Stutter Troubleshooting

[ptaylor]

Page Fault update:

Well, his Page Faults are all coming from (*GASP*) the SageTV Service... So, that really didn't tell us anything, since that could be Java, or it waiting on some hardware, or lots of things. He tried disabling the SageTV Service and running in standalone mode, but it still performs worse than when he's using the service.

I will have him check to see if his graphics card is sharing an IRQ with anything... I actually had a similar problem a long time ago when I first built a new HTPC system, except it seemed to have constant stutter, whereas his problem is only occasional... (Though, it may be in conflict with something that isn't terribly busy)

Paul

[DFA]

You might try some of the same tests to isolate the A180 / SiI issue.

Try rendering the video directly to the video card bypassing the HDD sub-system. This can be done by making a graph with GraphEdit. Try temporarily putting in an old PATA drive you might have to test things separatly from the SATA.

Try turning off write caching. I did this recently for my video drives but had to get info from SiI on where to edit the registry to do so; it was not addressable from the "policies" property sheet in the case of the SiI controller.

Lastly, you might try this far fetched one; reduce the video card PCI latency if defaulted to maximum (248 / 256) or increase the latency if down around 32. You can use "PowerStrip" for this if you already have it or even better Google for "PCI Latency Tool". It is free but be sure to get version 3, build 3 NOT build 2 (B2 does not always show all devices). I use "PCI Latency Tool" and reduce the ATI default of 248 to 64. This reduces the duration of time that the video card can "hog" the bus.

Check what version of "PsisDecd.dll" you have. If you do a search, you should find two of them: one in Sage's "Common" directory and one in "System32" (not to mention the caches, service packs folders, etc.). The one in System32 is installed by DX9c. The one supplied with Sage is the latest version as of April DX9 release. Depending on the order of installation, Sage first vs. DX9c will determine which is being used. Open RegEdit and do a "Find" for "PsisDecd.dll" and see where the path is pointing to: Sage or System32. The latest and best version is "6.5.2710.2732"

DFA

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by blade

I didn't notice before that he's using SATA drives. I think some SATA controllers cause problems. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was stuttering problems. It has been discussed on these forums awhile back.

If the page faults lead doesn't pan out you might want to look at the SATA controller.

And a lot of people with Nvidia cards report stutter too. I have both a Nvidia 6600gt and SATA and I get stutter, but only during sporting events in either 720 or 1080i (I forget which since I only watch football, but I think it's 720), displayed in 1080i. Next time I upgrade drivers I'm going to try setting up a 720 resolution and letting the TV convert it during sporting events.

[amac]

O.K. , unless I'm missing something in this discussion, he has stated in the first post that "DVD playback stutters similarly also, even in PowerDVD".

I take that to mean that the stuttering is occuring when watching a DVD on the computer and Sage is not running and the hard drive is not being accessed or overtaxed in any way.

If those assumptions are correct, then Sage is out of the causality chain. Something about the video card would seem to be a likely candidate.

We know a fairly modern video card is in use on a modern system.
We know a video driver update has been tried.

1. I would like to hear that all video drivers were deleted, the machine rebooted, and then only one video driver installed.

2. Given it stutters in PowerDVD, have you looked to see if hardware motion compensation is turned on? If you look in the registry for 'HWMC' you'll find the setting isn't necessarily turned on by default for Intervideo or Cyberlink PowerDVD. I think the other one to turn on is a setting for DXVA. Don't ask me what it does, perhaps someone else can explain it. I don't know whatthe defaults for the Nvidia software are.

3. What is the cpu/processor utilization? If the problem is HWMC, the utilization would be fairly high. My CPU utilization when watching SDTV (standard def) is anywhere from 15-21% when HWMC is on.

[roxy99]

"He has upgraded to Java 1.5_06, but the problem still exists. (Originally, he was simply using the Java that comes with Sage)"


Ditch the 1.5_06 and go to 1.5_05. Thats Jeffrey recoomends in a thread about 'memory leaks'. Its worth a try.

[bgarts]

I have been battling stuttering problems with my P4 Celeron D mb/Hauppauge 150 and ATI AIW7500 agp combo (playback fine for 1 second then screen freezes for a split second and then catches up, then freezes, etc. all on a very regular interval). I read in another topic that turning off hard drive caching might sove the stutter. I remember mine being turned on when I looked at it last but haven't had a chance to test it out yet.

I'm pretty sure though it's a decoder problem, though. I had the same cards set up in a dual PIII-500 system with inferior everything and playback was exceptional. When I set up the system, I installed WinTV2000 then Beyond TV (as a trial), and SageTV (I didn't do the same thing with the new system). Maybe some software was loaded at some point that helped SageTV work better.

My DVDs play fine using the Intervideo decoders. WinTV2000 plays TV with no problems. But I absolutely HATE Wintv2000 since my sole monitor is the TV and you can't read any of the text in windowed mode.

[ptaylor]

Update:

He has uninstalled 1.5_06 (putting him back to the default Java that comes with Sage) - That seemed to improve things, but not greatly.

He has found that by watching a Sage Recording in Windows Media Player, he only had 6 page faults per second. It played back clean with WMP, so whatever the issue is, it affected both PowerDVD and Sage. (Though, when you read the workaround he found, I don't see how????)

I'm happy to report that he has found a workaround this weekend. Note this is all second-hand info (as I wasn't there), so something may be getting lost in the translation, but he agrees that this was strange. Previously, he had disabled the SageTV Service and tried using Sage in standalone mode only to get terrible performance with this method also. Still experiencing problems, he tried this troubleshooting step again this weekend. The Service Tool let him stop and disable the service, but when he fired up the Sage client, he was getting 1000+ page faults per second. He examined the process table and found that SageServer was still running. He exited the Sage client and killed the SageServer process, then restarted the client... Up came the SageServer process..??? This time, he killed it and restarted the Sage client and the SageServer process didn't come back... When he played video this time, he got the same 6 page faults per second that he saw using WMP... Nice and clean video!

This is very strange... I'm not sure if the SageServer process he killed was for his remote sage client, or if it was the "Sage Service" that the service tool was supposed to have disabled. He does have a laptop connected wirelessly and it can now also view Sage recordings just fine also...

His wife is happy with Sage now, though, so that's the important thing!

Thanks for all the suggestions in this thread... Hopefully, others will be able to use this info to help them with their own stuttering problems...

Paul

[bgarts]

Turns out the SATA drive I was using wasn't using the correct drivers in WIndows XP. I had to reinstall the OS and have the SATA driver disk handy at the start when it asked if I had any third party SCSI drivers to install. Haven't done that for a while, so I forgot Windows didn't have the necessary drivers built in.

The system runs smooth now.

I would definitely say that if you are not a technical person and want a plug and play solution, the internal cards are not for you. I'm not sure what the MVP is like, but it has to be easier than this. I had to battle uphill every step of the way with this install. From choppy video, bad sound, no DVD support, and poor video decoding. Every solution was some sort of hack or extra expense.

-NVidea decoder software solved the problem playing protected DVDs an problems with deinterlacing
-AC3 Audio Software solved the sound problem (DVD very quiet compared to TV)
-Registry Hack solved a timeline corruption problem.

I spent more time fixing problems than I was prepared for. All in all, I really like the system and hope it stays working. However, now there is a problem with SageTV crashing when a recording is complete. Sheesh.

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

And a lot of people with Nvidia cards report stutter too. I have both a Nvidia 6600gt and SATA and I get stutter, but only during sporting events in either 720 or 1080i (I forget which since I only watch football, but I think it's 720), displayed in 1080i. Next time I upgrade drivers I'm going to try setting up a 720 resolution and letting the TV convert it during sporting events.

I have an nVidia 7300gs card and absolutely no stutter. My CPU is Athlon64 3000 with 512mb. I use nvidia purevideo codecs and have set the PCI Latency low. My projector is 800x600 only so I have my video resolution set to 800x600 at 59mhz - so I'm not getting true HD but still looks awesome with sports and movies which are broadcast at 1080i.

Sorry if this doesn't help with the topic but I thought I'd respond to say no-stutter is possible with nVidia.

[polen]

Originally Posted by ptaylor

Now, the SATA drive he has is a 3.0 drive... I would expect it to be backwards compatible, though. Anyone with experience here?

My 3.0 drive has a jumper to force it into SATA original mode. See if that helps.

-Polen

[LaoChe]

I have had this same problem ever since changing my sagetv server from windows xp to windows2K (I know that's backward for most people but I was never able to get XP to share large files with all of my other 2k machines so I reverted). The system is an AMD64-3000 w/ 1Gb of RAM and the drives are ATA not SATA so I wouldn't think that would be the problem. I also get the same stutter streaming music through softsqueeze/slimserver which is also written in Java so I figured it was a Java issue.

[Enormous]

Sorry to go off topic, but I've got to issue a complaint about polen's avatar. My wife literally laughed herself to tears over that picture. Good one!

[polen]

Originally Posted by Enormous

Sorry to go off topic, but I've got to issue a complaint about polen's avatar. My wife literally laughed herself to tears over that picture. Good one!