Acer Revo Aspire is slow as a MP client (1 Viewer)

elsmandino

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Hi there,

I am currently running an Acer Revo Aspire R3610 (4GB RAM) as a Mediaportal client in my bedroom via Wireless (N150 - I am using an external USB adapter on the Revo).

My problem is that things can be really sluggish at times - it can take up to perhaps a second to scroll down to the next channel in the EPG and going from live TV to the EPG/main menu can take much longer.

The time has now come for me to buy some new hardware to go in another room and I am now wondering whether I should buy another Revo or not.

Ultimately, I need to know why things are so slow and where the bottleneck is:

I have plenty of RAM so the problem is not there. I know that the Revo has a 5,400rpm HDD, but this should make no difference.

The only thing I can think of is that the CPU is not fast enough, the wireless connnection is too slow or even that client only installations are always slow regardless of the hardware.

It is difficult to make a comparison as my server is running both a server and client installation of Mediaportal.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 

mylle

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Its definately your CPU. The skin rendering is done by the CPU. I dont know what skin you are using but some of them are more CPU intensive than others. Had a REVO myself and sold it because it was not capable of running MP to my satisfaction.
 

Jay_UK

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  • October 6, 2009
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    Hi there,

    Do some remote monitoring with perfmon - Check the CPU, memory, disk queue length.

    I found an SSD made it a lot more snappy on my ION2 client, but still a little sluggish.

    I also found I could not get smooth TV with the onboard wireless (N @ 150Mbps) - so switched to ethernet over power.

    J.
     

    elsmandino

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    March 3, 2011
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    Thanks for your replies.

    I shall have a go at running Client from my laptop (i3-330M) and see how much of a difference it makes. I had heard that Mediaportal needed a bit more power than the Atom processor can provide but I thought that that was just a bit of a myth.

    In terms of the skin I am using - I am only using the default one, so anything prettier than that really is going to make the Revo pretty unsuable.

    Interesting point about the Wireless - I have a rock-solid connection not far from the router and am pretty sure that this is causing no problems (play back, is absolutely flawless once running. It is only changing channel/looking at the EPG that is so slow.

    I am really glad that you guys warned me about this as I was just about to buy an all-in-one computer for my Kitchen that also has an Atom.

    Is a real shame, as I do think the Revo is pretty good. Assuming that it is just not powerful enough to run Mediaportal Client properly (and I sell it), what can you recommend to replace it? What low powered software can properly run the frontend - e.g. one of the AMD E-350 chips?

    Thanks
     

    Lehmden

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    AW: Acer Revo Aspire is slow as a MP client

    Hi.
    Atom/ION is capable of running MePo Client without issues, as long as you use MePo 1.2 Beta. 1.2Beta is a lot faster than 1.1.x. A Cousin of mine has a Zotac Ion Box (Atom 330 / Ion1) on 1920x1080 TV with Backdrop Skin running really smooth.

    But I fear a SingleSeat installation would be a bit too much for this tiny CPU. Haven't tested this out myself, just a feeling... In this case it's better to use a dedicated TV Server.

    And, forget WLan if it comes to HDTV... SDTV is really much enough for 300MBit Wlan under optimal circumstances. HDTV is simply impossible due to lots of stutter from WLan...

    If you want to replace your Revo don't fiddle around with other Nettop- solutions. They are all at a similar level of CPU Power. If you want a powerful but low energy consuming solution go get yourself an Intel I3 2100T. This will run as exactly the same power level than AMD E-350 but has 4 times the CPU Power. It costs about 50-100 € more, but it's well earned every extra cent...
     

    elsmandino

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    Thanks very much for that - I might have a go at upgrading to 1.2.0 and see how I get on with it.

    Not to go off topic too much but I have avoided 1.2.0 because it has not been officially released (only a Beta at the moment). However, alot of people seem to be using it - do you think it is stable for everyone to be using it now?

    Other than being faster, what other benefits would there be of using 1.2.0?

    One other thing, how different is it to set up 1.2.0 compared to 1.1.3 - it took me ages to get 1.1.3 up and running and am slightly worried that I won't be able to set up MP again.

    Jay_UK - interesting point about the SSD drive. As I am only going to be using the Revo for Mediaportal, I reckon I could get away with a cheap 30GB SDD Drive. In what way do you think it livens things up? Booting up would be snappier but would channel changes, EPG flicking be affected? The reason I ask is that if everything is being streamed from the server to the client, I am not sure how much the HDD is used once everything is up and running.

    Thanks again for all your help.
     

    Lehmden

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    AW: Re: Acer Revo Aspire is slow as a MP client

    ...However, alot of people seem to be using it - do you think it is stable for everyone to be using it now?
    It's Beta, that must be clear. But most of previous "Stable" Versions of MePo are not that stable as 1.2 Beta is indeed. I see no problems using 1.2 Beta as an average user. Some (a little) plugins are not (jet?) compatible with 1.2 Beta. As with 1.2 there is a compatibility check build in, so not a single Plugin running with 1.1.x works with 1.2.x and vice versa. All later versions of MePo will have this check also, so no way to get rid of that. I'm using 1.2 Beta since a week or so before official release (code freeze SVN Version) and did never encounter any issues I did not have with 1.1. From first day it works a lot better than 1.1.3 on my system...

    Other than being faster, what other benefits would there be of using 1.2.0?
    New, beautiful and Full HD skins like Backdrop, Avalon,... are only working with 1.2 Beta (and up). All mayor plugins are updated to 1.2 compatible versions. On 1.1 you need to use older versions missing sometimes really great new features. Example: MPTVSeries is able to use local Artwork for series now. This was requested since ages. But it's only possible with new version 3.0.4, witch runs only under 1.2. The TV Server gets lots of fixes to make it work more stable... The GUI and Skin Engine gets a lot of overwork so both is running more smooth and stable...
    And there's a lot of eye- candy things like CoverFlow View... You have to see to believe how good this looks..

    The other way round, if you heavily use a concrete plugin what is not updated jet, you are loose. There is no way to get this working excerpt a kind dev creates an new version for you.

    One other thing, how different is it to set up 1.2.0 compared to 1.1.3 - it took me ages to get 1.1.3 up and running and am slightly worried that I won't be able to set up MP again.
    There is no difference between 1.1 and 1.2 as it comes to set up. Some small cosmetical changes in Config but nothing to worry about. If you get 1.1 to work you will get 1.2 to work also. Do it slow, one step after another, and with a little help from the community I don't see why you should not be able to get it work properly.
     

    jonm

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    Interesting thread. I too have one of these Acers in the kitchen and it's unusable it's so slow. The wireless was hopeless from the outset so I ditched that and went for a wired connection. Also the pre-installed AV software was making the machine very very slow - I suggest you remove that if you haven't already (I can't remember what it was, but it was rubbish!)

    I'm intrigued by the suggestion to install 1.2.0 Beta, which I've not tried yet. Is the statement about it being faster definitely true? :)
     

    Lehmden

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    AW: Acer Revo Aspire is slow as a MP client

    Hi.
    Do a clean install of Win7 on your Revo. Than install only absolute necessary things like Mainboard and GPU Drivers and a MKV Splitter. After that install MePo 1.2 and see yourself how fast it works.
    With 1.1.3 you scroll through a list it goes like tack, tack, tack. With 1.2 it goes like wuuusch....
     

    jonm

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    OK, I'll try that when I get some time. It had Win7 pre-installed and doesn't have a CD drive so not sure how easy it will be to re-install.
     

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