/AR10K00696.

To check what’s being used in your session, you can look in the C-*/session logs. There should be a line: Info: Using H.264 software encoder.

You can also check when connected by going in to the menu CtrlAlt0 ->Display -> Display settings and seeing what appears at the bottom.

If you followed the procedure correctly on the Workstation and client-side hosts, then you shouldn’t have any problem, but there are 2 possibilities when decoding doesn’t work: a) when session resolution is higher than 1920×1080 (we explicitly disabled higher resolutions due to problems with some of the old graphic cards), b) your Windows is in a virtual machine, so it lacks hardware capabilities.

[Sitron_No]

Thanks for a quick reply. I forgot to mention that I am connecting to a physical display.

But I was not aware of the screen resolution limit, and I do indeed use a resolution at 1920×1200.

Here is the log:

NXAGENT - Version 5.1.24

Copyright (C) 2001, 2015 NoMachine.
See http://www.nomachine.com/ for more information.

Session: Starting session at Thu Apr 28 08:12:25 2016.
Info: Agent running with pid 3148.
Info: Slave server running with pid 3165.
Info: Display running with pid 3166.
Info: Listening to slave connections on port 12001.
Info: Audio server started with pid 3173.
Info: Audio client started with pid 3174.
Info: Display server started with pid 3175.
Session: Session started at Thu Apr 28 08:12:25 2016.
3148 3166 08:13:47 942.726 X11Poller: WARNING! Server pixmap format is not 'ZPixmap'.
Info: Using MIT-SHM extension.
Info: Using SSE3 for screen analysis.
Info: Screen capture running with pid 3543.
Info: Using damage extension for screen updates.
Info: Screen analysis running with pid 3544.
Info: Using screen size 1920x1200.
Info: Display server for F751E89BBBD9ED5F3EDA864C15291DED connected on Thu Apr 28 08:13:58 2016.
Info: Audio server for F751E89BBBD9ED5F3EDA864C15291DED connected on Thu Apr 28 08:13:58 2016.
Info: Audio client for F751E89BBBD9ED5F3EDA864C15291DED connected on Thu Apr 28 08:13:58 2016.
NvInitCuda: ERROR! Failed to initialize CUDA device.
NvInitCuda: ERROR! Error is: '3e7'.
Info: Using H.264 software encoder.
3148 3543 08:13:58 117.584 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 199360 bytes.
Info: Using Vp8 software encoder.
Info: Using display polling for screen updates.
3148 3544 08:13:58 918.810 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 412118 bytes.
Info: Audio reader running with pid 3668.
3148 3544 08:14:05 235.868 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 195270 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:07 497.370 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 616795 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:08 017.470 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 214946 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:33 567.689 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 151855 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:45 450.759 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 299743 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:46 675.704 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 202918 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:49 346.782 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 131300 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:49 402.650 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 247805 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:49 945.039 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 554785 bytes.
3148 3544 08:14:58 233.536 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 155110 bytes.
3148 3544 08:18:57 402.403 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 211298 bytes.
3148 3544 08:19:08 685.581 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 299390 bytes.
3148 3544 08:19:11 284.582 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 154560 bytes.
3148 3544 08:19:25 211.999 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 194306 bytes.
3148 3544 08:20:27 586.931 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 149620 bytes.
3148 3544 08:20:47 745.458 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 220745 bytes.
3148 3544 08:20:48 533.504 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 536200 bytes.
3148 3544 08:20:49 240.576 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 401376 bytes.
3148 3544 08:20:50 436.495 Writer/Writer: WARNING! Buffer for FD#32 reached 295466 bytes.
[...cut...]

[Britgirl]

The hardware decoder facilities are not available on the client, but you can still use H.264 software encoding. You have five options:

a) install our our ffmpeg libs, download and build from http://www.nomachine.com/downloads/5.1/sources/ffmpeg-5.1.24.tar.gz

b) install the original ffmpeg libs, download and build from https://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-3.0.2.tar.xz

c) use the prebuilt ffmpeg Zeranoe packages, which you need to extract to the directory nxdir/bin (windows):
https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/shared/ffmpeg-20160425-git-9ac154d-win32-shared.7z

d) use the AVC pack (available for a small fee – you only need it on the client side)

e) change your resolution 🙂

[Author]

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