Hi,
I've been running XMBCBuntu on an old Dell GX260 small desktop. This is an old system, about 10 years old, with ~2GHz processor, 1gig ram and an 80gig ATA hard drive partitioned into swap, / (ext4) and /home (ext4). It's hooked up via VGA to my Hitachi flatscreen TV. I'm really enjoying learning about this distribution and getting some use out of a dusty old PC.
I've mostly been using it to watch downloaded TV that I have placed on the local hard drive (primarily mp4s downloaded via the BBC iplayer, but also some avi files from other sources).
My problem is that while the first 20 minutes of video playback is great, video playback after that point suddenly gets noticeably choppy. Audio continues fine, but the video becomes jumpy and out of synch. It's watchable but annoying. Pausing the video for a while and then restarting (in the hope that giving it a little breather will allow it to catch up) does nothing to alleviate the problem. I suspect that the problem is due to the swap drive getting full. Therefore, some questions:
- Will increasing the size of my swap partition fix this problem?
- Shouldn't swap be continuously flushed and re-used? It seems that even if I stop the video ("x" on keyboard), all subsequent video is sluggish from that point on (even the RSS scroller becomes jittery) until reboot / logout. That seems odd, and makes me wonder whether I have misdiagnosed the problem.
-Swap is currently 1 gig. How big does swap need to be to achieve 30 minutes of smooth playback? What if I want to watch a 50 minute documentary or 100 minute film? It's easy to suppose that if my current 1gig ram + 1 gig swap gives me 20 minutes, I need to add 1 gig swap for every additional 10 minutes of playback. However it probably isn't that simple.
- This is a completely standard, vanilla XBMCbuntu Eden install. The only thing odd about it is that I had to replace kern.log and syslog files with folders of the same name to stop them filling up the entire hard drive (see https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...Y3dJAsKRtM - these files would quickly would grow to 50+ gig if I let them!) Could that be related to the slowdown issue somehow?
- Would it help to have the swap and media stored on different drives? Would a USB flash drive (via USB 2.0) be quick enough to serve as swap? Should I leave swap + OS + photos on the hard drive and move video files to USB? The USB devices I have available aren't particularly large.
- What if I could get my hands on a second hard drive (it would have to be another ATA)? Would it help if I put the swap and/ or OS on there?
- Could it be something other than swap? Bear in mind that playback is perfect for the first ~20 minutes.
- Is ext4 the best file system for this kind of application? Would another fs give better performance?
- Is there anything I can uninstall that might free up memory / improve performace? Can I flush unused drivers or linux modules?
- Does running the http remote control consume much in the way of resources? Would disabling that help?
- Is the new Frodo version of XBMCbuntu likely to have any improvements that might help me? Does anyone know when it will be out of beta?
- Is there an alternative distro (XBMCbuntu Lite?) for older hardware that I ought to be using?
- I did try installing a graphics card rather than relying on the on-board chip (picked up a cheap old SFF matrox AGP card from ebay) but ran into driver troubles so I've abandoned that plan.
I realise that a simple answer to my question would be "buy more memory/ better hardware" (that seems to be the standard response as soon as I mention what hardware I'm using) but I'm on a tight budget just now so I can't really justify any more spending on this little hobby machine. Besides, I feel like it shouldn't be necessary- the machine is clearly capable of fullscreen video playback, it just needs to keep it going for a little longer. Spending my way out of trouble feels like cheating.
I've been running XMBCBuntu on an old Dell GX260 small desktop. This is an old system, about 10 years old, with ~2GHz processor, 1gig ram and an 80gig ATA hard drive partitioned into swap, / (ext4) and /home (ext4). It's hooked up via VGA to my Hitachi flatscreen TV. I'm really enjoying learning about this distribution and getting some use out of a dusty old PC.
I've mostly been using it to watch downloaded TV that I have placed on the local hard drive (primarily mp4s downloaded via the BBC iplayer, but also some avi files from other sources).
My problem is that while the first 20 minutes of video playback is great, video playback after that point suddenly gets noticeably choppy. Audio continues fine, but the video becomes jumpy and out of synch. It's watchable but annoying. Pausing the video for a while and then restarting (in the hope that giving it a little breather will allow it to catch up) does nothing to alleviate the problem. I suspect that the problem is due to the swap drive getting full. Therefore, some questions:
- Will increasing the size of my swap partition fix this problem?
- Shouldn't swap be continuously flushed and re-used? It seems that even if I stop the video ("x" on keyboard), all subsequent video is sluggish from that point on (even the RSS scroller becomes jittery) until reboot / logout. That seems odd, and makes me wonder whether I have misdiagnosed the problem.
-Swap is currently 1 gig. How big does swap need to be to achieve 30 minutes of smooth playback? What if I want to watch a 50 minute documentary or 100 minute film? It's easy to suppose that if my current 1gig ram + 1 gig swap gives me 20 minutes, I need to add 1 gig swap for every additional 10 minutes of playback. However it probably isn't that simple.
- This is a completely standard, vanilla XBMCbuntu Eden install. The only thing odd about it is that I had to replace kern.log and syslog files with folders of the same name to stop them filling up the entire hard drive (see https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...Y3dJAsKRtM - these files would quickly would grow to 50+ gig if I let them!) Could that be related to the slowdown issue somehow?
- Would it help to have the swap and media stored on different drives? Would a USB flash drive (via USB 2.0) be quick enough to serve as swap? Should I leave swap + OS + photos on the hard drive and move video files to USB? The USB devices I have available aren't particularly large.
- What if I could get my hands on a second hard drive (it would have to be another ATA)? Would it help if I put the swap and/ or OS on there?
- Could it be something other than swap? Bear in mind that playback is perfect for the first ~20 minutes.
- Is ext4 the best file system for this kind of application? Would another fs give better performance?
- Is there anything I can uninstall that might free up memory / improve performace? Can I flush unused drivers or linux modules?
- Does running the http remote control consume much in the way of resources? Would disabling that help?
- Is the new Frodo version of XBMCbuntu likely to have any improvements that might help me? Does anyone know when it will be out of beta?
- Is there an alternative distro (XBMCbuntu Lite?) for older hardware that I ought to be using?
- I did try installing a graphics card rather than relying on the on-board chip (picked up a cheap old SFF matrox AGP card from ebay) but ran into driver troubles so I've abandoned that plan.
I realise that a simple answer to my question would be "buy more memory/ better hardware" (that seems to be the standard response as soon as I mention what hardware I'm using) but I'm on a tight budget just now so I can't really justify any more spending on this little hobby machine. Besides, I feel like it shouldn't be necessary- the machine is clearly capable of fullscreen video playback, it just needs to keep it going for a little longer. Spending my way out of trouble feels like cheating.