[mythtv-users] 2005 laptop stutters after upgrade from 0.27 to 0.28

[faginbagin]

On 6/9/2017 7:10 AM, Marius Schrecker wrote:
> 
> On Friday, June 9, 2017 08:47 CEST, faginbagin <mythtv at hbuus.com> wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> Hmm, I, the OP, also have an ION system that works fine on both 0.27 and
>> 0.28, an Acer Aspire Revo 3610. There have been hiccups in the past, the
>> last one was due to a nvidia driver bug that didn't allow vdpau unless
>> you were root. But that was fixed by either rolling back to the previous
>> version or upgrading to the next major nvidia driver release.
>>
>> ...
>> ...
> I have been following this thread with interest, as I have also been 
> suffering from stuttering problems since upgrading to .28. Up to now, I 
> saw little point in interrupting with "Me too!"
> 
> However, I am very interested in faginbagin's remark about vdpau. I was 
> not aware of this but have certainly been under the impression that the 
> problem was due to interactions between mythtv and the nvidia driver.
> 
> I'm running on AMD opteron dual core (around 3GHz if I remember) and 
> Nvidia GT610. A combination that was giving perfectly smooth playback up 
> to my Ubuntu and 0.27-0.28 upgrade towards the end of last year.
> 
> The system did briefly seem to be stable and stutter free again around 
> year-change 2016-2017 running nvidia v. 340.x (can't remember the minor 
> version from here). Some time after that, my system started to stutter 
> again, I think after apt upgrade pushed a minor nvidia version update - 
> I should have been more awake at the time.
> 
> As the GT610 was a relatively popular choice at the time, it would be 
> really good if we could together work out and publicise a recommended 
> way to set up recent versions of MythTV with nvidia drivers covering 
> that range of devices - in my case and for other ex-mythbuntu users it 
> would also be good if we could bring Ubuntu into the mix when describing 
> how to do this.
> 
> Please let me know if there's anything I can do in my now quite limited 
> time, to provide logs or other bug-tracking info.
> 
> Best Regards
> 
> Marius

Hi Marius,

In case it helps, I've got a mix of nvidia GPUs:

The GT430 and GT520 have 1GB ram. They use the "VDPAU High Quality" 
playback profile and are driving 1920x1080p TVs. The system with the 
GT520 is both a frontend and a master backend.

The 8400GS has 256MB and the ION has 512MB. These two low end gpus use 
the "VDPAU Slim" profile and are driving 1280x720p TVs. The ION is 
paired with an Intel Atom 330 CPU, which is the slowest CPU paired with 
an nvidia GPU. The system with the 8400GS is both a frontend and a slave 
backend and is paired with an Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz CPU. I think it's 
a safe bet that your GT610 is more capable than my 8400GS.

All are using the nvidia-340 package on mythtv 0.27, mythbuntu 12.04. 
They all had nvidia-304 installed originally, but I upgraded them to 
nvidia-340 when there was a buggy point release of nvidia-304. I think 
that was Summer 2016.

On mythtv 0.28, mythbuntu 16.04, the low end gpus are using the 
nvidia-340 package. Looking back at the dpkg logs, that's what was 
automatically installed. But the systems with the GT430 and GT520 have 
gone through three different nvidia packages. When first installed, they 
had nvidia-361. In the Nov-Dec 2016 time range, they were upgraded to 
nvidia-367. In the March-May 2017 time range, they were upgraded to 
nvidia-375. I don't recall doing these upgrades, I believe they were 
done automatically. I assume the low end GPUs are using nvidia-340 
because the newer packages don't support them.

And they all seem to be working fine. It's just the 2005 laptop that's 
keeping me from upgrading to mythtv 0.28, mythbuntu 16.04.

For what it's worth, I try to apply the latest updates to each computer 
about once a month. But before I do, I always make a full backup. 
They're all set up to multiboot current and new versions, or old and 
current versions, so it's easy to make a full offline backup using tar. 
And I've had to restore those backups on more than one occasion. 
Whenever I upgrade to a new O/S and mythtv version, I never do a 
dist-upgrade, I always do a clean install in the old partition. It takes 
more time to get everything configured, but I think I've had fewer 
problems in the long run. And it's relatively easy to go back and forth 
between versions until I'm satisfied the new distro/myth version work 
the way I want. I've been doing it this way for nearly 10 years.