Intel Stream Assist - How to use it?

J

Jsmith345

Member
Hi,

I've read a lot about Intel Deep Link and i know OBS should be able to handle the Stream Assist Technology.
In my desktop, there's a i5 13600k working and Intel ARC A380. Both iGPU and dGPU are enabled in Bios and visible in Windows.

In OBS, i can only choose one Quick Sync Encoder. I thought 2 of them would be avaible because of 2 gpus. Is this normal?

After that i checked the gpu loads when playing a game and streaming at the same time. All load went into the ARC GPU and the iGPU (Intel UHD 770 Graphics) was Idle all the time with 0% Load.

That caused massive frame drops, because the system is not built for gaming, as i usually play on a second pc. So, this is just for testing, but it definetely failed.

What else needs to be done to use Intel Stream Assist or Deep Link in general? I couldn't find any option in the drivers to enable it manually.

Both OBS and Intel Drivers are up to date.

Heres my log file:
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
According to Intel, Deep Link/Stream Assist should work with OBS & your log confirms the iGPU is enabled. The encoder should be exposed. Wonder if it is OBS or something else? I don't have this issue with my Intel/Nvidia set-up. There's some other people running all Intel systems, maybe they know a fix.

Have you checked to see if there are any BIOS updates for your board that may fix the problem? How about Rebar, do you have that enabled?

There's no output session in that log but consider lowering the refresh rate of your monitor to 120 or better yet 60.
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
rockbottom said:
According to Intel, Deep Link/Stream Assist should work with OBS & your log confirms the iGPU is enabled. The encoder should be exposed. Wonder if it is OBS or something else? I don't have this issue with my Intel/Nvidia set-up. There's some other people running all Intel systems, maybe they know a fix.

Have you checked to see if there are any BIOS updates for your board that may fix the problem? How about Rebar, do you have that enabled?

There's no output session in that log but consider lowering the refresh rate of your monitor to 120 or better yet 60.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the quick and qualifed answer.

According to your answer, my encoder should be exposed: Does it mean, that i should see Quick Sync for iGPU separately?

Intel in combination with nvidia should not be able to use this feature, as it's intel exclusive.

In general it's not that important, to make this work. I can stream pretty well with my ARC A380 only,
but for my personal interest i just wanted to try, if the stream assist works as intended.

Rebar is enabled, its shown as active in the intel arc driver and also in bios. I need to check for a bios update.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
Yes.

Stream Assist is just a marketing term created by Intel, nothing more. I encode with my 3090 & UHD 770 concurrently all the time & they work great together.

Good, it's recommended for optimal performance.
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
At the moment i can agree with that being a marketing gag from intel. I tried Encoding in AV1, HEVC and H.264, all of them didn't work with igpu.

But i just updated my bios to check if there are different results. But the update killed all my sound settings,which is pretty annoying, cuz i have to re-set everything.
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
Jsmith345 said:
At the moment i can agree with that being a marketing gag from intel. I tried Encoding in AV1, HEVC and H.264, all of them didn't work with igpu.

But i just updated my bios to check if there are different results. But the update killed all my sound settings,which is pretty annoying, cuz i have to re-set everything.
Click to expand...
The BIOS Update didn't change anything, still no activity on iGPU.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
Bummer.

I'm still using an older ARC driver, wonder if the new driver is the issue?
Version: 31.0.101.4577 Release date: July 31, 2023

Anyway, I won't be updating that driver directly from Intel anymore. Going forward I'll be using the OEM driver from Asus.
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
rockbottom said:
Bummer.

I'm still using an older ARC driver, wonder if the new driver is the issue?
Version: 31.0.101.4577 Release date: July 31, 2023

Anyway, I won't be updating that driver directly from Intel anymore. Going forward I'll be using the OEM driver from Asus.
Click to expand...
Do you think, that could be the cause? I use the Intel Driver and Support assitant to keep them up2date. Does ASUS have special drivers for it?
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
Maybe, hard to tell for sure without being able to test it. If the encoder still isn't exposed after the rollback, it may be OBS just not working correctly with Intel GPU/iGPU set-ups. I would swap out the A380 with an Nvidia or AMD GPU & test to find out.

I use the driver assistant too.

Depends on the mobo. If it's a Z690 or Z790, there's a good chance they have custom drivers for it. I'm waiting for the new release before I switch over. They have been releasing a new video driver for my board every 5-6 months.
 
Last edited:
J

Jsmith345

Member
rockbottom said:
Maybe, hard to tell for sure without being able to test it. If the encoder still isn't exposed after the rollback, it may be OBS just not working correctly with Intel GPU/iGPU set-ups. I would swap out the A380 with an Nvidia or AMD GPU & test to find out.

I use the driver assistant too.

Depends on the mobo. If it's a Z690 or Z790, there's a good chance they have custom drivers for it. I'm waiting for the new release before I switch over. They have been releasing a new video driver for my board every 5-6 months.
Click to expand...
it wouldn't work with nvidida or amd. I asked Intel on their YouTube Channel and their answer was: It's just working for 11th and 12th gen intel CPU's. But it contradicts itself with their info on the intel website, as it says 11th, 12th gen or newer.

If you use the ASUS driver, can you tell me, how it's called under "programs and features" in the control center? I wanna try, if it works with just intel or just asus drivers. But the asus ones are pretty old for igpu.
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
I checked, if something works in handbrake. The Tools has extra settings for intel deep link, same result. But i had load on the cpu instead. Could be decoding, im not sure. Or because the igpu is part of the cpu?

It has to be a driver issue. Maybe it works, if the igpu is recognized as Iris GPU?
 

Attachments

  • Handbrake.png
    Handbrake.png
    920.3 KB · Views: 95
R

rockbottom

Active Member
So still a no go, even with the GPU swapped out to Nvidia/AMD? Strange.

I don't have the Asus OEM video driver installed yet, but it should show up as Intel VGA or similar.

HandBrake is a non-starter too? What mobo do you have?
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
"So still a no go, even with the GPU swapped out to Nvidia/AMD? Strange."

Oh, i can't test this, because i have no further AMD/nVidia GPU for testing.

I switched the iGPU driver to an older version from the asus site, no changes.
After that i cleaned all the driver files and switched back to the unified intel graphics driver for arc and integrated graphics, also no change.
The Intel Driver Support Assistant says, my iGPU is offline, but in a functional state, which is also quite confusing.

After that, i checked Adobe Premiere Pro 2024, they only have Intel Quick Sync just on the integrated gpu. Support for the dedicated ones should arrive with version 2024, which i am already installing. So the iGPU seems to be working in general.
 

Attachments

  • Not online.png
    Not online.png
    139.1 KB · Views: 59
J

Jsmith345

Member
Here's a list of all important system specs:

- Intel i5 13600k
- Intel ARC A380
- ASUS TUF Z690 WiFi D4
- Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 32 GB (i definetely need an upgrade here)
- 2x 250GB Samsung SDD 980 Pro PCIe 4.0
 
J

Jsmith345

Member
rockbottom said:
In your BIOS Graphics Config settings, did you specify the PCI-e slot as the Primary Display?

View attachment 98598
Click to expand...
Yes, at first i tried PEG (which means primary PCI Express Slot), which caused boot rpoblems. After that i changed it to PCI-E. I dont have the multi monitor option. It's called iGPU Initialization, which is enabled.

But i found out, that it looks like some kind of deep link stuff is working in adobe premiere pro 2024. The hyper encoding seemed to work with HEVC. When encoding media, iGPU load was at 100% and Intel ARC on 20%. It also shares the load when editing on the timeline.

So, something is working, but not everything as intended. Still wondering about obs and handbrake.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
From what Intel told you it sounds like you'll be wondering & waiting until they fix it. Not worth the wait IMO, better performance now & later with an Nvidia GPU & it will work as intended.
 
Last edited:
J

Jsmith345

Member
rockbottom said:
From what Intel told you it sounds like you'll be wondering & waiting until they fix it. Not worth the wait IMO, better performance now & later with an Nvidia GPU & it will work as intended.
Click to expand...
Maybe your right. I mean for my streaming purposes i am already fine with just the arc380 encoding alone. I can run a Youtube 1440p stream in AV1, and parallel a 1080p Twitch Stream, and a third stream (maybe TikTok as a target) in vertical resolution 1080x1920. All in highest Settings. Even with parallel recording i am still under 70% load with the Intel ARC A380. 0% dropped frames.

It's only starting to struggle, if you want to stream in 4k60 and recording at the same time, but this isn't even a thing on YouTube. It's not officially supported as far as i know.

A more potent A770 or NvIdia RTX will of course perform much better, due to increased amount of streaming multiprocessors.

But it absolutely wouldn't make a difference for me. OBS is the only performance demanding app running on my Streaming-PC.

I am this kind of person, who wants to fully use the potential of all components, so it would be interesting to see the impact on performance with shared load on dGPU and iGPU.

Maybe with the next driver...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top