[mythtv-users] 87-100% cpu on running Xine?

Francesco Peeters francesco at fampeeters.com
Fri May 5 01:18:19 EDT 2006


Francesco Peeters schreef:
> Brian Wood schreef:
> 
>>On Apr 30, 2006, at 7:59 AM, Robin Hill wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>On Sun Apr 30, 2006 at 03:12:58PM +0200, Francesco Peeters wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Both the HDD and DVD share a single IDE connection (the EPIA V  
>>>>only has
>>>>a single IDE connector). Could this sharing of the IDE bus  
>>>>combined with
>>>>the kernel caching *and* the xine buffering be responsible for the  
>>>>100%
>>>>CPU use due to overloading on the IDE bus?
>>>>
>>>
>>>It's possible this is a problem - you could try copying from the  
>>>DVD to
>>>the hard drive and see what speed you get.  Have you also checked that
>>>the DVD drive is using DMA and not PIO for transfers?  Some
>>>distributions only enabled DMA for hard drives.
>>
>>
>>Also make sure you are using an 80-conductor UDMA-capable cable to  
>>connect your drives.
>>
>>"hdparm -v /dev/hd<n>" will show you your drive's status.
> 
> 
> Ok, answering all at once:
> 
> Yes, I do have an 80 conductor UDMA IDE cable, DMA is enabled:
> 
> ~$ hdparm -v /dev/dvd
> 
> /dev/dvd:
>   HDIO_GET_MULTCOUNT failed: Invalid argument
>   IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
>   unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
>   using_dma    =  1 (on)
>   keepsettings =  0 (off)
>   readonly     =  0 (off)
>   readahead    = 256 (on)
>   HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument
> 
> It is now copying to HDD, so I'll let ya'll know when it is done what 
> the results of that endeavour are!
> 
> I still do not have audio, so that may be a factor as well...
> 
> I downloaded the source for alsa-drivers from the alsa website, and 
> compiled without problems, after reboot running alsa-mixer works fine, 
> and F2 shows that it is using the newly compiled drivers  :-(
> 
> Ah well, back to tinkering...
> 

Well, something went belly up on the ISO ripping, I suspect due to a lot 
of 30 min recording files filling up the drivespace and not getting 
removed in time for the ripping. (I accidentally left the live-tv 
running all night, so I now have a drive full of 'interesting' tv such 
as homeshopping ("Wow! That's amazing, Mike!"), teledating ("Hi, I am 
***** and I'm looking for a handsome..." Why always handsome? Why never 
'intelligent and chubby' ?) and sex-ads (I'll refrain from quotes 
here!)) :-o

However I went to raw devices for DVD, and cpu went down considerably. 
The overall cpu now rarely tops 60%, where xine is the main contributor, 
using 70-90% usually.

There still seem to be a few stutters in screens with a lot of movement 
or change, and I haven't tried LotR yet, (think massive battle scenes) 
but those seem to be rare now.

Of course it isn't perfect yet, and I'll need to do some more tests, 
when I have time...

Also the audio issue still exists, so that too would take some more time 
to fix.

Or maybe I'll just call it quits, be content with the fact I achieved 
what I wanted to: understand the problem and get it working more or less 
reliably, and go to a new, faster board and finally complete this 
project and put it in the AV cabinet in the living room!  ;-)

-- 
Francesco Peeters
      Via Epia V8000 - 256MB RAM - 160GB Maxtor - PVR-250 - NVidia MX440


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