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Bagger · 2012-01-10, 22:22

Is there a patch or a way to make the live install utilise both cores of the CPU.

I'm getting choppy play back with 1080p mkv's (15 -20 fps)
The cpu utilization is at 100% for core 0 and about 10 % for core 1

Is there a way to make it use both cores fully ?

The live version is the release on the down load page. 10.1 GIT : unknown
System is a dual core AMD laptop

vikjon0 · 2012-01-10, 22:31

Don't think so but you may be able to enable hardware acceleration and use the GPU. Depending on what GPU you have. Not sure how to do that if you do not have a valid nvidia. Perhaps try the new version when it comes.

Bagger · 2012-01-10, 22:47

I don't think the video card is up to VDPau acceleration.
The on-board video is NVIDIA GeForce 7150M

If both cpu cores worked together then i believe it should decode 1080p smoothly.

Ive read a few old threads about a multi threaded version of ffmpeg, just wondering if there has been any development with it.
But I suppose things are moving towards GPU encoding.

GJones · 2012-01-10, 22:52

Bagger Wrote:I don't think the video card is up to VDPau acceleration.
The on-board video is NVIDIA GeForce 7150M

If both cpu cores worked together then i believe it should decode 1080p smoothly.

Ive read a few old threads about a multi threaded version of ffmpeg, just wondering if there has been any development with it.
But I suppose things are moving towards GPU encoding.

No. That's not how that works. Having extra cores does almost nothing for playback performance unless you are running other things on the box (keeping those from contending). It could very well be an issue with a hard drive or memory if these are full bit rate 1080p movies.

vikjon0 · 2012-01-10, 22:52

I think you can compile xbmc to use external ffmpeg. Since that is not done much I assume there is some reason the advantage is limited. But I do not know that for a fact.

**wsnipex** · 2012-01-10, 23:01

GJones Wrote:No. That's not how that works. Having extra cores does almost nothing for playback performance unless you are running other things on the box (keeping those from contending). It could very well be an issue with a hard drive or memory if these are full bit rate 1080p movies.

not true, multithreaded ffmpeg will do exactly that. The xbmc build in ffmpeg is too old and does not support multi threading.

You can compile xbmc with --enable-external-ffmpeg, but you need ffpmeg 0.7.x installed before. Not a higher version and not libav.

Bagger · 2012-01-10, 23:07

GJones Wrote:No. That's not how that works. Having extra cores does almost nothing for playback performance unless you are running other things on the box (keeping those from contending). It could very well be an issue with a hard drive or memory if these are full bit rate 1080p movies.

It would do if the decoder was programmed to utilise both cores. Which in this case it clearly isnt, being as one core is pinned at 100% and the other is doing next to nothing.

Mplayer is now multi threaded thanks to the multi threaded version of ffmpeg., I was just hoping I suppose that there was already a version of XBMC compiled with it, or a way of addeing it without compiling the whole thing myself.

**wsnipex** · (This post was last modified: 2012-01-11, 10:43 by wsnipex.)

Bagger Wrote:It would do if the decoder was programmed to utilise both cores. Which in this case it clearly isnt, being as one core is pinned at 100% and the other is doing next to nothing.

Mplayer is now multi threaded thanks to the multi threaded version of ffmpeg., I was just hoping I suppose that there was already a version of XBMC compiled with it, or a way of addeing it without compiling the whole thing myself.

Just a few days ago we had a user on IRC asking the same thing. He compiled with ffmpeg 0.7.3 and it worked. He could play full hd on a dual core cpu, which did not work with standard xbmc.

Note that this probably will not work with dharma as is lacks the patches to compile against newer ffmpeg versions.

As all ubuntu packages I know use internal ffmpeg, you will have to compile from source, or use something like gentoo. Imho their ebuilds use external libs.

**wsnipex** · 2012-01-11, 13:19

Ok, I just tested this with Eden with the built in ffmpeg. So completely standard.

Software rendering a full bluray with a 3 core Athlon X3 is multithreaded. The load is evenly distributed at 3 threads and plays fine.

So before you go about compiling, please just try a Eden build first. You can check for multithreading e.g. with htop, or press "H" in normal top.

Bagger · 2012-01-11, 14:36

wsnipex Wrote:Ok, I just tested this with Eden with the built in ffmpeg. So completely standard.

Software rendering a full bluray with a 3 core Athlon X3 is multithreaded. The load is evenly distributed at 3 threads and plays fine.

So before you go about compiling, please just try a Eden build first. You can check for multithreading e.g. with htop, or press "H" in normal top.

Hey that sounds promising. Smile

Thanks

Bagger · 2012-01-11, 16:08

Don't know if I've done this right as it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

My original install was the Dahma Live, installed to hard drive.
Then

Code:
wget http://packages.pulse-eight.net/ubuntu/install-xbmc.sh

Code:
bash ./install-xbmc.sh

This download a lot of stuff and now its running eden beta 1
But still when playing 1080 content cpu 0 is at 100% and cpu 1 is at 10% and play back is choppy as its consistently dropping frames.

Bagger · 2012-01-12, 13:50

wsnipex Wrote:Ok, I just tested this with Eden with the built in ffmpeg. So completely standard.

Software rendering a full bluray with a 3 core Athlon X3 is multithreaded. The load is evenly distributed at 3 threads and plays fine.

So before you go about compiling, please just try a Eden build first. You can check for multithreading e.g. with htop, or press "H" in normal top.

from what ive been reading ffmpeg is planned for the future,( the page I was reading was last year though).

What version of XBMC are you using ?

All this one says is that its 11.0 Git:unknown compiled jan 4 2012.

**wsnipex** · 2012-01-12, 14:53

can you check if you see more threads with htop?
It might be that the 3 threads I see are not actually all decoding video. My cpu is fast enough for full hd, so its a bit hard to tell.

If it does not work, try to install ffmpeg 0.7.x and compile xbmc Eden against it.

Bagger · 2012-01-12, 15:09

What is htop ?
The way I check is to press O while the video is playing

I take it you have the same beta 1 of eden installed

Bagger · 2012-01-12, 15:21

Sorry... being lazy Smile

Screen shot of htop

Doesn really help alot as it doesnt show the specific file that are being used.