Using too much resources? (1 Viewer)

[yoclick]

Hi all,

First time on this forum! Great to see such fast support!
After a long time of trying to understand everything, i finally have MediaPortal up and running on my laptop (specs below). It is currently being viewed on my external 22" 1680x1050 monitor. The hope being that i can view TV on the external and continue to use my laptop on the laptop screen.

Well to start with if i even opened Firefox the whole system used to crash. So i downloaded some new drivers for my onboard graphics card (which appears to be running with 128mb memory which i cant seem to change in the BIOS). Now the TV plays beautifully pretty much no matter what! Even pausing for long periods and then playing is fine. But the laptop is fairly slow now. Not too slow but MediaPortal has had a large impact on performance. Currently sqlserver.exe is using 750mb RAM and 787mb Virtual Memory! MediaPortal is using 150mb RAM + 220mb Virtual Memory + 50% CPU!

When i was using GB-PVR it was nowhere near this hungry for power and i barely felt the difference when it was on.

Is there a problem or from my specs, does this look like the right power needed?

Any help would be great.

Thanks


MediaPortal Version: 1.0 RC3
Windows Version: Windows XP Media Center [2002]
CPU Type: Core2Duo T5600 1.83Ghz
HDD: 120GB
Memory: 2GB
Video Card: Nvidia Geforce Go 7300
1. TV Card: DVB-T Stick
1. TV Card Type: USB

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Currently sqlserver.exe is using 750mb RAM

TV-Server/Configuration/SQL-Server - MediaPortal Manual Documentation

shows you how to set memory use.

Most laptops will not even play MP, you got to remember MP works with directx, so it has far more in common with games than other applications, hence a higher specification pc required.

How is good old gbpvr these days, have not tried it in a long while.

 

[yoclick]

GB-PVR is much less of a resource hog! I tried the link and its made a tiny difference, but nothing drastic.

Are you sure MediaPortal needs 50%+ of the Core2Duo 1.8ghz CPU? I am considering moving back to GB-PVR even though its got nowhere the versitility of MediaPortal.

One other thing im completely bemused about is, if im right, MediaPortal is compatible with any TV Card w/ BDA-drivers, just like Windows Media Center. Well my TV card is a cheap one from ebay, and i have no idea if the drivers are BDA or not. However when i tried MediaCenter, it wouldnt find the usb stick, so i assumed they werent so i started my hunt for an alternative.

But MediaPortal has detected it and its working perfectly?

Any input would be great!

 

[CHli]

Are you sure MediaPortal needs 50%+ of the Core2Duo 1.8ghz CPU?

Depending on your hardware some functions that would be supported by your graphic card needs to be emulated using your CPU, this will of course load your CPU a lot !

At the moment I'm running MP on my Q6600 with a 8800 GTX, watching TV, and my CPU usage is <5%. This is my gaming PC.

 

[yoclick]

Hmm any ideas on any settings I could play with in the Nvidia control panel?

TBH I'm not very familiar with what actually happens with an onboard graphics card. I thought there was a dedicated GPU on the motherboard, which took care of everything apart from memory which is taken from the RAM. Didnt know some elements will be emulated by the CPU.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Onboard gpu's suffer from one major problem, the BIOS auto setting for memory use, change this to the maximum allowed (usually 256mb), this can resolve high cpu use, CHli has similar cpu use to myself with TV (3-5%).

 

[yoclick]

Right well i've just adjusted most of the settings on the Nvidia control panel to application controlled and also reduced Quality to a performance setting. Its now using 20%!!!

I can use my laptop perfectly and the picture of the TV is more than enough for me! In fact its running a little smoother!!

Really pleased,
Thanks guys for your inputs!

EDIT:
Paranoid - unfortunatly my BIOS won't allow me to change the memory size of the graphics card. Its fixed at 128mb (wont even allow me to select it).

 

[Lotsofjazz]

That is not normal.

Just checked my system with windows task manager:
Running Mediaportal using to watch full screen digital cable (SD)TV, Mediaportal uses 84Mb, 10% CPU; TV service 30Mb 5% CPU, Sqlservice now uses 205Mb (which is a lot, but I have 4Gb DDR2 in my HTPC) and 0% CPU.

I must say I use PowerDVD8 codecs and hardware accelleration, so all video processing is done on the graphics card.

What also might have a positive influence is that I use Vista and EVR.

But what your system requires is not OK.

What I can advise you is to remove the MPA and MPV codecs and switch over to PowerDVD8 or 7.3, I had many bad experiences with those codecs.
If your graphics card supports it, try to use hardware accelleration, however 128Mb for graphics is a little low these days, maybe it helps to lower the resolution.

Finally, I would certainly look on the internet for BDA driver for your TV-Stick, in the hardware manager of windows you should be able to find the name of the tuner that is used (chipset), and use that as a start to find a better driver.

Lots

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Might be worthwhile installing all the .net updates upto 3,5 and try EVR, see how that performs, expert mode in MP config needs to be enabled to see the directshow filter controls to change this.

But glad things have improved anyway

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

What I can advise you is to remove the MPA and MPV codecs and switch over to PowerDVD8 or 7.3, I had many bad experiences with those codecs.

The really only good thing about them is they are free, so i agree for mpeg codec get powerdvd trial to test, see if it makes a difference for you.