Hardware Acceleration

Engine supports CPU encoding, Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV), and NVIDIA NVENC on compatible hosts.

Before Enabling a Device

Check that Linux detects the device and Engine can access it.
Install a driver compatible with the GPU and running kernel.
Check support for the codec, resolution, pixel format, bit depth, and filters.
Keep a CPU or pass-through profile for troubleshooting.

Intel QSV

Select the GPU index shown by Engine, not the display connector number. Start with decoding, scaling, and encoding on one device. Unsupported filters or mixed devices can reduce performance.

NVIDIA NVENC

Check that nvidia-smi reports no driver errors. GPU count, codec support, and encoding capacity depend on the hardware and driver. An NVIDIA A16 counts as four GPU devices; a licensed device limit does not guarantee channels per GPU.

NVIDIA Driver Installation

Engine 1.0+

Use Engine’s driver installer on Linux x86_64. Run as root and schedule maintenance: streams and GPU workloads will be interrupted.

List supported versions, then install an automatically selected version:

cd /opt/xaccel-engine
bin/web --nvidia-driver-supported
bin/web --nvidia-driver-install

A listed version may not support every GPU or kernel. Engine checks build tools and matching kernel headers, and asks before installing missing packages.

Use one of these commands for other options:

bin/web --nvidia-driver-install=auto
bin/web --nvidia-driver-install=595.58.03
bin/web --nvidia-driver-install --yes
bin/web --nvidia-driver-install --nvidia-driver-download-workers=10

Option	Use
No version or `=auto`	Select a supported driver automatically.
`=<version>`	Select a specific version. A space-separated version is not accepted.
`--yes`	Accept package and driver installation prompts. Safety checks still apply.
`--nvidia-driver-download-workers`	Set download concurrency from 1 to 64; default 10.

Changed in Engine 1.0+

Confirmation and Recovery

Engine tests the driver before changing the active installation. After confirmation, it stops affected services and installs the driver.

If unmanaged GPU processes remain, Engine lists them and asks for separate Y/N approval to force-kill them, even with --yes. N or an empty answer cancels installation.

Engine attempts to restart stopped services after success, failure, or cancellation. Check reported restart errors. Once driver installation begins, a failure stops the command; it does not try another version automatically.

Changed in Engine 1.0+

Logs and Downloads

Read /var/log/xaccel-engine-nvidia-driver.log as root. Save it before retrying: each attempt replaces this log.

Downloads remain in /root/nvidia-driver/ for reuse. New downloads are checksum-verified. A corrupt archive gets one fresh download and retry per version. Missing headers, compiler errors, Secure Boot, and disk-space problems must be fixed before retrying.

Changed in Engine 1.0+

If nouveau remains busy, reboot once and retry. When no installation is running, unused downloaded packages can be deleted without removing the active driver.

Validation

Test your production resolution, frame rate, codec, filters, and output count. Monitor GPU use, memory, temperature, dropped frames, and restarts. A short successful encode does not establish server capacity.