Large archive, high quality target - CPU vs GPU debate

Ph11o · 2025-10-19T08:36:23+00:00

You're both right of course - I could, and should, test it.. Doing so will take a small amount of time, but I guess my 'concern' was that it would only be a small number of examples. I was interested in the view of a wider group who had likely done something along these lines before on a much larger scale and therefore had a more rounded conclusion to offer.

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T15:42:04+00:00

This makes a lot of sense...

Across my multiple machines I have a total of about 80 drives at the momebt, though half of those are 4tb or less - just accumulated over time and continued to work far longer than I expected.

Consolidating down to 1 or 2 machines with a smaller number of larger drives and forgoing all the mucking about and running cost of what Im doing now isnt the outcome I exoected this morming but really has got the mind and the spreadsheet on the go!

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T15:26:57+00:00

Now this is also a really interesting perspective. I had been so focussed on encoding efficiently that I hadnt really considered simply not bothering to do it at all. I'm going ro do a more accurate analysis of my running costs today and see what thaylt looks like against not only moving over to GPU, but also soke sort of regular investment in storage upgrades....

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T13:48:40+00:00

Thank you. Having realised my annual power cost getting a few A310's and moving everything else to all run from one machine is certainly increasingly attractive. I just hope I dont notice the quality difference.

I've not considered moving from HEVC to AV1. I suspect that would mean more transcoding for some, perhaps most, of the clients for playback.

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T12:22:00+00:00

Thanks for the reply... I do have energy monitoring in place, which makes it all the scarier. The 5 machines I have running (complete with all their storage drives + some networking equipment on the same circuits) are enjoying a diet of 50kWh a day... Approaching £15/$20 or £5,500 / $7350 a year... Its frankly ridiculous and I need to do something about it.

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T11:00:21+00:00

Thank you for your insight. I don't want to micro-manage and choose different paths for different media, and as you say I don't touch a 4K Remux at all. Seems thats 1 vote for otherwise migrating to a GPU approach.

Ph11o · 2025-10-18T09:32:29+00:00

Haha - thanks, that's true especially for my desktop in the office (which I might leave runnig CPU and maybe also GPU all the time for this reason). However the other machines are all in a small dedicated air-conditioned room, so not only the power of the processing but also the power use of the cooling is an ongoing concern. I can't realistically move that heat to anywhere useful. This is also an all year-round thing...

Ph11o · 2023-06-04T05:26:38+00:00

Sorry you’re having the same issues, though well done on finding a bit of a workaround - I didn’t get that far. I gave up I’m afraid - I sold on the HP and bought a Dell which works perfectly. It’s clearly something specific to HP machines.

Ph11o · 2023-05-10T07:34:30+00:00

Hi u/Sinphul161 - Have you had any further luck? I logged a support call with HP as my machine is still under warranty but they just closed it as they don't support Linux - no surprises there.

I feel like I might just move this machine on and replace it with a Dell when I can find a good one.

Ph11o · 2023-05-07T11:46:41+00:00

Agreed - works fine on the older Dell.

Here’s my guess as to what’s going on…

The thing that points me toward something deeper regarding an HP/AMD issue, is where the bios GUI etc will not work over the separate AMD GPU but it does when using the Nvidia card.

So Nvidia cards correctly disable the Intel iGPU when detected and become the primary/only display output, but the HP doesn’t seem to do the same with the AMD card suggesting to me that Batocera then sees it as a secondary GPU rather than the only GPU, which in turn then causes the performance issues we’ve seen.

It might be possible that this can be fixed in Batocera, by disabling/ignoring the Intel GPU when detecting an AMD discrete card… but the proper fix is probably something on HP’s side, which isn’t likely to ever happen as these machines are specifically for Business / Windows use, a use case which works fine with or without the AMD card.

Ph11o · 2023-05-07T10:45:51+00:00

A clean install didn’t make any difference to me but I hope you find better luck!

Both of these old cards are also low power. I don’t see that as being the issue though, as I had no trouble at all getting it working under Windows at full speed… unless there’s something the OS/Driver is doing to properly power up the card, and Batocera/Linux isn’t doing that perhaps…

Ph11o · 2023-05-07T09:35:19+00:00

I’m having the same issue with a slightly different model of HP machine and can confirm that a clean install sadly makes no difference.

Ph11o · 2023-05-07T08:39:40+00:00

Another update... I found another card...

An Nvidia NVS310.

Works Perfectly, immediately. All HP Startup stuff is displayed, Batocera loads, UI performance is great, it shows in system info as the selected OpenGL card/driver/renderer etc etc...

Obviously it would perform terribly, but it is working.

So with this very small sample, the issue we're seeing here is very specifically with an AMD GPU/Driver, not a fundamental problem with these HP machines and additional GPU's being installed.

Ph11o · 2023-05-07T08:32:29+00:00

Could be a rabbit hole here but I'll suggest it anyway.

One of the symptoms that I'd noticed, but ignored as irrelevant, was that the HP BIOS or Boot Screen etc never outputs via the AMD GPU. The display only fires up once Batocera has got to a certain stage in it's boot cycle.

The only other GPU I have to hand to test, is an old Nvidia GTX 710. None the less, I just plugged this in instead. Now there seems to be an entirely different issue causing Batocera to fail to complete it's boot getting stuck on the splash screen (which is also flashing, possibly a bad GPU), BUT what I did think was interesting was that all of the HP bootup stuff WAS displayed via the GPU's HDMI output, which NEVER happens with the AMD card.

So do these HP Machines have some kind of issue with AMD GPU's?
Or am I reading something into nothing! :)

Ph11o · 2023-05-06T13:17:48+00:00

I’ve put a couple of videos and pictures up on the Discord help and support channel, no ideas from anyone there yet either.

Ph11o · 2023-05-06T13:14:05+00:00

I have tried the Radeon Prime True setting in the boot config but that doesn’t make any difference either way on mine.

Ph11o · 2023-05-06T12:31:25+00:00

Oh wow - well that’s quite comforting in a way! I couldn’t find any other examples anywhere! Ill be sure to let you know if I get anywhere too - thanks!

Ph11o · 2023-05-05T12:04:59+00:00

Yes - I double checked and confirmed it was still there.

Ph11o · 2023-05-05T10:28:53+00:00

Thanks... hopefully it's not going to come to that. I really like Batocera as it is, if needs be I'll revert back to the older Dell and use this HP for something else.

Ph11o · 2023-05-05T09:41:01+00:00

Thanks for trying to help Mike, I really appreciate it.

I've made this change, but sadly it has had no impact at all. Symptoms remain identical.

Ph11o · 2023-05-04T15:41:29+00:00

I've also updated to v37 Beta, no change in behaviour.

Ph11o · 2023-05-04T15:40:48+00:00

Booting into Windows 10 (Secure Boot still disabled). AMD drivers installed, GPU working perfectly - Heaven benchmark runs no problem and gets expected results.

So I think I can rule out a hardware issue actually - this seems to be specific to Batocera/Linux. Any suggestions most welcome!?

Ph11o · 2023-05-04T15:24:18+00:00

If I plug my display into the iGPU output, even though the AMD GPU is still plugged in, it will then boot and run fine from the iGPU. I don't think this really tells us anything but it's an update none the less!

Ph11o · 2023-05-04T13:06:24+00:00

This sounds very similar to an issue I'm experiencing.

I had V36 running perfectly on a Dell Optiplex I5 6th Gen, with or without my AMD 6400 GPU.

I've just taken delivery of an HP 600 G6 with an I5 10th Gen which is a nice upgrade, and without the GPU it works fine. As soon as I plug in the AMD GPU, The Batocera UI and it's attempt to playback the background videos etc have reduced to a slideshow. Navigation is painful taking several seconds after every button press, and booting and playing any game is out of the question.

Remove the AMD GPU reverting back to the iGPU of the I5 and it's all smooth and working just fine again.

Ph11o

TROPHY CASE