Minimize and Close in FSE

[Underfunded]

I am running SageTV in FSE for my HDHR and it will randomly minimize. Sometimes SageTV will close altogether and sometimes it will just minimize. Either way it is making things very difficult on my fiance who is in turn making my life difficult. Any thoughts as to why, even in FSE it will lose focus and minimize/close? I did edit the properties to tell it to not lose focus with FSE.
Thanks,
Ian.

[GTwannabe]

FSE is buggy as hell and should not have been included in a production SageTV release. It's about as stable as a house of cards in a tuberculosis ward.

I mucked around with it for a long time and had continuous problems with SageTV randomly closing, randomly minimizing, vanishing (leaving a stuck SageTVClient process using 100% CPU and 246mb RAM), causing standby problems, breaking ReClock, crashing SageTV when maximizing/restoring down the client, getting the SageTV client stuck in full screen mode when toggling via the Sage min/max icon, etc, etc, etc.

I got mad, switched from XP to Vista, and no longer need to use FSE to play HD content.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Underfunded

Any thoughts as to why, even in FSE it will lose focus and minimize/close? I did edit the properties to tell it to not lose focus with FSE.

FSE was never meant to prevent Sage from losing focus. Focus is a completely separate function controlled by Windows, not by Sage. What FSE means is that when Sage does have full-screen focus, it can render more efficiently by taking exclusive control of the graphics hardware. It's strictly a performance booster, not a focus lock. There is no property that tells Sage not to lose focus in FSE mode, but there is a property that tells Sage to stop trying to use FSE if it loses focus.

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

FSE is buggy as hell and should not have been included in a production SageTV release.

I suspect much of the bugginess has to do with the graphics card and drivers, since that's where FSE is implemented. Some cards and drivers do a better job of it than others, and the Sage config wizard does warn you to turn it off if it causes problems. But the fact is that on some systems it does work reliably and makes all the difference in getting smooth HD playback. I imagine those users are happy the devs decided to include it.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

I got mad, switched from XP to Vista, and no longer need to use FSE to play HD content.

GT,

I take it you are only running vista on your SageTV client.
Sounds like a good idea. At least we don't touch the server.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Lucas

GT,

I take it you are only running vista on your SageTV client.
Sounds like a good idea. At least we don't touch the server.

I have heard tons of horror stories regarding Vista's performance. Are you saying it's video performance is better than XP?

And you don't get those annoying UAC messages all the time when watching videos?

thanks,
mike

[nielm]

Originally Posted by Underfunded

I am running SageTV in FSE for my HDHR and it will randomly minimize.

This is normally caused by another background task starting up or taking focus. It is the standarrd behaviour for programs that use FSE (usually games) to release FSE and minimise when focus is lost.

So, do you have any scheduled tasks?
Do you use an EXE tuner plugin that runs another program when changing channels?
Do you have any other programs (eg reminders/spyware/viruses) that are trying to pop up something?
Have you tried making sure Sage is the only desktop and taksbar program running?

Sometimes SageTV will close altogether and sometimes it will just minimize.

The close altogether sounds like a crash when switching out of FSE (you should get hs_pid_xxxx.txt files created giving crash information)- this can happen sometimes in FSE -- as already mentioned, FSE is dependant on drivers which can be buggy.

I did edit the properties to tell it to not lose focus with FSE.

Actually, the property

disable_fse_on_focus_lost=false

is to tell sage not to cancel FSE and minimse when focus is lost -- I have never tried this property myself, but you should check that it is set correctly (correct spelling, no spare spaces at end-of-line, etc)

I use FSE all the time and in normal use, I have no problems. The only problem I do have is an occasional hang when switching out of FSE if video is running, especially if I am using VNC at the time...

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by mikesm

I have heard tons of horror stories regarding Vista's performance. Are you saying it's video performance is better than XP?

And you don't get those annoying UAC messages all the time when watching videos?

thanks,
mike

Yes, there is a night-and-day improvement in video playback performance with Vista. Probably due to lack of context switching between 2D Windows, 3D Sage menu system, and 2D video playback. Everything on screen in Vista (Aero-capable versions, anyway) is a 3D surface.

UAC can be disabled from the control panel. With UAC off, Vista behaves exactly like XP and works with 90% of the programs I've tried. I still don't consider it mature enough to switch my desktop/laptop over, but my dedicated SageTV client in the living room works great with just Vista and Sage.

[MeInMaui]

I don't know if this might be useful at all, but you can try downloading Tweak UI (one of the Microsoft Power Toys). I believe there is a setting to prevent other programs from stealing focus. It might help.

Aloha,
Mike

[cychou]

I have done the following four things to help FSE work better.

1. Disable Taskbar balloon tips (from Tweak UI).
2. Disable any startup programs which may steal the focus (e.g. Java auto. update) using Startup Control Panel.
3. Prevent application from stealing focus (as Mike mentioned above).
4. Disable screen saver.

FSE is alot more stable after these changes.