GPU Passthrough Issue: NVIDIA visible in ZimaOS & Jellyfin, but missing in Stremio Container

Insight & Feedback
1

Hi everyone,

I’m having a bit of a headache getting Hardware Transcoding to work in my Stremio container on ZimaOS.

The Setup:

  • OS: ZimaOS

  • GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1650 / 4GB

  • Status: * nvidia-smi works perfectly at the ZimaOS terminal level.

    • My Jellyfin container sees the GPU and handles hardware transcoding without issues.

    • My Stremio container cannot see the GPU no matter what I try.

The Problem: In the Stremio settings/logs, the NVIDIA GPU isn’t detected, so I’m stuck with CPU-only playback which is hitting my resources hard.

What I’ve tried: I’ve checked my Docker Compose/App settings, but I suspect I might be missing specific environment variables or the deploy reservation needed for Stremio’s specific image.

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2

Your GPU passthrough is already working correctly.

You’ve proven that because:

• nvidia-smi works on ZimaOS
• Jellyfin is using hardware transcoding successfully

That means drivers + NVIDIA container runtime are configured properly.

If Stremio cannot see the GPU, the issue is not ZimaOS.

Most Stremio container images do not include NVIDIA libraries or NVENC-enabled ffmpeg. Even if you pass:

NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all

the container still needs to be built with CUDA/NVENC support internally. If the image wasn’t built with that support, the GPU will never be detected.

Also note:
/dev/dri mapping is for Intel iGPU (VAAPI), not NVIDIA, so that setting won’t help here.

Conclusion:

This is an image limitation, not a passthrough problem. Jellyfin works because its image is built with GPU support. Stremio’s typically isn’t.

If GPU transcoding is required, you’d need a custom-built Stremio image with NVENC-enabled ffmpeg — assuming Stremio’s backend actually supports hardware transcoding at all.