When the installer asks you if you want to install i586 or i686 what is the difference exactly? Has the software been optimized for certain processors?

I've got a Duron processor, but I installed the i586 just because I thought that would be a safe bet for my first shot at this.

If I were to install i686 would I notice any performance boost?

Jon

The difference is how the software is compiled and optimized. It can make a significant difference in performance to use the "new" or "enhanced" instructions, or just to use different sequences based on pipeline behaviour.

the duron should be able to use the i686, the only thing that many people use that can't is the epia boards.

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Xsecrets

Does it effect just MythTV or the whole Linux OS?

just mythtv. most of the rest of the os is based on debian which is compiled for i386.

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Xsecrets

This is interesting...

I decided to do a complete reinstall of R5A16 this morning; figured I had messed up the original files enough, and now I have a better idea of how things work.

I installed the i686 version of MythTV, the Nvidia 7174 driver script, and the stuck with the original ivtv driver from the R5A16 CD (with a few tweaks for my card).

I configured Myth and now my CPU usage is less than 40% when watching Live TV!! This is with an 800Mhz CPU at a pretty high bitrate, BTW.

Whoa! I'm not exactly sure where this performance boost is coming from but I'm not complaining...

Just to test it some more, I enabled XvMC in the Playback options and CPU usage dropped another 10% but the playback didn't look as good. It didn't lockup when doing ff/rw but it didn't look right and I have decided to turn XvMC off for now.

Also, I think the ivtv 0.3 driver gives me a little better picture (there is a static line at the top of the picture with ivtv 0.2) and I may try installing that again but I'm a little worried now that it's working so well.

Now it's time to get some Wifi going in this puppy...

Jon

I must agree I had the 3.x drivers installed for a short while, cause I thought I had an issue with the 2.x drivers (turns out I was overlooking something) and it gave me a better picture quality, but I had serious errors with playback very strange errors, though this has been a while back, and development marches on, but 3.x is still the development branch, so big problems like that can occur.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

FYI, went back to ivtv 0.3.3 driver yesterday and the quality is much better than 0.2 (at least with my card) - no more static around the fringe of the image.

The hard part is finding a version that will work with your card.

Jon

I fyou have no more installation questions, start a new thread...

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!