General Sluggish Behavior

[backsix]

Hi All

I've been a sagetv user since the version 1 days and I'm generally pretty happy with it.

The one thing that really bugs me is how slow my system is now when browsing the menus (using standard stv)

Here's some examples:
screen saver to menu 6 seconds
from playing video main menu 5 seconds
from main menu to sagetv recordings 8 seconds

it's really frustrating. there seems to be a lag to everything. Playing and recording video works flawlessly though. skipping forward/back in video is instantaneous.

simple things seem to take forever while intensive video audio processing seems to be great.

Is this normal?
is the 2000 GB of harddrive space whats slowing me down?

I'm running 3 full license installs of sagetv (2 operating as network encoders+clients)

all 3 pc's are P4 2GHz or better.
2 TB of storage over 9 hard drives
100mb network
1 media mvp
stable and solid, just slow as hell.

[gplasky]

Some things to consider. Turn off 3d and Full screen exclusive and see if it picks up speed. You don't say what version you're running but you may want to consider blowing away the sage.properties and let Sage rebuild it. You will need to reconfigure but it could have remnants of obsolete properties that may be the source of your problem. And make sure you have the latest DX 9 and video drivers for your video card. The only thing unique in your environment that I have no experience with is running Sage as client & encoder. An way for stopping the ither 2 encoders and comparing performance? I have one server, 3 PC clients and a MVP and do not see the problem you're having.

Gerry

[mike1961]

Also - consider a defrag on the server. Go to the task manager on the server as well as the workstations and make sure no extraneous programs are running like spyware, etc. Also, try copying a movie from your server to one of your workstations and time it to make sure it is not unusually slow. Also, it you won't get the max of 100 mbs if you have Cat 5 but more likely around 60-70 mbs or around 10 min to copy a 5 gig file (but if it takes 30 min or an hour then something may be wrong). You just want to make sure your network is not unusually slow due to a bad cable, network card or router. Perhaps you may need to restart the router and just do a cold boot on the system. Check for viruses and spyware.

Mike

[backsix]

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

I'm running version 4.1.0.81 on all 3 systems

I'm not using FSE and all my video drivers are the final intel release.(the server is a shuttle and I'm using the onboard video)

Per your idea I did try disabling 3D and VMR9 but it didn't have any noticeable impact on menu speed.

The systems are mean and clean, there are no extra aps or services running.(good idea though)

I also did a check of the network and copied a 6 gig file accross in 11 minutes but the system was recording a show accross the network at the same time.I don't think the network is the issue as all wiring is new. Plus, there is no trouble recording and playing multiple shows accross the network simultaneously.

__________________

I will try shutting down sagetv on the secondary pc's and see if that helps. good idea thanks.

I will also try lettting sage rebuild the properties file. This one scares me a little.

[blade]

You do have the menu fading or transition crap turned off don't you? I don't remember exactly what it's called, but it makes the menus change very slowly.

[gplasky]

Take a look and see what version of java you're at. Double-check to make sure java didn't auto-update on you. If it did uninstall and delete the older versions. I'm running 1.5.0_06_b05 which works fine on my server and all of my clients. The other thing to consider is we're at a 4.1.14 RC beta. Final release of the new version is just around the corner. You could hold out for that.

Gerry

[mike1961]

You know what - when I was playing with settings today and changed to VMR9 in detailed setup I noticed the exact same thing you were talking about. A lot of slowness changing screens (mainly with the hauppauge intervideo decoders and VMR9). The moment I changed it back to default or overlay, everything was fine. It may be this setting or a combination of this setting and your decoder settings. Frankly, I still can't get anything to work reliably except the Sage Decoders anyway.

Mike

[backsix]

ok so i did turn off the 'menu fading transition crap' and that did speed things up 1 second. thanks for that- i never noticed this setting.

I'm runnin the same java version 1.5.0.06

I guess i always thought the video decoders were only used when sage is playing back video. this does seem to be related to my problem. I changed to default and it's a good 2 seconds faster. interesting.

thanks for the help.

[backsix]

After playing with this for a few days. the only noticeable thing that has improved was turning off the menu transition stuff.

I think what it's going to take to speed it up is clean wipe of the servar and fresh install of the everything.