Odd hardware decoding behavior

[tendonut]

With Fallout 4's launch looming, I've decided to make sure my In-Home Streaming setup is working properly again. I haven't attempted to stream anything since dropping my old GTX 260 into my Steam Machine (running an i3 w/ onboard graphics previously) and using the old GeForce drivers, now that the GTX260 is not officially supported.

Anyway, I'm attempting to use hardware encoding (GTX 760) and hardware decoding (GTX 260) for this. I have a wired gigabit connection to my router for both the host and client systems. The performance has been really strange, especially when seen on the graph.

http://i.imgur.com/kJ5cNPN.png

For some reason, the red line (which I understand to be the decoding latency?) is creating a massive sawtooth shape and my frame loss is nearly 50%. Packet loss is 0%. I also noticed that my bandwidth is only 30Mbps (which I've seen mentioned in previous threads and may or may not be an issue).

I am thinking the issue may be related to the (relatively) ancient nvidia drivers I am using for the GTX 260 and I may resolve this issue by yanking the video card and falling back to the Intel graphics, but I'd like the community input first. I have both a Steam Link and a Steam Controller being delivered tomorrow, so I'll have a comparison by tomorrow, EOD.

[henryg]

That ... is weird. The gap below the red line is decoding, not encoding or network. VDPAU means you're running Linux on the client - I think that maybe there is something wrong with the Linux drivers you're using for the GTX 260 that just makes video decoding super inefficient? If you turn off hardware decoding, you'll definitely have a better experience than what you're getting right now. But I would look into getting the latest official NVIDIA binary drivers for the client.

[tendonut]

Unfortunately, the GTX 260 is no longer supported by NVIDIA in Linux, so I have the latest drivers available. The client is running the latest SteamOS Brewmaster build, fully updated.

Since I am not really playing any games locally anyway, I think I may just yank the GTX 260 and fall back onto the onboard Intel HD 4400 graphics that are part of my i3 CPU, which is fully supported (and only a year old or so). I used to stream just fine when using the onboard intel graphics w/ hardware decoding. If more games I want to play start having native SteamOS support, I'll consider dropping in a newer NVIDIA card.

[tendonut]

Update: Wow, what a performance difference. I pulled out the card, and just rekicked the system entirely (didn't feel like screwing around with removing the NVIDIA and installing the Intel drivers). Now it's running onboard Intel graphics.

http://i.imgur.com/EAmm9XN.png

As you can see though, it's doing software decoding right now, even though the checkbox is checked for Hardware Decoding. Like I said, this is a totally fresh and totally vanilla install. I haven't even opened a terminal window yet. Is there an easy fix for this, or should I start googling?

[henryg]

Glad to see things are working better now. I don't know off the top of my head if the SteamOS Brewmaster default install supports hardware accelerated decode on Intel, or if you have to install some other drivers. Google seems like your best bet.

[tendonut]

Yeah, it's most likely missing that intel-vaapi package. I'd install it right now, but I am somehow stuck in a boot loop where the Steam client crashes as soon as it loads. I have done nothing to it since it was working fine last night. Oh well, to the googles.

I've been really struggling finding relevant information to work off since SteamOS has come so far since the beginning, and a ton of documentation is no longer accurate.

EDIT: So the intel-vaapi package was already installed, but now I've discovered a more serious error. While trying to troubleshoot my issue with the Steam client crashing after maybe 5-6 seconds. I checked the logs and I see its related to the GPU hanging, so its driver-related. Probably also related to why hardware encoding wasn't working as well since switching to Intel.

I won't keep this thread active since no one will ever find the results again (now that the topic has changed), so if I do need to continue forum posts, I'll do it under another thread.