[rubpa]

Hello!

I've an old laptop with 2GB RAM. Kodi has been mostly fine for several versions since v13/v14 but the latest v17.1 is quite sluggish sometimes. I've seen this sluggishness occasionally on v16 as well.

A typical use case for me is to watch photos. When I open and exit a few folders with 500 to 1000 photos Kodi takes several seconds to respond to even a back command.

Question: is it just a case of too low resources or is there something I can tweak in the system to get better performance? Why does the kodi-bin process show more than 3GB VIRT?

There is good amount of RAM free soon after boot as per top:


After opening/exiting a few folders, RAM is almost full but swap is still not used:


Few other details:
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 CPU M 560 @ 2.67GHz
$ uname -a
Linux Living-KODI 3.13.0-86-generic #131-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 12 23:33:13 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ cat /etc/issue.net
Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
$ dpkg -l | grep "kodi-bin"
ii kodi-bin 2:17.1~git20170320.2031-final-0trusty amd64 Kodi Media Center (binary data package)

[fritsch]

Please disable Dithering in the settings.

[rubpa]

Dithering is already disabled in System Settings -> Display.

[fritsch]

Ah photos. Yes. Kodi is reading all their exif information at once. There is a setting to disable that.

[rubpa]

I'm OK with Kodi reading the exif info.

What I would like to know is if my system is under powered and if any tweaks can improve performance - like increasing swap? Specifically even though the RAM does not appear full, kodi is slow (confused about the 3GB VIRT usage though as seen in top).

[Derek]

you should just have kept an older version running, if its not broken dont fix it etc, or update ur hardware if you want to run the latest software.

Im still able to run kodi v17.1 on a 12 year old laptop but i dont as its been overtaken by the newer software.

You could always get a cheap android device to run kodi and plug in or connect to whatever media platform you use

[rubpa]

you should just have kept an older version running, if its not broken dont fix it etc, or update ur hardware if you want to run the latest software.

Isn't new software and features tempting?

You could always get a cheap android device to run kodi and plug in or connect to whatever media platform you use

Even though Kodi now runs on lot more hardware than earlier, doesn't a PC give much better performance compared to a Pi or android device? I've considered these for some time now but would like expert opinion.

[Derek]

Im no expert on android systems so cant comment but a lot of people use them without complaint, i just noticed u have an i5 cpu so its likely ur laptop has intel gfx and thats your bottleneck as one of my kodi boxes has an i3 cpu but nvidia gpu 750ti and runs like a dream and what fritsch means is its reading the whole directory of exif info at once i beleive which takes time.
the i3 system is from 2009 but with a cheap gfx upgrade and works a charm with even 4k video but if ur just looking at photos its the exif data being read thats the slowdown i suspect due to fritsch never being wrong

[rubpa]

I agree that the Intel graphics is not the best (probably the Pi & android have better graphics hardware) but overall GUI animations, movie playback (at full hd), music, etc. are with acceptable performance. When photos are loaded there is a progress bar for reading the exif info after which the RAM usage increases and sluggishness starts for scrolling/back.

Before moving to a newer system, may be I'll try a RAM upgrade.

Thanks Derek & fritsch!

[ileenback]

My 32 bit (2005?) Toshiba Satellite, Pentium M 1.73 GHz isn't sluggish with 2GB RAM

Debian Jessie 8.7
Linux oldhat 3.16.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.16.39-1+deb8u1 (2017-02-22) i686 GNU/Linux

Kodi 16.1 (Recorded TV & Live TV- HDHR Prime)

Just noticed you said 17.1....

[Derek]

if i were you id run 16.1 its a great stable build which will work 100% just my 2p worth

[rubpa]

My 32 bit (2005?) Toshiba Satellite, Pentium M 1.73 GHz isn't sluggish with 2GB RAM

One sub-optimal thing in my setup is 64bit. I don't really need it but that's how it is now. 64bit SW consumes more RAM.