Emby supports the following hardware acceleration variants on Windows
-
Nvidia NVDEC & NVENC
API for video encoding and decoding acceleration using Nvidia GPUs -
Intel QuickSync Video
Intel's brand for its dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware core -
AMD AMF
AMD Advanced Media Framework - multimedia API AMD hardware for real-time processing of multimedia -
Microsoft DXVA
Microsoft DirectX Video Acceleration API - hardware independent API for hardware accelerated video decoding
Nvidia provides two hardware acceleration interfaces:
- NVENCODE API for video encode acceleration
- NVDECODE API for video decode acceleration (formerly called NVCUVID API)
NVIDIA GPUs contain one or more hardware-based decoder and encoder(s) (separate from the CUDA cores) which provides fully-accelerated hardware-based video decoding and encoding for several popular codecs. With decoding/encoding offloaded, the graphics engine and the CPU are free for other operations.
GPU hardware accelerator engines for video decoding (referred to as NVDEC) and video encoding (referred to as NVENC) support faster than real-time video processing which makes them suitable to be used for transcoding applications, in addition to video playback.
The following accelerations are currently supported by Emby. Please note that Emby may not support all accelerations offered by the hardware and that not all hardware devices will support all accelerations.
- Decoders
- H.264 (AVC)
- H.265 (HEVC)
- MPEG2
- MPEG4
- VC1
- VP8
- VP9
- Encoders
- H.264 (AVC)
Hardware acceleration is available for most Nvidia devices starting with GPUs from the Kepler generation (e.g. GeForce GT 630) onwards, including both consumer and professional devices. Detailed information about supported hardware can be found in Nvidias GPU Support Matrix.
Install the latest drivers for your Nvidia hardware directly from
Nvidia Driver Downloads page.
It is highly recommended to use these drivers instead of the ones that are
shipped with Windows.
The minimum required driver version on Windows is 390.77
(Linux 390.25)
It is not required to install any other tools or SDKs from Nvidia.
- Emby supports headless operation for Nvidia
It is not required to connect a monitor - Nvidia acceleration also works when Emby is run as a Windows service
Nvidia Video Codec SDK
GPU Support Matrix
Nvidia Driver Downloads
NVENC,
NVDEC
Intel® Quick Sync Video uses the dedicated media processing capabilities of Intel® Graphics Technology to decode and encode fast, enabling the processor to complete other tasks and improving system responsiveness.
The following accelerations are currently supported by Emby. Please note that Emby may not support all accelerations offered by the hardware and that not all hardware devices will support all accelerations.
- Decoders
- H.264 (AVC)
- H.265 (HEVC)
- MPEG2
- VC1
- VP8
- VP9
- Encoders
- H.264 (AVC)
- Hardware Filters
- Scaling
- Deinterlacing
Quick Sync was initially built into some Sandy Bridge CPUs, but not into Sandy Bridge Pentiums or Celerons.
An overview of acceleration capabilities built into the various CPU generations
can be found here: Hardware decoding and encoding.
and here GPU Acceleration Capabilities.
Install the latest graphics drivers for your Intel COU with integrated graphics directly from Intel's site: Drivers & Software It is highly recommended to use these drivers instead of the ones that are shipped with Windows. It is not required to install the Intel Media SDK.
- Emby currently does not support headless operation with Intel QuickSync You will either need to connect a physical monitor to the video output or you can acquire a "dummy monitor plug" to make the GPU think that a monitor is connected
- QuickSync acceleration does not work when Emby is run as a Windows service
Note: Support for headless mode is planned for the future
Intel QuickSync Video
Codec Support by CPU Generation
GPU Acceleration Capabilities
Drivers & Software
AMD Advanced Media Framework is a light-weight, portable multimedia framework that abstracts away most of the platform and API-specific details and allows for easy implementation of multimedia applications using a variety of technologies, such as DirectX 11, OpenGL, and OpenCL and facilitates an efficient interop between them.
The following accelerations are currently supported by Emby. Please note that Emby may not support all accelerations offered by the hardware and that not all hardware devices will support all accelerations.
- Encoders
- H.264 (AVC)
The AMF framework is compatible with most recent Radeon GPUs starting with the Southern Islands family and APUs of the Kabini, Kaveri, Carrizo families and newer.
Install the latest Radeon Software directly from AMD's website: AMD Drivers & Support It is not required to install the AMF SDK. The minumum required software version is: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.3 (16.30.2311)
- Emby currently does not support headless operation with AMD AMF You will either need to connect a physical monitor to the video output or you can acquire a "dummy monitor plug" to make the GPU think that a monitor is connected
- AMD AMF acceleration does not work when Emby is run as a Windows service
Note: Support for headless mode is planned for the future
AMD Advanced Media Framework AMF SDK AMD Drivers & Support
DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) is an Microsoft API for using hardware acceleration to speed up video processing. Software codecs and software video processors can use DXVA to offload certain CPU-intensive operations to the GPU. DXVA supports video decoding only, no encoding.
The following accelerations are currently supported by Emby. Please note that Emby may not support all accelerations offered by the hardware and that not all hardware devices will support all accelerations.
- Decoders
- H.264 (AVC)
- H.265 (HEVC)
- MPEG2
- VC1
DXVA supports graphics devices from different vendors, including Nvidia, Intel and AMD.
DXVA is a Windows component, and supposed to work with the drivers that are included in Windows. Installing the latest drivers from the manufacturers' websites might still be a good idea.
- Emby currently does not support headless operation with DXVA2 You will either need to connect a physical monitor to the video output or you can acquire a "dummy monitor plug" to make the GPU think that a monitor is connected
- DXVA2 acceleration does not work when Emby is run as a Windows service
Note: Support for headless mode is planned for the future