[mythtv-users] High-Definition Playback performance data

[Pete]

Pete wrote:

> Jarod Wilson wrote:
>
>> I've lost track of the thread where I said something about trying a 
>> GeForce 6200 in place of a GeForce 4 MX with an Athlon XP 1800 
>> system, to see if that would give any significant playback 
>> performance boost with High Definition recordings. Well, the answer 
>> is no, not really, but a bit of a cpu upgrade sure helped. Here's a 
>> quick summary of my findings today (from memory though, wish I'd 
>> actually written it all down). In all cases, I'm using libmpeg2 for 
>> decode.
>>
>> Athlon XP 1800 w/AGP GF4MX, 6629 nvidia driver:
>>
>> -Able to play back 720p, cpu around 85% used.
>> -Able to play back 1080i without a deint filter, cpu around 95% used.
>> -Stutter every second or two on 1080i with deint filter on, cpu 
>> completely pegged.
>>
>> Athlon XP 1800 w/AGP GF4MX, 7174 nvidia driver:
>> -Able to play back 720p, cpu around 70% used.
>> -Able to play back 1080i without deint, cpu around 85% used.
>> -Stutter every few seconds on 1080i w/deint filter on, cpu pegged.
>>
>> Athlon XP 1800 w/AGP GeForce 6200, 7174 nvidia driver:
>> -Maybe slightly better, but no significant difference from the GF4MX.
>>
>> Athlon XP 2600 w/AGP GF4MX, 7174 nvidia driver:
>> -Able to play back 720p, can't remember cpu usage.
>> -Able to play back 1080i w/no deint, can't remember cpu usage.
>> -Able to play back 1080i w/kernel deint filter enabled, cpu usage 
>> fluctuates between 80 and 95%.
>>
>> I've decided to stick with the 2600 and GF4MX, and my secondary Myth 
>> box can now handle 1080i programming without a problem. I'll get the 
>> missing cpu utilization numbers one of these days...
>>
>>  
>>
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>>
> I'd like to know what I can do get that kind of performance. I've got 
> an Athlon XP 3000 (512 MB RAM) and an FX 5200 (AGP) running myth .17 
> and FC3 (everything is from atrpms) where HD is close, but not quite. 
> After a lot of hacking to get the channels to work, it finally comes 
> up, but I'm getting lousy performance, with a lot of audio buffer 
> underrun's (using spdif through an on board nvidia audio chip) and 
> video stutter's. I'm using a pcHDTV 3000 with the 2.0 driver running 
> in dvb mode. I turned off deint, and turned on libmpeg, but I think 
> the only diff was the deint setting. I'm about to restart X with the 
> NvAGP setting set to 1 to see if that helps, but I'm guessing no. XvMC 
> doesn't work at all with the driver from the nvidia site. Would it 
> help to download the driver from atrpms (currently using 7167)? I 
> assumed they were probably about the same. Also, does myth use xv by 
> default or did I miss a setting somewhere? Standard def playback is 
> about 30-40% of the cpu, which I think is pretty high too, but am less 
> sure about that. I know I'm missing something, but I can't find it in 
> the archives (and I've gone back to about September). Anyone know what 
> I'm doing wrong? Note that right now, this is a dual front and backend 
> box, but it's not doing anything else at this point, so it shouldn't 
> be an issue.
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>
Ok, 7174 seems to be a little bit better. I can't believe that I missed 
that it was availble after reading this thread even. But I was just 
watching some doctor show on ABC which had it running at about 90%. 
Seemed like I had a winner, but when I changed the channel, behavior 
swtiched back to 100% (not even real HD, just the news upconverted), 
stutters, and of course the audio buffer underrun. I am noticing that 
I'm not getting anywhere near the glxgears performance I probably should 
be. The numbers are

5175: 1035 FPS
6340: 1268 FPS
6345: 1269 FPS

And so on. Anyway, this is the last time I'll respond to my own post, 
promise. I'm still missing something.