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PostPosted: Fri May 11, 2007 2:17 pm 
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Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:50 pm
Posts: 1013
Location: Los Angeles
I believe you can auto-load your settings by adding a line to your ~/.fluxbox/apps file.
Code:
[startup] {/usr/bin/nvidia-settings --load-config-only}

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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 12:40 am 
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Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:43 pm
Posts: 748
Location: Sydney, Australia
1) Running the frontend with -v playback? Girkers provided the way. Exit your current frontend (Esc, Esc, down, Yes Exit Now), open an xterm with Alt-X, and type mythfrontend -v playback in the term. No need to do this, though, because the .xsession-errors output you have provided is good enough.

2) I now understand that you are trying without XvMC. This will be hard. I have success on some recordings by changing the "Preferred MPEG2 Decoder" to libmpeg2, but this depends on the recording bitrate, your processor, et c. Other recordings (from channels which use a higher bitrate) need me to turn on XvMC.

3) The prebuffering pauses are usually caused by the CPU being too busy decompressing MPEG data to read the next bunch of data from the disk. Which is precisely why you (probably) need XvMC.

4) The BadMatch error is probably the cause of the stutter. Others are having this error, but I have not found a fix/workaround yet:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=86691
https://mail.dvs1.informatik.tu-darmsta ... ed.en.html
http://lists.smeyers.be/mythtv-dev/7633.html
http://cvs.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/3033


I can only recommend that you change the OSD timeout to a smaller value so that it isn't up in the screen as long, and thus has less time to cause stuttering. Future versions of MythTV will be slightly better in this regard, but it may always be a slight problem.

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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 10:47 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
Nigel,
all this time I have been struggling to get my machine stutter free whilst not using XvMC, led on by users who have claimed success, just by adding the magical 'UseEvents' to their xorg file.

Maybe I have not been paying enough attention what hardware configuration they are actually using. This is a bit of a setback, now I don't know whether to just spend out on faster, more expensive hardware of go back to using XvMC and put up with the audio stutter. To me the stutter is just a bad, if not worse with XvMC on, so I really don't see and point in using it other than it does free up the CPU to do other tasks. I could try reducing the OSD on-screen time to see if the stutter/prebuffer pause is acceptable.

I am going to track down some of those who have been successful in using OpenGL vsnc, without XvMC and try to find out what hardware they are using.

Quote:
3) The prebuffering pauses are usually caused by the CPU being too busy decompressing MPEG data to read the next bunch of data from the disk. Which is precisely why you (probably) need XvMC.


.. if the CPU is busy doing other stuff then do you think a dual-core would help here?


Going back to my existing setup ..

At the moment I am using 'standard' as the decoder, I have tried 'libmpeg' in the past but not found it to be any better, I will try it again to see if it helps.

I managed to print out my .nvidia-settings-rc ..

# /home/mythtv/.nvidia-settings-rc
#
# Configuration file for nvidia-settings - the NVIDIA X Server Settings utility
# Generated on Thu May 10 21:57:05 2007
#

# ConfigProperties:

RcFileLocale = C
ToolTips = Yes
DisplayStatusBar = Yes
SliderTextEntries = Yes
IncludeDisplayNameInConfigFile = No
ShowQuitDialog = Yes

# Attributes:

0/DigitalVibrance[TV-0]=0
0/ImageSharpening[TV-0]=0
0/SyncToVBlank=0
0/AllowFlipping=0
0/LogAniso=0
0/FSAA=0
0/TextureSharpen=0
0/ForceGenericCpu=0
0/CursorShadow=0
0/CursorShadowXOffset=4
0/CursorShadowYOffset=2
0/CursorShadowAlpha=64
0/CursorShadowRed=0
0/CursorShadowGreen=0
0/CursorShadowBlue=0
0/FSAAAppControlled=1
0/LogAnisoAppControlled=1
0/RedBrightness=0.000000
0/GreenBrightness=0.000000
0/BlueBrightness=0.000000
0/RedContrast=0.000000
0/GreenContrast=0.000000
0/BlueContrast=0.000000
0/RedGamma=1.000000
0/GreenGamma=1.000000
0/BlueGamma=1.000000
0/TVOverScan[TV-0]=21
0/TVFlickerFilter[TV-0]=127
0/TVHue[TV-0]=0
0/TVSaturation[TV-0]=197
0/OpenGLImageSettings=1
0/XVideoTextureSyncToVBlank=1
0/XVideoBlitterSyncToVBlank=0
0/XVideoSyncToDisplay=256

There are definitely some differences here to that which tjc posted, however I think it does tie up with what I am setting via the nvidia-settings GUI. Here is what I set in the GUI ..

" these are my current settings, from nvidia-settings, run from the KM desktop ..

Under Xserver xvideo settings ..
===================
Sync to vbalnk - enabled
Video blitter adapter, sync to vblank - not enabled

Under OpenGL Settings tab ..
=================
Sync to vblank - not enabled
Allow flipping - not enabled
Image settings - quality "

I am going to try changing some settings in the GUI and make sure the .nvidia-settings-rc file gets updated and that the settings are sticky.

Presumably, if the .nvidia-settings-rc is correct then these settings will automatically get loaded every time I run up MythTV, or do I also need to 'push' then somehow?

Girkers,
thanks for the tip on running the frontend with –vplayback, I am going to give it a go. Nigel, I know you say my xsession-errors give enough info, by out of curiosity I want to try -vplayback

Kevin


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 11:06 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
with mythfrontend -v playback I see a ton of messages such as these ..

"NVP: Video is x frames behind audio (too slow) dropping frame to catch up"

(where is is in the range of 3 to 7 frames)

Here is an extract ..

2007-05-12 10:10:45.784 NVP: Waiting for prebuffer.. 1 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
2007-05-12 10:10:45.867 NVP: Waiting for prebuffer.. 2 UUUUuUULULAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
2007-05-12 10:10:46.487 NVP: prebuffering pause
2007-05-12 10:10:46.487 NVP: Waiting for prebuffer.. 0 ALAALAUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
2007-05-12 10:10:46.666 NVP: Video is 3.40628 frames behind audio (too slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2007-05-12 10:10:46.676 NVP: Video is 4.02326 frames behind audio (too slow), dropping frame to catch up.
2007-05-12 10:10:46.688 NVP: Video is 4.41108 frames behind audio (too slow), dropping frame to catch up.

Some other interesting messages (looks like it is using OpenGL vsync) ..

2007-05-12 10:10:45.673 Using OpenGLVideoSync
2007-05-12 10:10:45.674 Set video sync frame interval to 16683
2007-05-12 10:10:45.674 Video sync method can't support double framerate (refresh rate too low for bob deint)
2007-05-12 10:10:45.674 Set video sync frame interval to 16683
2007-05-12 10:10:45.675 Using deinterlace method onefield
2007-05-12 10:10:45.691 Using audio as timebase
2007-05-12 10:10:45.691 Video timing method: SGI OpenGL

thanks,

Kevin


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 11:29 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
I can get a dual core CPU for just over a hundred bucks Canadian ..

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual Core AM2

This is actually a little less than the single core 3500+ I bought for this Myth box a few months ago :(

If I know it would fix these problems I would go ahead and get the new CPU, is it worth the risk?

Kevin


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 12:21 pm 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
Try upgrading to R5F1 first. There were a number of odd HDTV performance related bugs fixed between R5E50 and R5F1.


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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 12:43 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
Ok, thanks tjc,
actually I downloaded R5F1 last night, I was planning on trying it out. Since my puny 80G drive isn't really up to the job I will go and buy something like a 320 or a 500G SATA drive and try R5F1 on that. Then will be able to swap back to the old (R5E50) drive if I need to pull files off of it,

Kevin


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PostPosted: Sat May 12, 2007 7:22 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:26 pm
Posts: 804
Location: Minneapolis, MN
tjc wrote:
Try upgrading to R5F1 first. There were a number of odd HDTV performance related bugs fixed between R5E50 and R5F1.

Thanks for the tip tjc!!

I just did a successful upgrade to R5F1 and I do notice a smoother playback of HDTV files with the OSD onscreen - even with XvMC turned on! It is quite an improvement. I should also mention that I updated my nvidia drivers to version 1.0-9755 so I could use the "UseEvents" "True" option in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun May 13, 2007 7:14 am 
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Joined: Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:43 pm
Posts: 748
Location: Sydney, Australia
bbear wrote:
.. if the CPU is busy doing other stuff then do you think a dual-core would help here?

A little, but if you are just playing back recordings, the CPU isn't doing anything else. About 92% of my CPU is decoding the MPEG2 data, and about 4-5% is moving data around.

Quote:
I have tried 'libmpeg' in the past but not found it to be any better
In my case, it seems to be about 3% faster. Just enough to prevent a slight stutter every 4 seconds.

Quote:
Presumably, if the .nvidia-settings-rc is correct then these settings will automatically get loaded every time I run up MythTV

No, I think those settings are loaded each time X-Windows starts up.

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| "Things you own end up owning you" - Tyler, Fight Club


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 9:00 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
Well, I finally found time to install R5F1 (clean install, not upgrade) and to install it on my new SATA drive.

The good news is that R5F1 recognised my SATA drive and installed with no problems. However when setting up the video sources it is only able to see one of my two zap2it lineups. (I have one set up for SD channels (analogue) and another lineup for HD (digital) channels).

This used to work for R5E50 so I guess it is an issue with R5F1. I am probably have to disappear for a few days while I try to sort this out. When I have R5F1 running I will report back here to let you know if R5F1 has improved the stutter.

Kevin


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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 9:57 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
Fixed the R5F1 zap2it listings problem.

I just let the auto install complete, exited MythTV, stopped the backend, then went into mythtv-setup and went to the video sources setup screen. Now I am able to see both of zap2it sources, and was able to assign the HD lineup to my Airstar card.

Strange how the video sources screen during the regular auto install only showed one source as being available. Ah well, at least it is ok now. Next I need to setup my wireless connection (R5F1 doesn't appear to support my particular flavor of wireless device), if that goes as planned I should be back on this OSD stutter thing tomorrow.

BTW, although I don't have audio working yet it does appear that for the HD channels that the stutter with OSD up have gone :)

Kevin


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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2007 10:25 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:18 pm
Posts: 1422
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
I have read somewhere (I can't remember) that using the audio as the timebase can cause problems as well. As you posted earlier that is a setting that is set for you, but I believe that this setting is turned off by default.

Just a random thought.

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PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 10:57 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
I have managed to the wireless drivers installed on my R5F1 box. Having the kernel headers and the links in place was a godsend. The wireless driver install was much less painful than with R5E50.

I have some problems with no sound output, but with a few attempts using alsaconf eventually I got sound to work.

I have NOT updated the nvidia driver yet, it is still running with the one which comes with the R5F1 install HOWEVER I can report that I have no noticeable audio or video stutter when the OSD is up. :D

This is with all the default playback settings, etc and the default xorg.conf that came with the install. I have not run nvidia-settings, it is still at the default set by the R5F1 install.

Playback settings are as follows:

Deinterlace, linear blend
Preferred MPEG encoder: standard
Enable OpenGL vertical sync for timing - NOT enabled
Enable realtime priority threads - enabled
Use video as timebase - NOT enabled
Extra audio buffering - enabled

A top shows that which watching live HD TV and with the OSD up I see the CPU at 85%, that is down from the 99% I used to get with R5E50.

I would like to report the Nvidia driver version and nvidia-settings but I cannot find the nvidia-settings-rc file, it is not in the usual place.

As soon as I can find it, and get a copy of the settings file I will proceed to install the 9755 Nvidia driver,

Kevin


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 6:24 am 
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Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am
Posts: 9551
Location: Arlington, MA
Check the X log. This is almost always the best place to find out what your real X server configuration is.
Code:
grep -i driver /var/log/Xorg.0.log

You're most likely running 1.0.8776


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PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 10:14 am 
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Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:00 pm
Posts: 158
Thanks tjc, I will check the log tonight. Hopefully I can get a pointer to the settings file also as I want to make a note of the current OpenGL vsync, blitter, etc settings.

BTW I should make it clear that when I did a clean install of R5F1 it was to a brand new 320GB SATA drive. I thought I should mention that in case it has any bearing on why my CPU% has dropped and the stutter has gone.

So here is a description of my current setup:

KnoppMyth release: R5F1 (auto-install)
Motherboard: ASUS M2NPV-VM (mATX GE6150-NF430)
CPU: AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3500+
Video: Nvidia 6150 (on the motherboard) Nvidia driver: 9755
Capture card1: Hauppauge PVR-500 (with Philips tuners)
Capture card2: Airstar HD-5000-PCI
RAM: 1G (2x512MB OCZ PC2-5400 Gold)
Hard drive: Seagate Barracude 7200.10 320GB SATA2 NCQ drive. Jumpered to SATA2 (3Gb/s)
DVD: Samsung SH-S182 IDE DVDRW with Lightscribe
Network: Dlink DWL-G122 Rev C1 USB dongle (wireless-G), Ralink RT73 driver


I have not had a chance to do much testing yet, but R5F1 is off to a very good start. After months of heartache I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,

Kevin


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