When using top command, whats more important user cpu usage or system cpu usage.

the reason I ask this is because while recording and whatching the recording simultaneously, I get about a 85% user and 15% system.

85% seems like allot but then again system is probably what really matters.

any ideas?

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AMD Athlon 666mghz
asus a7a266 motherboard
1gig ram
160 gig drive
pvr 250
nvidia gforce 4 mx

Well the important number is % idle, and given what you've said yours is zero which isn't good. To find out how bad it is, you need to look at is the load average numbers. These numbers represent the number of processes waiting for CPU time at any given moment. If it's small you may be OK, if not ... I'd also recommend a bit of RTM - "man top" is very educational.

I'm guessing that your playback isn't smooth, that the screen occasionally pixelates, that both the sound and motion glitch periodically, ...

You'd probably have been better off with half as much RAM and using the money saved for a more capable CPU.

I've found that, even while recording a show and watching another (or wathiing live tv) my system idle never drops much below 60%. Everything is smooth and wonderful. This corresponds to a load average of about 0.40.

I've never seen anyone post with complaints that 256 MB of RAM is insufficient. 128 MB might be dicey.

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R5Fxx

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