HD100 performance improvement with server RAM

[Skiier__Dude]

Hey all,

Ended up shuffling some RAM around between a couple of machines in my home and my Sage Server got the benefit of twice the memory -- went from 500Mb to 1Gb of RAM.

I knew that the performance of the server would improve, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much faster the startup, interface and playback on the HD100 benefited from this upgrade.

Worthy of the upgrade - cheap, easy and has really improved performance of my system.

For many -- this will be one of those ... "well duh..." type of posts but I had probably done every other software tuneup to try to improve performance and it didn't occur to me to start with RAM.

[paulbeers]

Well Duh.... Actually this brings up a very good point about Sage. If you are not transcoding video and not running comskip, then Sage can run on a very low end processor. Where the issues will always arrise is from limited RAM as it needs quite a bit of RAM to run (especially if running a lot of Extenders as you may need to increase the Java Heap size).

I find that 1GB of Ram should be considered the minimum to run a Sage server. Yes it can be done with 512mb, but you will run into issues (you can probably get away with a client with only 512mb but again I wouldn't recommend it). I recently upgraded my server from 1GB to 2GB and truthfully it was really necessary (but DDR2 ram is just so dang cheap!).

[Skiier__Dude]

I would even add now that with the latest paid-for version of Comskip for .ts files, my modest little server has no problems keeping up with the commercial detection function. The recent changes Erik made to the codec has done wonders for the speed of the commercial processing.

I'm running a XP server dedicated to Sage -- it's an AMD 3200+ (2Ghz) processor which up until last night had 500Mb of RAM. It ran fine, just that the time to change screens on the HD100 was slow. With the added RAM, everything is very snappy.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

If you are not transcoding video and not running comskip,

That's me.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

then Sage can run on a very low end processor.

That's definitely me.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Where the issues will always arrise is from limited RAM as it needs quite a bit of RAM to run

I didn't know this. Requirements page says "128 min, 256 recommended", and I have 512. My HD100 startup often is very slow, but I thought it was my clock speed and such, not RAM.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

I find that 1GB of Ram should be considered the minimum to run a Sage server. Yes it can be done with 512mb, but you will run into issues

To be fair, the only issues I have are occasional slow extender start-ups. But nonetheless, since it's such a cheap upgrade....

Where is everyone favorite online place to buy RAM cheaply?

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Where is everyone favorite online place to buy RAM cheaply?

I check Dealnews.com and Slickdeals.com to look for deals. When they come up I mostly end up buying from newegg.com, and sometimes zipzoomfly.

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Where is everyone favorite online place to buy RAM cheaply?

Newegg is number one. Nobody can touch their customer service.

[jkohn]

So how much overhead does an extender add to a SageTV Server? I thought it was just the storage of the client files (properties, STV, etc), but it sounds like you guys are saying there's more to it than that?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by jkohn

So how much overhead does an extender add to a SageTV Server? I thought it was just the storage of the client files (properties, STV, etc), but it sounds like you guys are saying there's more to it than that?

The menus are drawn by the server (if I am not mistaken) and therefore requires more ram on the server and I suppose a bit more processing power (not much of either, but a bit more). All of the true heavy lifting is handled by the extenders, but it is going to use more.

Also, if you feel like your Ram is being taxed, try turning off animation and see if that helps....