[mythtv-users] Low Power Frontends (in anticipation of nvidia's new API)

[David Brodbeck]

Jan Ceuleers wrote:
> Do you know whether running mythfilldatabase with a high nice value 
> alleviates at least that side of the problem? In other words: if the 
> application that invokes the database has low priority, do the database 
> threads somehow also get executed with low priority?

No.  They run with the priority of the mysql process.

BUT...

...you need to figure out where the actual problem is before you try to
solve it.  Is it that mysql is consuming a lot of CPU?  Is it that
mythfilldatabase is consuming a lot of CPU?  Or is it because all of the
database writes saturate the I/O bandwidth?  Each of these problems
would require a different solution.  A good start would be watching
"top" during a mythfilldatabase run.  Pay attention to two things --
which process is using more CPU, and what percentage of the time the CPU
is in the "wait" state.  A high wait percentage points to an I/O
bottleneck.  That can sometimes be alleviated with careful tuning of
MySQL's various memory buffers.