Software vs Hardware decoder 1440p

[QuimbyDogg]

I've been gaming from various linux distributions over the last year or two and it has worked pretty well. I recently came into some new hardware and decided to setup a dedicated Windows "Steam Host" server. I moved my GTX 970 into the host machine because it seemed to work very well for hardware encoding (NVENC H264).

On the client side I have just been using the integrated Haswell CPU (4670k) with 4 threads for software decoding. Fallout 4 is pretty playable at 40-60 FPS, GTA Online is pretty playable, sometimes FPS dips as low as 30 but still very managable. Black Desert Online seemed to push the streaming to its limit - this sometime drops into 20 FPS and lower.

I found a lot of documentation related to hardware encoders but not as much on the decoding side. If I put in a GTX 950 or 960 in the client machine would I be able to activate hardware decoding and notice much of an improvement? I'm a little reluctant to pull the trigger on a new video card for the client because I'm unsure of how much it will help. I read that the GTX 950 and 960 should have a new feature that allows "full hardware decoding" but this seemed aimed more at H265 decoding (something steam doesn't seem to support yet).

Would there be any noticeable difference jumping to hardware 264 decoding from using software? The in home streaming works MUCH better than I thought it would initially - if I can boost the performance just a little bit I would be extremely happy.

[kreiselhoschi]

Spare the money, your client is more than up to the task when doing software decoding. Some games work better with software encoding, can´t tell if this may be caused by different renderer (OpenGL, DX) or display options like borderless window, full scree, etc. So I´d suggest you try different options on the host, too, for different games.

[QuimbyDogg]

Some follow up on this:

I tried a lot of different combinations of settings but didn't notice much improvement. I mixed up hardware a bit in my host/client machines and noticed a significant change. Was using a 8370 + GTX 970 as host with 4670k as client and software decoding. Now using the 4670k + GTX 970 as host and 8370 as client. Steaming is significantly smoother. Getting 50-40 FPS in Black Desert Online. Not sure if this is just due to different processor or more to do with motherboards and other parts of the build.

There have been a few points the stream information overlay showed "slow decode" under the new client setup. I turned down graphics settings a little on the host and haven't seen this message again. I realize software h264 is nothing new but this does lead me to believe a dedicated GPU decoder may provide some improvement with quality (maybe just because of the higher resolution). The steam in home streaming knowledge base does suggest a dedicated GPU with 264 hardware decoding in the client and I stumbled across this thread suggesting hardware decoding can help (but they had a much worse processor).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2mlex8/inhome_streamingbest_budget_gpu_for_hw_decoding/

Ultimately I will want to put an nvidia card in the client anyway just for the better driver support with linux. Even with a dedicated steam host server I will want to play games locally from my linux machine. I lost that ability when I moved my GTX 970 to a windows host to try out this streaming setup. With new card releases around the corner I will sit on it a bit - I am happy to see DX11 titles fully playable from my linux machine with in home streaming. Very cool.

[kreiselhoschi]

Aaaah, there was the info that was missing in your initial post: Linux and 8370^^. Yes, driver support for Linux ist better from NV than AMD. When it comes to encoding, the 4670K and GTX970 clearly is the better choice*. Anyway, hope you´ll have fun. ;)

(*imho^^)

[QuimbyDogg]

Just wanted to update this thread after a bit more in case anyone has similar hardware and is trying to figure out optimal streaming etc. The combination 4670k + GTX 970 windows host machine works well for streaming 1440p. Most games I get around 50-60 FPS with some settings turned down but not too bad. The 1070 on the market now seems to be the sweet spot for 1440p with higher visuals but I'm going to skip that upgrade and hang out for next gen.

As far as the client goes - I've been doing software decoding on the AMD 8370. I think this contributes to higher latency of display and a little worse quality. The red decode bar is certainly the largest metric when I view streaming stats on the client - varying between 25ms and 50ms usually. I was running into an issue where the software decoding on the linux client would spike much higher (display slow decode error and tank FPS to single digits on the client) - I've since found that changing the cpu frequency governor eliminated this problem.

Software decoding seems adequate at 1440p now but I plan to drop a GTX 960 in the client linux machine for hardware h264 decode since it seems like there is room for improvement. I plan to pickup a used card for ~$100 with all the new card releases now.