GB-PVR Slow and Resource Hog?

[MikalCarbine]

I just installed GB-PVR 1.0.8 and finally got it working correctly (EPG, remote, etc) but I have a couple questions, please forgive my newbness, I have had my PVR-250 for a while but never dove too far into 'HTPCing'

First off, here are my hardware specs:

AMD 3800+ X2 at 2.8GHz
2G Mushkin XP4000 3-3-2-8 at ~260mhz
Powercolor X1900XTX
74G WD Raptor and 320G Seagate (for storage)
Audigy 2 ZS Soundcard
WinTV PVR-250

I no doubt have the necessary hardware to run this program nicely. I did some searching prior to this but couldn't really find any answers

My first question/concern is the pause time in between changing channels. After changing a channel I usually wait a good 5-10 seconds for it to load and it'll stutter another second then be fine after that. I was wondering if this is because I am using software encoding? I know that the PVR-250 is capable of hardware encoding but I cannot enable it in the GB options (only a PVR-350, why is that?)

I would also like to know if GB-PVR is a resource hog for others, I have seen the main executable using over 100mb of memory (not that it matters with 2G). I was unsure if that may be a problem or not

Thanks!

[Carlito]

To try and answer your questions.
1. What you are seeing is Hardware DE-coding that is only available on the 350. Your 250 is using the Hardware EN-coding. In fact, hardware encoding is a pre-requisite for GBPVR. I would suggest trying different video decoders to try and solve this problem.
2. GBPVR will sometimes use < 100MB of memory, but the taskmanager is not a good way to see how much memory is actually used. The .NET framework will hold onto memory but willingly free it up to other programs if it is needed. So if the Task Manager shows <100MB that doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually 'using' that much memory.

[MikalCarbine]

Thanks for clearing some of that up

So you are saying that the long pauses between changing channels could be from the decoders?

[Carlito]

It could be that your video card doesn't handle VMR9 Custom Renderer very well? Do you get the same issue when using gbpvr.exe and Overlay Renderer?

[MikalCarbine]

I had tried that before and it did not help, I also tried VMR7

I was reading up on quartz.dll but that wouldn't help me in the encoding scenario would it?

Edit: Quartz.dll didn't seem to help much

[sub]

First off, here are my hardware specs:

AMD 3800+ X2 at 2.8GHz
2G Mushkin XP4000 3-3-2-8 at ~260mhz
Powercolor X1900XTX
74G WD Raptor and 320G Seagate (for storage)
Audigy 2 ZS Soundcard
WinTV PVR-250

I no doubt have the necessary hardware to run this program nicely. I did some searching prior to this but couldn't really find any answers

This hardware would have no problems running GB-PVR.

My first question/concern is the pause time in between changing channels. After changing a channel I usually wait a good 5-10 seconds for it to load and it'll stutter another second then be fine after that.

Do you have live preview enabled in the config app? If so, then channel changes should take less than a second. If they're not, then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

I would also like to know if GB-PVR is a resource hog for others, I have seen the main executable using over 100mb of memory (not that it matters with 2G). I was unsure if that may be a problem or not

I wouldnt consider it a hog, but yes it intentionally uses a lot of memory to make stuff fast (caching screen images, caching tv listings in memory etc). Using over 100mb is easily normal.

I usually associate the word 'hog' to mean using lots of resource and grinding along very slowly like a big fat big. I certainly wouldnt put it in that category.

[MikalCarbine]

This hardware would have no problems running GB-PVR.

Do you have live preview enabled in the config app? If so, then channel changes should take less than a second. If they're not, then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

I wouldnt consider it a hog, but yes it intentionally uses a lot of memory to make stuff fast (caching screen images, caching tv listings in memory etc). Using over 100mb is easily normal.

I usually associate the word 'hog' to mean using lots of resource and grinding along very slowly like a big fat big. I certainly wouldnt put it in that category.

Sub you are the man/woman!

That worked like a charm, what exactly does live preview do? I noticed that ff/rw is no longer showing after enabling that option

I do take back the comment about it being a resource hog, what you said makes sense and a program fitting that description would more likely be a symantec norton product I also tried Sagetv trial and it used about 150mb but either way that is nothing when you consider my 2G total

[sub]

That worked like a charm, what exactly does live preview do? I noticed that ff/rw is no longer showing after enabling that option

I find most people prefer to watch tv this way. I know I do. It effectively goes straight from tuner card to screen, with no disk buffering occurring. I hate the idea of my hard disk writing 24x7. Its also better for channel surfers like me that prefer quicker channel changing.

You can enter timeshift to begin disk buffering by pressing the pause button, or for those that prefer it, you can disable live preview mode and have it always buffering.

[MikalCarbine]

Good to know, thanks a lot for getting me started on a better HTPC experience