SageTV performance tweaks: What do you do to gain extra SageTV performance?

[PLUCKYHD]

Wow guys SSD are great and all but don't expect miracles in sagetv and especially extenders. I use SSD but for other reasons if sagetv is the Is
The only reason you are buying one especially on a client I would look for another source of the issue. I tend to agree with GK and Fuzzy on this one. Also buying a $800 SSD for sagetv is behind overkill "high end" or not. I use older pc clients with fanart locally like fuzzy sand and never get any slow down of any sort. If you are it is likely another issue and a SSD is likely not the cheapest or best fix. I just felt like this threade was turning into a "SSD" will solve most your issues thread and wanted to say it won't. Most of the benefits of SSD are going to be seen and felt outside the sagetv interface. (quicker boot times, faster app starting etc etc).

Plucky

[davephan]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Wow guys SSD are great and all but don't expect miracles in sagetv and especially extenders. I use SSD but for other reasons if sagetv is the Is
The only reason you are buying one especially on a client I would look for another source of the issue. I tend to agree with GK and Fuzzy on this one. Also buying a $800 SSD for sagetv is behind overkill "high end" or not. I use older pc clients with fanart locally like fuzzy sand and never get any slow down of any sort. If you are it is likely another issue and a SSD is likely not the cheapest or best fix. I just felt like this threade was turning into a "SSD" will solve most your issues thread and wanted to say it won't. Most of the benefits of SSD are going to be seen and felt outside the sagetv interface. (quicker boot times, faster app starting etc etc).

Plucky

If most of the benefits for the SSD are outside of SageTV and the OS/Programs hard drive image is applied to the SSD, then the response time within SageTV should be the same with a physical or SSD. If the only change was a physical hard drive to a SSD with the same image, not a scratch rebuild, then I think you would have to associate the SageTV extender response time improvement to the SSD.

A couple of decades ago, I experimented with a Chinese word processor, which was a small, but very demanding program back in those days. The word processor ran extremely slow on an old IBM XT computer. The keyboard to screen respone time took several seconds per keystroke. The same program ran fast on a 386 computer, which during those times was a fast computer and much faster than the older XT computer. I then tried creating a ramdrive on the older XT computer. I installed the Chinese word processor on the ramdrive and it ran just as fast with the XT computer ramdrive as the 386 computer with the hard drive. The speed difference was about 20 times faster on the old XT computer. I don't know if SageTV could be run on a ramdrive on a newer computer, or if it would even help the performance.

My point is if the SageTV performance is dependent on the performance of the underlying operating system and an SSD boosts the operating system performance, then the SageTV performance should be expected to improve.

I think if you controlled all the variables you could and limit the A/B test where the only thing changed was the operating system / programs hard drive to an SSD would answer that question. If a significant SageTV performance (and extender performance) could be proven to be associated wth the SSD then I think it would be worth moving to an SSD, especially if the SSD cost could be reduced to about $200 with a 120 gig SSD.

Dave

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by davephan

If most of the benefits for the SSD are outside of SageTV and the OS/Programs hard drive image is applied to the SSD, then the response time within SageTV should be the same with a physical or SSD. If the only change was a physical hard drive to a SSD with the same image, not a scratch rebuild, then I think you would have to associate the SageTV extender response time improvement to the SSD.

A couple of decades ago, I experimented with a Chinese word processor, which was a small, but very demanding program back in those days. The word processor ran extremely slow on an old IBM XT computer. The keyboard to screen respone time took several seconds per keystroke. The same program ran fast on a 386 computer, which during those times was a fast computer and much faster than the older XT computer. I then tried creating a ramdrive on the older XT computer. I installed the Chinese word processor on the ramdrive and it ran just as fast with the XT computer ramdrive as the 386 computer with the hard drive. The speed difference was about 20 times faster on the old XT computer. I don't know if SageTV could be run on a ramdrive on a newer computer, or if it would even help the performance.

My point is if the SageTV performance is dependent on the performance of the underlying operating system and an SSD boosts the operating system performance, then the SageTV performance should be expected to improve.

I think if you controlled all the variables you could and limit the A/B test where the only thing changed was the operating system / programs hard drive to an SSD would answer that question. If a significant SageTV performance (and extender performance) could be proven to be associated wth the SSD then I think it would be worth moving to an SSD, especially if the SSD cost could be reduced to about $200 with a 120 gig SSD.

Dave

I agree with most of your statement my point was that cheaper alternatives to sagetv performance are avialable and a SSD won't fix all issues and most issues can be fixed cheaper and good. I never get the spinning circle on any of my clients and if the comptuer is setup correctly (ie fanart local etc) most won't either. It doesn't take much power to runsagetv or the UI within sagetv.

and I don't buy it helps extender performance extender slow down is due to limit of cache size of extender and rendering performance of processor on extender so I don't see a SSD helping an extender one bit. (and have tested this in my own household.)

[stanger89]

FWIW, I'm a big, big fan of SSDs, I've been putting them in just about everything since I got my first one for my desktop, they're just great overall for anything "user interface" related. And when you can get Intel SSDs for ~$100 (X25-v) what's not to like.

That said, when I rebuilt my SageTV server recently, I put it on an X25-v and really can't say there was a significnant difference.

[Fuzzy]

I think you'll get just as much sagetv improvement by making sure you have enough RAM, and disabling virtual memory. Sage really doesn't do much drive access at all when running, so if the drive is affecting it, then you are likely swapping out portions of the JVM heap unnecessarily.

[crarbo1]

Fuzzy,
So if I read your post right, I need to disable the virtual memory/paging file on my computer for best performance. Is this good to do for all of my PC's or just my SageTV server? All of my PC's have 8GB of RAM. Right now, I have windows managing this for all PC's.

Thanks,
Chuck

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I think you'll get just as much sagetv improvement by making sure you have enough RAM, and disabling virtual memory. Sage really doesn't do much drive access at all when running, so if the drive is affecting it, then you are likely swapping out portions of the JVM heap unnecessarily.

[razrsharpe]

QUOTE=davephan;478184]
If a significant SageTV performance (and extender performance) could be proven to be associated wth the SSD then I think it would be worth moving to an SSD, especially if the SSD cost could be reduced to about $200 with a 120 gig SSD.

Dave[/QUOTE]

$230 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-551-_-Product

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by crarbo1

Fuzzy,
So if I read your post right, I need to disable the virtual memory/paging file on my computer for best performance. Is this good to do for all of my PC's or just my SageTV server? All of my PC's have 8GB of RAM. Right now, I have windows managing this for all PC's.

Thanks,
Chuck

No, I certainly wouldn't disable vikrtual memory on a general use pc, because most progvrams don't handle out of memory errors gracefully. But, on a age server, where the memory footprint is relatively constant (and even limited by the jvm) there is little risk involved.

[crarbo1]

Fuzzy,
Thanks for the clarification!
Chuck

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

No, I certainly wouldn't disable vikrtual memory on a general use pc, because most progvrams don't handle out of memory errors gracefully. But, on a age server, where the memory footprint is relatively constant (and even limited by the jvm) there is little risk involved.

[EnterNoEscape]

I'd like to voice my impressions from simply switching from a WD VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS to a very low end 32GB OCZ SSD I got very cheap on Black Friday. I cloned the raptor to the SSD and saw noticeable improvements in navigation performance on my HD300 extender. My server has 4GB of ram and I'm reasonably sure from random observation I wasn't thrashing the page file. It wasn't dramatic, but I don't see the spinning wheel anymore and my girlfriend has commented on things being faster.

Also worth noting is that I have seen steady improvement going from a WD Black 500GB drive to the raptor as well. My only real theory is the improvement in random access to wiz.bin is what I've been witnessing.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

... my point was that cheaper alternatives to sagetv performance are avialable and a SSD won't fix all issues and most issues can be fixed cheaper and good.

Please do share these cheaper alternatives methods with the rest of us, that's what this thread was suppose to be about, not fighting over SSD performances.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Please do share these cheaper alternatives methods with the rest of us, that's what this thread was suppose to be about, not fighting over SSD performances.

More RAM, and disabled swap.

[mkanet]

Hi Stanger, yeah.. its hard to explain to people how much performance benefit you really gain if you haven't experienced SSD's first hand; especially on elaborate servers serving multiple systems; not just sageTV.

People can theorize all they want until their heart is content, but bottom line is... there's a huge performance advantage across the board. The results speak for themselves. Simply forcing windows to have a zero page file and adding tons of ram simply doesnt help under many circumstances; some of them which I explained already.

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, I'm a big, big fan of SSDs, I've been putting them in just about everything since I got my first one for my desktop, they're just great overall for anything "user interface" related. And when you can get Intel SSDs for ~$100 (X25-v) what's not to like.

That said, when I rebuilt my SageTV server recently, I put it on an X25-v and really can't say there was a significnant difference.

[mkanet]

Sorry Fuzzy, but disabling Windows swap is just bad advice.

http://lifehacker.com/5426041/unders...dnt-disable-it

You might have missed my previous post. Believe me, I've tried it on multiple workstations; and, seen the consequences first hand; which these issues dont reveal themselves immediately or too obviously. If it was that great of a performance enhancement that didnt cause problems we would see commercial/production Windows servers tweaked to do the same thing. Well, at least that's from a stability stand-point. There are some system related events (and some apps) (at least in Windows OS) which expect there to be a swap file.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

More RAM, and disabled swap.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

More RAM, and disabled swap.

But you can't add more RAM to a 32 bit system and you can't use FireWire with a 64 bit system. I would guess that everyone with a 32 bit server that is less than 4 years old is already maxed out on the RAM.

[QueOnda]

disable antivirus and other programs running (near system clock bottom corner) and as you mentioned the increase ot the java heap size.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Hi Stanger, yeah.. its hard to explain to people how much performance benefit you really gain if you haven't experienced SSD's first hand; especially on elaborate servers serving multiple systems; not just sageTV.

Oh, I know SSD benefits first hand, I think you missed part of my post. But I've got a 160GB Intel X25-m in my desktop, a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 in my laptop, and a 40GB Intel X25-v in my SageTV server. The SSDs are awesome in my desktops, Firefox even with 100 tabs saved loads instantly on my desktop, and I had a WD Raptor in it before. I like SSDs so much I put an X25-v in my parents computer when I rebuilt it. I will never again build/buy a machine for myself without an SSD for the OS/apps.

But all that said, going from an Athlon XP 1800+ w/ crappy old HDD to an Athlon BE 2400+ with X25-v made no appreciable difference in UI responsiveness on any of my extenders, HD200s or HD300s.

Originally Posted by mkanet

Sorry Fuzzy, but disabling Windows swap is just bad advice.

http://lifehacker.com/5426041/unders...dnt-disable-it

You might have missed my previous post. Believe me, I've tried it on multiple workstations; and, seen the consequences first hand; which these issues dont reveal themselves immediately or too obviously. If it was that great of a performance enhancement that didnt cause problems we would see commercial/production Windows servers tweaked to do the same thing. Well, at least that's from a stability stand-point. There are some system related events (and some apps) (at least in Windows OS) which expect there to be a swap file.

Yes it's a very bad idea on a machine that can be used for anything and doesn't have a static/predictable memory footprint. But on a stable SageTV server with plenty of ram and a JVM that's limited to <~1.5GB, there's very little risk.

Now if you're running a ton of plugins you might not want to do it as the memory use could be less predictable.

And FWIW, you can still run out of memory with a pagefile, I've done it, you just have more headroom.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mkanet

People can theorize all they want until their heart is content, but bottom line is... there's a huge performance advantage across the board. .

Don't assume people are theorizing as I said I use and have SSD's and as stranger said there is no noticable improvement. The original post and follow up comments I got the feeling people were thinking a SSD (and overpriced "premium" one at that) would make a difference with extenders and that isn't true in 3 servers I have tested it on. So don't assume i was theorizing I leave that to scientist.

[mkanet]

Actually I didnt miss that part of your post. Yes, it doesnt make much of a difference on a basic sageTV + extender setup. However, it made a significant difference (in some cases huge difference) on several sageTV addons that require OS interactions as well as when flipping through a list of movies with respective full-res fanart.

Here are a few circumstances that I can think right off the top of my head (mentioned earlier):

-Mounting/dismounting virtual blu-ray discs (ISO format) on the fly (Virtual Clone drive dependency)
-Playing radio stations on the extender (which has to initialize/start my hardware based loopback TV Tuner) for Slimplayer to work. It looks like Squeezebox server in general also improved marginally.
-Changing channels on my R5000 boxes and streaming (this has dramatically improved). I'm not sure how, but it went from taking sometimes taking over 2 seconds down to less than a second.
-Jetty responsiveness when displaying a SageTV Webserver Guide with hundreds of channel logos. It just pops up on fast workstations on my lan as if it was in cache.

Edit: Just to be clear, I didnt buy my SSD only for SageTV. I have several backend server/network services which improved as well; one of them being overall II7 performance and my ASP.NET app running on it (which requires frequent read/writes/tempfiles). When someone uses my webpage, I would notice these weird pauses on my entire system; which would affect sageTV as well. After the SSD, these pauses went away.. and smooth as silk.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Oh, I know SSD benefits first hand, I think you missed part of my post...

But all that said, going from an Athlon XP 1800+ w/ crappy old HDD to an Athlon BE 2400+ with X25-v made no appreciable difference in UI responsiveness on any of my extenders, HD200s or HD300s.

[Fuzzy]

I think the problem was labeling the thread SageTV performance tweaks, and then listing the SSD as the single best improvement - when the SSD, as mentioned many times, doesn't affect SageTV performance at all.