[mythtv-users] CPU load when watching TV

[Brian Wood]

On Saturday 12 December 2009 05:56:25 pm Rod Smith wrote:
> On Saturday 12 December 2009 06:54:09 pm lee wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 04:23:52PM -0700, Brian Wood wrote:
> > > > > More details on your system, and the actual numbers, would 
help. So
> >
> > Debian testing, amd64, Phenom 965, GeForce GT 240
> >
> > Xosview shows from 20% to 40% on the four processor cores when
> > watching live tv with mythtvfrontend. When not watching (and not much
> > else is going on), it shows between 0% and 12%.
> 
> I've never used xosview before, but I just gave it a try. On my dual-core
>  AMD X2 5400+ with ATI HD3200 video, playing SD content, I got loads of 
10%
>  on one CPU and 10-40% on the other. Playing HD content, loads jumped
>  around between 10% and 60% on both CPUs. Since top averages over 
time and
>  measures by process, it's a bit easier to read what's chewing up CPU 
time
>  by using top (although as Brian says, top also hides spikes). On this same
>  system, I get 10% CPU load for X for both SD and HD content, and
>  mythfrontend clocks in at 20-30% for SD and 50-60% for HD content. I
>  believe the top figures are per-CPU, so on a dual-core system, you could
>  have up to 200% CPU consumption, and the 60-70% total I'm seeing from 
top
>  really reflects only 30-35% of my system's potential. (I used my main
>  desktop system, not my main MythTV frontend system, to get these 
figures;
>  my desktop system just happens to be handy as I write this message. I
>  haven't spent much time optimizing this system for MythTV use.)

Top shows an average of all CPU cores by default, hitting "1" causes it to 
list each core separately. Hitting "1" again puts it back into average mode 
(it toggles ).