Upgrade Question

[jphhughes]

I extracted this from the thread http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ad.php?t=24575
to give it some visibility. I recently installed an HDHomerun for HDTV recording and am getting high CPU usages. Current CPU is Athlon 64 3500+.

The question I have is. Would it do any good to get a Athalon64 X2 3800+. Would this improve performance. I can pick one of these up for $99. The MSI mother board I have in the system will support an X2. Appreciate any help with this last question. Sorry about the new thred but would appreciate any advise on this question.

[stanger89]

Not significantly probably, a 3500 is more than enough, I've got a Geforce 6800/Athlon64 3400 as my client and it works just fine for HD playback.

I assume the high CPU usage is during playback, what decoders are you using?

[jphhughes]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Not significantly probably, a 3500 is more than enough, I've got a Geforce 6800/Athlon64 3400 as my client and it works just fine for HD playback.

I assume the high CPU usage is during playback, what decoders are you using?

Using nVidia 1.02-223 . set to smart based on some advise her on the forum.

[jphhughes]

These are the approx numbers for task manager.

Recording with SageTV 30-40%.

Playback with SageTV 33-45%

Playback with VLC 22-44%

LiveTV with SageTV 61-71%

So are these numbers in line is this what you get? Thanks

[stanger89]

Playback isn't anything to be concerned about, though if nVidia isn't better than VLC then there's something not working with hardware accelleration.

However, 30-40% is way to high for just recording.

[jphhughes]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Playback isn't anything to be concerned about, though if nVidia isn't better than VLC then there's something not working with hardware accelleration.

However, 30-40% is way to high for just recording.

"hardware accelleration" is an area I am not sure how you check to see if its enabled. I know in the nvidia decoder driver its checked. Are there other areas in Sage or nvidia main driver that needs to be checked.

Also this may seem like an stupid question but just to make sure. I have sagetv configured to use MVP client(not actually using it) so the server option is turned on. I have assumed that since the HDHomerun is a networked device that I would leave the server option running Is that correct?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jphhughes

"hardware accelleration" is an area I am not sure how you check to see if its enabled. I know in the nvidia decoder driver its checked. Are there other areas in Sage or nvidia main driver that needs to be checked.

Nope the decoder is the only place. If you look at the nVidia Decoder properties while playing something it should say "DirectX VA mode N (idct)" (where N is A through D). That means it's using hardware accelleration (DXVA).

If it says Software Mode, then something's not right.

Also this may seem like an stupid question but just to make sure. I have sagetv configured to use MVP client(not actually using it) so the server option is turned on. I have assumed that since the HDHomerun is a networked device that I would leave the server option running Is that correct?

It doesn't matter either way, they're entirely separate things.

[jphhughes]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Nope the decoder is the only place. If you look at the nVidia Decoder properties while playing something it should say "DirectX VA mode N (idct)" (where N is A through D). That means it's using hardware accelleration (DXVA).

If it says Software Mode, then something's not right.



It doesn't matter either way, they're entirely separate things.

Decoder has it set as "DirectX VA and mode is set to "A" so its look like everything is set properly for hardware accelleration.
i have also monitored the processes in task manager and no other one is using resources just SageTV and system idle process, HDHomerun shows minimal use.

[OttoNP]

I checked while recording, CPU usage goes from 0-10%, seems to mostly jump from 0-5. I would compare to other hdhomerun users, but i would guess it is related to coordination between network and hard drives. Check in hardware manager as to what your resources are shared in your system. Recording should take very little cpu usage.