[RayGarrison]

Using XBMC 12.3 running on an admittedly underpowered PC used solely for listening to music via outboard DAC

Dell Optiplex GX620
Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz
4GB RAM
Intel 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller
ViewSonic monitor running at 1920 X 1200
Audioquest Dragonfly DAC
Ubuntu (actually Xubuntu) 13.10
Gnome 3.8.4
Kernel 3.11.0-17-generic
GCC 4.8 (i686-linux-gnu)
Xorg 1.14.5

I've been using XBMC for a while now, as it's the only program I could get that would play hi-rez music files (24/96 or 24/88) through my Dragonfly without downsampling to 44 or 48 khz... everything was working fine. Usually run XBMC in windowed mode, while working on PC. Started up today, saw notices of several updates scrolling across bottom of window while XBMC was starting up.

It is now running so slowly, and taking so much CPU, that I cannot use it (in windowed mode.) Trying to move the mouse pointer is an exercise in frustration... if I nudge the mouse, the cursor will start to move and catch up after a several second delay. Xorg shows 90+ percent CPU load. I can run it in full screen mode, and everything seems okay (much lower system load), but that's a real pain... can't access anything else I'm working on. Windowed mode is hopeless.

Did something change recently? XBMC was always a bit of a load on the system, but typically cranked along at 30 / 40% of CPU, which was workable. Now I can't to anything unless I run it full screen.

And no, I can't buy a real computer. Stuck with this, at least until get a bunch of family priorities taken care of.

Any ideas?

[contadino]

To my opinion XBMC is not a real good solution for listening music. Why don't you try MPD for that? It runs totally in the background and uses MUCH less CPU-power.
I use it as my standard tool for music-playback and don't have any problems with hirez music. You can comfortable control downsampling or not.
If your system recognises the dragonfly as an alsa-device (what it obviously does) you won't have problems with this combination.

[fritsch]

Idea: Post a Debug Log

[RayGarrison]

Okay, I am now completely weirded out. I just went to install the log uploader to post the log file per Fritsch's request. When I started XBMC in windowed mode to install the program, everything working fine. Low CPU overhead, no lag, no problems. I swear I did not change anything. I have no idea. If it happens again I'll post a log file.

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To my opinion XBMC is not a real good solution for listening music. Why don't you try MPD for that? It runs totally in the background and uses MUCH less CPU-power.
I use it as my standard tool for music-playback and don't have any problems with hirez music. You can comfortable control downsampling or not.
If your system recognises the dragonfly as an alsa-device (what it obviously does) you won't have problems with this combination.

Thanks for the suggestion. That may be one of the only media players I haven't tried yet. see thread When I got to XBMC and it worked perfectly I stopped looking. I'll take a look at MPD.

[RayGarrison]

Okay, this time I started XBMC in window mode and it is back to a GUI that is so unresponsive I can't move the mouse - took me quite a while to follow the steps to create and upload the log file per Fritsch's request because I couldn't see or control the mouse.

Log file created when I restarted XBMC
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=148236

Problem occurs immediately upon startup, don't have to do anything. Just to be thorough I started and played a few seconds of a song before I uploaded the log. Playing song had no effect on CPU load or slow responsiveness - neither worse nor better.

XBMC also asked if I wanted to upload the crash log, so I did.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=148237