[mythtv-users] Dropped frames with GT 240

Wed Aug 4 02:25:01 UTC 2010

I'm running Myth 0.23 on fc12, and I use the HDMI-out on a GT 240 for both
audio and video.  I followed these instructions:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=HOW-TO_set_up_HDMI_audio_on_nVidia_GeForce_G210,_GT220,_or_GT240

VDPAU High Quality profile is enabled, and that seems to be working OK.  CPU
utilization is low.
Until recently, all I was using to capture was my HDHR.  HD looked pretty
good.  5.1 surround sound was good too.  No stuttering that I could see.

Then I picked up an HD-PVR and got that all set up and working pretty well.
 Or so I thought.  I started to notice that the playback was stuttering
slightly, enough to be distracting.   So, I turned on verbose logging
(mythfrontend -v audio,playback), and discovered that playback of recorded
content from BOTH devices (not just the HD-PVR, but, surprisingly, the HDHR
too) is causing dropped frames:

2010-07-30 19:18:42.078 NVP(3): Video is 3.04058 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.178 NVP(3): Video is 3.02236 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.278 NVP(3): Video is 3.01912 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.378 NVP(3): Video is 3.00731 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.498 NVP(3): Video is 3.11125 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.578 NVP(3): Video is 3.0564 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.698 NVP(3): Video is 3.12905 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.778 NVP(3): Video is 3.07217 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.878 NVP(3): Video is 3.00563 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2010-07-30 19:18:42.998 NVP(3): Video is 3.08638 frames behind audio (too
slow), dropping frame to catch up.

So, in the span of 1 second, my system dropped something like 30 frames.
These messages continue for as long as I playback a recording.

My dropped frame issue seems to be different from the well-documented
prebuffering pause, as seen here:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Troubleshooting:Prebuffering_pause

At least I think it is.  I only see a handful of prebuffering pause messages
in the log as compared to the dropped frames.  grep | wc shows 70 vs.
34,000, respectively, in the last 2 days.

If I go into mythfrontend setup and set the default audio device to NULL, I
get no sound, of course, but the dropped frame messages stop.  To me, this
means that the cause of the issue is the audio, not the video.  I think.
 FWIW, if I switch from VDPAU to SLIM or some other playback profile, I
still get the dropped frames.   Makes me think this issue is not
VDPAU-related.

I have no /etc/asound.conf (I've tried a variety of things here, but ended
up going with nothing in the end), and my /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf has
this:

options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=0 probe_mask=0xffff,0xfff2

Here is my driver version, which I installed from the rpmfusion repos:

rpm -qa | grep nvidia
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-195.36.31-2.fc12.i686
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-195.36.31-2.fc12.i686
kmod-nvidia-2.6.32.14-127.fc12.i686-195.36.24-1.fc12.3.i686
kmod-nvidia-195.36.31-1.fc12.1.i686
nvidia-xconfig-1.0-2.fc12.i686
kmod-nvidia-2.6.32.16-141.fc12.i686-195.36.31-1.fc12.1.i686
nvidia-settings-1.0-4.fc12.i686

This I got from atrpms:

rpm -qa | grep alsa
alsa-kmdl-2.6.32.14-127.fc12-1.0.23-84.fc12.i686
alsa-lib-devel-1.0.23-1.fc12.i686
alsa-kmdl-2.6.32.16-141.fc12-1.0.23-84.fc12.i686
alsa-driver-1.0.23-84.fc12.i686
report-plugin-localsave-0.14-1.fc12.i686
alsa-utils-1.0.22-1.fc12.i686
report-config-localsave-0.14-1.fc12.i686
alsa-lib-1.0.23-1.fc12.i686

This also from atrpms:

rpm -qa | grep mythtv
mythtv-0.23-235.fc12.i686

Sound card devices:

aplay -L

null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
hdmi:CARD=NVidia
HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI
HDMI Audio Output

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I disabled my onboard 8200 sound and video in the BIOS so that only the GT
240 is seen.

lspci

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory
Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] LPC Bridge (rev
a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SMBus (rev a1)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory
Controller (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Co-Processor
(rev a2)
00:01.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory
Controller (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB
1.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB
2.0 Controller (rev a1)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB
1.1 Controller (rev a1)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB
2.0 Controller (rev a1)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] IDE (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev
a1)
00:09.0 RAID bus controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0ad8 (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP77 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express
Bridge (rev a1)
00:12.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express
Bridge (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM
Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Miscellaneous Control
01:07.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16
(CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0ca3 (rev a2)
02:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation Device 0be4 (rev a1)
03:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. Device 3403

Temps on the GPU are like 64 under load, as displayed by "nvidia-settings -q
GPUCoreTemp|grep Attribute"  So, I am not overheating.

I can post more of my mythfrontend log as appropriate.

Can anyone give me some pointers on how to address this?  Is this truly an
audio issue, as I suspect?  Will I forever be stuck with these dropped
frames?

Thanks,
Larry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20100803/651f8bea/attachment-0001.htm>