Thank you

[cwills75]

Big thanks to the developers of Gemstone and supporting plugins. I'm amazed at the level of support SageTV is still receiving from the community and Gemstone even in its beta stages is a sight to behold. The memory management on the server end seems much better than Diamond. My setup is currently 1 server, 1 HD300, 2 HD200, 1 placeshifter, and a couple PC clients. Over the last couple of years my video collection has grown so large that no matter what configuration I tried with Diamond enabled, if I connected more than two extenders, I'd run out of memory in my java heap (set to 1024), and it would lock up the software. Every few days no matter what I'd get the red triangle of death and would have to reboot, irritating the wife and kids in the process.

With Gemstone enabled, I have EVERYTHING running and am running under 450MB of java heap memory - haven't been able to do that, even with clean installs of Diamond in over a year. Unfortunately, installing Gemstone on the HD300 and HD200s still locks up the system with two or more connected, so I just use the default STVs on them, but the system is stable and usuable.

The new fanart flows are very graphical by nature, which finally spurned me to install a ramdisk and junction the Phoenix fanart cache to them, which makes the UI instantaneous even with background fanart enabled with posters visible.

Great job guys!

[paulie]

YES. The time and effort is very much appreciated. Gemstone look great.

[randyth]

+1

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by randyth

+1

+2

[sandyj]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

+2

Yes thanks Guys did not expect this brilliant

[Brent94Z]

Agreed. I love my Sage setup, use it everyday, and was content with what I had. You guys going above and beyond and continuing to spend time on this is very much appreciated. THANKS!!!

I just switched from Diamond to Gemstone and it looks great... lots to figure out but after just 1 hour I have it about the way I want it Thank you!

[samgreco]

+1

[PhilH]

+2

[emotionnotion]

+500!

I am interested however in the impact of extenders running Gemstone.

I too have experienced several memory overflows when running 3 or more extenders (I have 5 in total) with Diamond. I have often thought that running under Linux may be the solution.

I have the maximum memory for 32-Bit windows in 4Gb with 3Gb usable but never thought to limit 2-3 extenders (the bedroom extenders) to the standard STV.

Why is Gemstone OK with PC clients concurrently but not with extenders concurrently? Should I be building out clients and removing extenders maybe?

It would be great to know how best to configure as we love the Gemstone interface and would want it on all extenders if possible; How do we calculate the upper limit for the number of extenders running Gemstone at the same time?

[jusjoken]

Every PC client receives its own heap, so if it's set at the max 1024 then it has it all.

ALL extenders connected to the same server SHARE the heap... So the max 1024 is shared across all extenders and/or placeshifters connected.

Gemstone will certainly use more of the heap per extender than raw Sage but less than Diamond. The number of extender workable will vary by usage patterns as well as extenders that are disconnected and reconnected seem to not fully give back the heap they used so there is less and less.

Glad you like Gemstone.

k

[emotionnotion]

Thanks for this.

I appreciate this varies by usages but what is the typical amount of heap consumed by each extender?

In short how many extenders (with memory management and memory release on disconnect) should be able to run concurrently with Gemstore?

Also, how much memory difference are we talking about between Gemstone and the standard STV typically?

Not look for exacts, just rules of thumb so I can configure my gemstone and standard STV mix of extenders in a stabile manner.

Knowing this, I wish I had gone the SFF PC route rather than the extender route with Sage; who knows given what HD300s and HD200s are worth, I might still do this

[Dargason]

When I reboot my server and fire up my HD300, the heap is usually about 250MB to 300MB. Turning on the HD200 adds another 100-200MB. This isn't based on careful experimentation however, so your mileage will vary. I don't really have any trouble running 2 and I don't anticipate problems with 3, but beyond that I might have to worry about memory more. There are other folks that routinely run quite a few more, so they would be better judges of what is possible.

A good question might be: "Are there gemstone configuration parameters that significantly impact heap usage." So for example, if I turn off all the backgrounds, do I reduce my 'footprint'? If I limit myself to a handful of different flows, do I reduce my footprint? etc.

We all know that running fewer addons makes a difference too.

(As an aside... will Java ever run properly with Max heap > 1024? Or is it a sagetv issue?)

[mxg]

Gemstone came along and updated Diamond with enough flexibility that I was hoping for. It's a very nice improvement and I am really enjoying my SageTV system even more these days.
Thank you! Great Work.

[sacrament055]

Thanks for all your work especially the work on memory management. I'm now able to reboot weekly instead of daily because unused memory is released back into the system unlike before.


THANKS!