[mythtv-users] Fast CPU, DMA enabled on HD, Xv enabled, still getting pauses in Live TV

[Joe V]

Cedar,

The only thing that I can think of that would cause
the problem would be the hard drive or the power
supply, since everything else is new.

It is a 350W power supply which might be marginal, so
I'll try putting my 520W PSU from my main system in
and try swapping out the hard drive with another one
from my desktop.  That's about all I can think of.

Unless somebody has some "nice" values that work for
both the frontend and backend.

-- Joe

--- Cedar McKay <cedarmckay at mac.com> wrote:
> It is not the CPU. I have great performance with an
> athlon XP 2000. And 
> I use fairly demanding encoding settings. I also
> have used a single 
> drive with good results, though now I have two. I
> don't think there is 
> anything in your specs that need upgrading, but I
> suspect you have 
> broken hardware or hardware conflicts, or broken
> software. It is not 
> that you need to upgrade your specs.
> 
> good luck
> 
> Cedar
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, August 19, 2003, at 12:44  AM, Joe V
> wrote:
> 
> > Okay, now I'm starting to go nuts.  I've gone
> through
> > the mailing-list archive, and have tried all sorts
> of
> > things.  Changing DMA parameters, recompiling
> MythTV
> > with -march=xthlon-xp, trying "nice" on
> mythbackend,
> > and several other things.  And I'm still getting
> > skips, and with this hardware, I don't see how I
> could
> > be having problems.  All I want to do is run
> > mythbackend and mythfrontend on the same PC
> without
> > stuttering in the video/audio.
> >
> > Perhaps based on my hardware/software setup,
> somebody
> > can make some additional recommendations.
> >
> > Hardware:
> > - Albatron KX400-8X motherboard (brought the ECS
> board
> > back to Fry's, too many problems) - VIA KT400
> chipset
> > - Athlon XP 2400+ CPU (2GHz real speed, 266MHz
> FSB)
> > - 512MB RAM (DDR333) - the BIOS indicates that the
> RAM
> > is running at 133MHz * 2.5 (333MHz)
> > - Matrox G400 Dual-Head (hooked up to a monitor,
> so
> > using Xv)
> > - Western Digital Hard Drive UDMA 100
> > - Soundblaster Live! 5.1 (using in full-duplex
> mode
> > with kernel drivers)
> > - Leadtek Winfast TV 2000 XP (I put in gbuffers=8)
> > - Tulip clone Ethernet card (no onboard NIC)
> >
> > Software:
> > - Red Hat Linux 9
> > - Recompiled the kernel, Linux-2.4.21, included
> the
> > low-latency and preempt patch
> > (/proc/sys/kernel/lowlatency shows 1)
> > - Before compiling any software, I set CFLAGS and
> > CPPFLAGS to -march=athlon-xp
> > - MythTV 0.11
> > - Killed off as many of Red Hat's services as
> possible
> > - Using twm as the window manager.
> >
> > hdparm -Tt shows:
> > /dev/hda:
> >  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.41
> seconds
> > =312.20 MB/sec
> >  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.42
> seconds =
> > 45.07 MB/sec
> >
> > I'm using ext3 filesystems for everything, two
> > partitions, one for root, one for /home. which is
> > where MythTV files are stores (using symlinks from
> > /mnt/store).  The ext3 filesystem is mounted with
> > noatime, and in grub.conf, I put in
> > rootflags=data=writeback.
> >
> > I'm not really stressing things out, I'm recording
> > RTJPEG at 480x480, MP3 quality 7.  Switching to
> MPEG4
> > (as suggested in a post in the mailing-list)
> didn't
> > help any.  I have plenty of CPU time (it never
> goes
> > higher than 50% user, never less than 30% idle. 
> Not
> > using jitter control, not using experimental A/V
> sync,
> > just using the default options.
> >
> > The only thing that I can think might possibly
> causing
> > some problems is that I have only one hard drive
> for
> > everything.  Either that, or I do I need a real
> 2.4GHz
> > machine (i.e. Intel?)
> >
> > Please folks, any suggestions?  Any at all?
> >
> > -- Joe
> >
> > --- Joe V <joevph at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Brian,
> >>
> >> Well, it helps a bit...  I upgraded to bttv
> 0.7.107
> >> (and specigied gbuffers=10), put my hard drive
> and
> >> DVD-ROM on seperate cables (don't know if that
> will
> >> help much), as well as forcing 32-bit operations,
> >> and
> >> the stutters, when they happen don't cause such
> as
> >> big
> >> of a delay.
> >>
> >> I don't recall any stutters last night when I put
> my
> >> DDR400 module (running at DDR266) from my desktop
> in
> >> the machine with those changes (watching for a
> good
> >> 30
> >> minutes), so it could be a memory bandwidth issue
> as
> >> well as a bttv driver issue (and maybe the HD).
> >>
> >> I'll keep experimenting and see what works.
> >>
> >> Are you using your machine as just a frontend, or
> as
> >> both frontend and backend (as I'm doing)?
> >>
> >> -- Joe
> >>
> >> --- Brian <brian at boid.isa-geek.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I'm having no issues running .11 with a k7s5a,
> >> duron
> >>> 1.1, 512mb of pc133, ata100 drives, TV Wonder
> VE,
> >>> generic 2.4.21, bttv 0.7.107 (Could not get
> 0.9.x
> >> to
> >>> run properly)
> >>>
> >>> Hope this can help point you in the right
> >> direction
> >>> :/
> >>>
> >>> Cheerios
> >>>
> >>> :)
> >>>
> >>> On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 23:37:16 -0700 (PDT)
> >>> Joe V <joevph at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> This is completely strange, I don't understand
> >> it.
> >>>>
> >>>> I upgraded to an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (real
> >> speed,
> >>>> 2GHz), with an ECS KS57A Pro motherboard today.
> >>> The
> >>>> motherboard isn't the greatest, but for $89.99
> >> for
> >>> the
> >>>> combo, you can't really beat that.
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyway, I have my profile for Live TV setup for
> >>>> 480x480, RTJPEG, MP3 Audio compression, level 4
> >>>> (middle of the pack or so).  When I run "top",
> I
> >>> see
> >>>> that mythbackend ranges from 20-43% (CPU), and
> >>> that
> >>>> mythfrontend ranges from 3-15%.  I have DMA
> >>> enabled on
> >>>> my hard drive (hdparm shows this), XVideo is
> >>> enabled
> >>>> on the second head of the Matrox G400 I'm
> using.
> >>
> >>> The
> >>>> card being used is a Leadtek Winfast TV XP 2000
> >>> Deluxe
> >>>> (bttv), and I'm using the 2.4.21 kernel,
> 
=== message truncated ===>
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