Stutter on TVout w/MVP enabled resolved

[pastro]

When an MVP was enabled I was getting stuttering on the TVOUT of my HTPC at 1 minute intervals. I changed the process priority to abovenormal on GBPVR and left it on normal for the MVP servers and it works perfectly.

[jksmurf]

There's another thing you might want to consider too.
The next recording widget ...

k.

[pastro]

There's another thing you might want to consider too.
The next recording widget ...

k.

I had turned off the next recording widget in the skin for the MVP and that helped but I still had a problem every minute when the time updated. I'm using about 10-15% of my cpu in playback but for some reason it would stutter when the MVP updated the clock. Upping the process priority on the main program seems to alleviate this. I didn't see any stuttering when the MVP was playing a recording, just when it is idle.

[wtg]

This is mentioned in several threads. The MVP screen refreshes are CPU intensive, if only for a brief faction of a second.

If your watch CPU usage in task manager, and turn the refresh rate to high, you might be surprised just how much is used. It's so brief set to normal or low refresh it doesn't appear to be that much, but with 3 MVPs on my system and with a high refresh rate I could see the CPU spiking to >50% once a minute. This is noticable when watching HD video on my AMD 2500+ but not so much otherwise.

In prior releases you could make the clock widget invisible in an MVP only skin, which I always did. There's a bug in the current release that's having the MVP load the main skin instead of the MVP-specified skin (at least with pvrx2) so I haven't disabled the clock on my MVP's yet, but I intend to.

[mvallevand]

Alternatively don't "park" PVRX2 on the main menu, if you have a really low powered server were this is actually an issue. The libaries are good choices. If you are using mvpmc just exit emulation mode with the Go Back and no mvp resources wil be used until you restart.

Martin

[jksmurf]

When an MVP was enabled I was getting stuttering on the TVOUT of my HTPC at 1 minute intervals. I changed the process priority to abovenormal on GBPVR and left it on normal for the MVP servers and it works perfectly.

Sorry for the dumb Q, but which process ?
GBPVEREcordingservice.exe,
PVXR2.exe (the MVP Server) or
GBPVRTray.exe

The MVP screen refreshes are CPU intensive, if only for a brief faction of a second...There's a bug in the current release that's having the MVP load the main skin instead of the MVP-specified skin (at least with pvrx2)

wtg, that's interesting re the clock. I have been getting awful stutter with the MVP just playing back recordings on it and worse for LiveTV. Seems CPU goes up a lot. I need to do a bit of testing and log producing. Be nice to have a development m/c... :-)

k.

[pastro]

Sorry for the dumb Q, but which process ?
GBPVEREcordingservice.exe,
PVXR2.exe (the MVP Server) or
GBPVRTray.exe



wtg, that's interesting re the clock. I have been getting awful stutter with the MVP just playing back recordings on it and worse for LiveTV. Seems CPU goes up a lot. I need to do a bit of testing and log producing. Be nice to have a development m/c... :-)

k.

I'm running old school GBPVR 1.0.8 for the main screen and the MVPs use PVRX2.
I upped the process priority on GBPVR. You can do this when you start it, or in task manager which is a good way to test it out.

[pastro]

Tell you one thing the CPU is so hot just making these themes, but kind of worth it now I can be more creative.. Well PVRX2 looks better for MVP and PC. You should try it..

I like PVRX2, but there was a couple of things that didn't make the cut on the first release so I am using 1.0.8 GBPVR instead. Once the dust settles a little, I'm going to make the switch and if my system works well enough on VMR9, I'll probably stick with it. If not, then I'll likely stay with the old school interface until there is a must have feature that entices me to upgrade my hardware.

[jksmurf]

When an MVP was enabled I was getting stuttering on the TVOUT of my HTPC at 1 minute intervals. I changed the process priority to abovenormal on GBPVR and left it on normal for the MVP servers and it works perfectly.

pastro, what do you use to permanently change the pririty? prio?
http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html or just start /high GBPVR.exe or start /high PVRX2.exe?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtec...x?mfr=true

k.

EDIT Made a batch PVRX2.bat

@echo off
start "PVRX2" /d "C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr" /high PVRX2.exe
REM OR
REM start /high PVRX2.exe

[pastro]

I don't remember the poster, but I took his idea. I created a batch file called startgbpvr.bat.
The contents were:

start "Gbpvr" /d"C:\Program Files\devnz\GBPVR" /ABOVENORMAL "C:\Program Files\devnz\GBPVR\gbpvr.exe"

I put a shortcut to this in my startup folder and it will start GBPVR up at abovenormal priority. The MVPs are started elsewhere and don't get the elevated priority.

If I ever stop GBPVR and want to restart, I always use the shortcut and not the trayicon since this would start at normal priority.

I first debugged it using the process manager. I selected the view tab and added the base priority column. Then for any process you can right click and change the priority so you can test however you want.