[mythtv-users] mythfrontend HDTV performance on recent AMD chipsets (was Re: X2 5000 enough to play HD?)

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Wed Aug 27 19:10:04 UTC 2008


On 08/27/2008 02:54 PM, kanetse wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>   
>> The big overlap on the two motherboards (and the big disconnect from the
>> previous) is the AMD chipset (versus the NVIDIA nForce on the previous
>> mobo).  The AMD chipset is only /very/ recently supported (sometime
>> after 2.6.21), so I'm starting to think that the chipset support is
>> still too immature for the kind of work a Myth HDTV frontend needs to
>> do.  I'm considering getting another mobo with an NVIDIA chipset.  (The
>> really annoying thing is each time I do, I have to get another AM2+
>> processor and some RAM so I don't waste the other mobo--which seem to
>> work more than well enough for a "normal" non-Myth computer.  Oh well,
>> the Biostar has become my new Myth dev box and was >>4x faster at
>> compiling Myth than my old Athlon XP 1700+ dev box. :)
>>
>> I'll let you know once I figure it out.
>>
>> In all the above configurations, I'm using Linux kernel 2.6.26.2 and
>> ALSA 1.0.17.
>>
>> Moral of the story, don't mess with a working Myth system... :)
>>
>> What chipset are you using?
> I'm using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, which has, from what I read, is a
> recent AMD 780G chipset.  Based on my observation that my CPU
> utilization is nowhere near 100% on even one core of the CPU, that's
> what lead me to believe the poor playback is not CPU-related.

I agree completely.  My mobos have (Biostar A740G M2+) AMD 740G/SB700 
and (Asus M3A) AMD 770/SB600.  The kernel support for these chipsets 
(including yours) is very new, so I'm--once again--thinking the chipset 
support is the issue, as it's too immature for this application.

On my system, I can do 1x playback (no timestretch) generally OK, but 
once I've transferred sufficient data (as previously mentioned, I 
definitely have issues by the time the frontend has received 50GiB via 
the LAN), even 1x playback gets prebuffering pauses and I have to reboot.

Your experience--and having similar chipset--is providing a bit more 
motivation for me to go out and get another mobo...

Do others see issues with recent AMD chipsets?  Have you found 
workarounds (kernel options)?

Mike


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