[claypigeon]

I sort of got tired of seeing statements and repeated statements that "Heavy Skins" like MQ2 will struggle on the lowly Atom Ion configurations, which I feel is misinformation at worst, and FUD at best to someone that trying to understand what they can expect from a system. So here is an unedited video (IN HD) of a little nettop, a foxconn nt 330i with a 1.6Ghz 330 Atom/ion combo doing the basics of what you do with XBMC all running what is considered by many to be the heaviest of heavy skins MQ2. You can see how fast it is from beginning of the system being off, I start with booting from the post screen, I go into the system info so you can see exactly what the hardware is and code that is running, I check the weather, check the TV guide, watch a movie, do some trick plays, spin through the movie library, get info on movies, use alternate views, do the same thing with some TV and lastly to the same with some music. Some times I go fast through the menus and some times slow just so you can see how it performs, the clicks give you some idea of how fast I am pressing buttons.

The system is a:
foxcon nt 330i
atom/ion 330 1.6 Ghz CPU
1 Gb ram
no hard drive
USB 8Gb stick for OS
openELEC / XBMC 10.1
Centralized MySQL database with 4 XBMC systems sharing the database
No content on device all accessed with SMB shares
Thumbnails and all art are also on a central share
No local content on device at all, only OS and XBMC on USB Thumb drive
Network is 100 mb/s wired Ethernet

I think it is very usable, I would not call that struggling, but but that is just my opinion, so watch it yourself and you decide how much of a struggle it is. Sure it might even be better on a faster CPU, that's not the point of this video. You can watch this and decide for yourselves if this minimal hardware configuration is adequate to support "heavy skins".

Best

[mr.sparkle]

This video is full of win and openELEC is full of tiger blood.

[eskro]

it doesnt look so heavy under openELEC because
it doesnt have a full blown OS running in the background...

[HansP]

nice !
would be cool when they launch AMD Fusion build ( they're working on it now ! )

[claypigeon]

it doesnt look so heavy under openELEC because
it doesnt have a full blown OS running in the background...

You are incorrect.

OpenELEC is using linux, linux is a full blown OS, it has been a full OS for 20 years, which is modeled after unix and that has been a real OS for something like 42 years I know because we are the same age . OpenELEC does not use a general purpose distribution of linux rather it is an embedded type implementation of liunx, meaning it is still linux but with out many of the processes running that are unnecessary for the task of running XBMC, and it is tuned for that task, and because of that it is not designed for the user to install what ever they want on it like you can with distributions like ubuntu, but it is still a full blown OS. Since I have not tried to run MQ2 on a similarly configured Live, ubuntu, other *inx os, or for that mater windows, I have no idea how MQ2 would perform in those situations with this CPU, so I make no claim regarding performance in those environments. Regardless, if you over tax any system it is likely to have a negative performance impact. This was just a demonstration of MQ2 on Atom/Ion hardware in a minimal configuration, to demonstrate the performance characteristics that one might experience.

[PatrickVogeli]

it doesn't really struggle... but it isn't snappy either. Entering in music, movies and tv shows sections has a delay which is.. long, at least compared to Alaska Revisited

[HansP]

it doesn't really struggle... but it isn't snappy either. Entering in music, movies and tv shows sections has a delay which is.. long, at least compared to Alaska Revisited

that delays are skinproblems imo ... i got that too on my Q9300 8gb ram ...

[PatrickVogeli]

well.. delays were the main reason I didn't switch over to Aeon MQ2. It just looks unpolished..

[claypigeon]

it doesn't really struggle... but it isn't snappy either. Entering in music, movies and tv shows sections has a delay which is.. long, at least compared to Alaska Revisited

Patrick, I think you may have missed the point of the post, it was not a contrast / compare of different skins, or which skin is "better" but rather a demonstration of Aeon MQ2 on Atom/Ion hardware. I did this because it is considered to be "heaver" than other skins and some people have been stating repeatably that MQ2 struggles on Atom/Ion hardware. I posted the video so someone considering that hardware could get some idea of what this combination actually looks and feels like on a minimal hardware configuration.

The different skins meet different end users expectations and wants from their system Alaska Revisited may in fact be "snappier", or in your opinion "Aeon MQ2. It just looks unpolished" but that is irreverent to the context of this thread. Perhaps your concern is better debated in the area of the forum regarding skins versus hardware.

[SpectreX]

It takes 6 seconds to get into the TV Guide section, 8 to get into the Movies section and you`re telling me it doesn`t struggle? And why didn`t you fast scroll through the movies section instead of just selecting one movie at a time? Because it looks vey laggy in the fast scrolling situation. My Core i3 2100T does all of that almost instantly, with a full desktop OS running in the background (Windows 7), not a "designed for XBMC" OS like OpenELEC

[mr.sparkle]

claypigeon

Do you have DDS fanart enabled? Would you mind posting your advancedsettings.xml and xorg.conf?

[Kirky99]

I've got Aeon MQ2 running on my main PC. It's an Atom/ION 1.6G (dual core) variety. For whatever reason, I'm running Win7 w/ 4G memory. 250+ movies and 50+ TV series with about 2 seasons per series. No music or pictures in the library to speak of.

Prior to getting an SSD the experience was very slow navigating. So much I switched back to Alaska Revisited. Post SSD it's very nice, but there are still a few areas of slow response. Many times it's just coming back to the Home Screen. It's still my skin of choice however.

Using DDS fanart enable on the SSD, didn't have it enabled until I went SSD, but it was much snappier than with the spinner. BTW - Also running with one central DB for the library and all media/artwork stored on the file server. Cache I believe is still on each client however.

[claypigeon]

It takes 6 seconds to get into the TV Guide section, 8 to get into the Movies section and you`re telling me it doesn`t struggle? And why didn`t you fast scroll through the movies section instead of just selecting one movie at a time? Because it looks vey laggy in the fast scrolling situation. My Core i3 2100T does all of that almost instantly, with a full desktop OS running in the background (Windows 7), not a "designed for XBMC" OS like OpenELEC

Well IMO no, I don't think it is struggling. It meets my performance expectations just fine, but that is why I posted the video so one could make their own determination if it is adequate vs statements with out context.

Struggle (verb) is defined as:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/struggle.

Definition of STRUGGLE

intransitive verb
1: to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition <struggling with the problem>
2: to proceed with difficulty or with great effort <struggled through the high grass> <struggling to make a living>

So, since words have meaning, I think that would be the incorrect word choice unless one was being hyperbolic.

If you notice my first post, you will note that my thumbnails and art files are located on a shared SMB drive and library is on a centralized MySQL database, not the local file system based database, which has a performance impact, that in combination with 400+ movies and 1000+ tv episodes, this might be why your initial load into movies and tv is slower than what you experience. It would also be logical to expect, where CPU speed are relevant to skin performance, that a i3 would be more responsive to an atom. For my purposes it is adequate, and are qualitatively comparable experience to the Windows 7 and XP clients I also use, but neither of those are i3 based so I can not make any any factual statements on the impact of an i3 based system. I would hypothesize, that if I used a local media for all content that, some of what you characterize as a lag difference in your system would be mitigated, but it would be reasonable to expect that in a like for like environment where the only delta was i3 vs Atom, that an i3 would perform better.

please feel free to post your own video to demonstrate your performance experience.

[claypigeon]

claypigeon

Do you have DDS fanart enabled? Would you mind posting your advancedsettings.xml and xorg.conf?

Yes DSS is enabled.

Code:

<advancedsettings>
  <useddsfanart>true</useddsfanart>
  <cputempcommand>cputemp</cputempcommand>
  <gputempcommand>gputemp</gputempcommand>
  <samba>
    <clienttimeout>30</clienttimeout>
  </samba>
  <videodatabase>
        <type>mysql</type>
        <host>192.168.10.100</host>
        <port>3306</port>
        <user>redacted</user>
        <pass>redacted</pass>
        <name>xbmc_video</name>
  </videodatabase>
  <musicdatabase>
        <type>mysql</type>
        <host>192.168.10.100</host>
        <port>3306</port>
        <user>redacted</user>
        <pass>redacted</pass>
        <name>xbmc_music</name>
  </musicdatabase>
</advancedsettings>

xorg.conf - I currently use the openelec default

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "nvidia"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Option         "DynamicTwinView" "False"
    Option         "NoFlip" "false"
    Option         "NoLogo" "true"
    Option         "ConnectToAcpid" "0"
    Option         "FlatPanelProperties" "Scaling = Native"
    Option         "ModeValidation" "NoVesaModes, NoXServerModes"
    Option         "HWCursor" "false"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "screen"
    Device         "nvidia"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "ColorRange" "Full"
#    Option         "ColorRange" "Limited"
    Option         "ColorSpace" "RGB"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "Composite" "false"
EndSection

[eskro]

@claypigeon:
OpenELEC doesnt sit on a Full Blown Linux OS...
You cant just quit OpenELEC and example
see a Linux Desktop where you can then Browse the Internet using Firefox or Chrome!