Sage placeshifter poor performance

[gregmac]

I just installed SageTV 7.0.23 on a Ubuntu Lucid 10.04.1 system. The backend seems to work fine, and remote clients (running Windows 7) work quite well. The frontend on this system though (placeshifter, I guess) runs like absolute garbage.

The system is relatively new, it's an AMD Athlon X2 240 (2.8 Ghz dual core), with 3GB ram.

I enabled openGL acceleration, but it's still noticeably sluggish when navigating the menu, and you can actually see the 'steps' of the animation - it is not at all fluid.

I'm using openjdk-6-jre (rather than sun JRE) 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1, if that makes any difference.

Is this a lost cause, or can the placeshifter client actually perform reasonably on linux?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by gregmac

I'm using openjdk-6-jre (rather than sun JRE) 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1, if that makes any difference.

Wow, are you actually using openjdk for the server as well? I've had nothing but trouble with openjdk. I'd highly recommend using the sun jre.

However, even using the correct jre, the linux placeshifter is underwhelming. At least on my system, the gui is quite slow, and the OSD flashes rapidly & causes video corruption when something is playing. As soon as the OSD disappears, playback is fine. OpenGL does not work at all for me.

I do 99.9% of my viewing on an HD300, so this doesn't really matter to me, but it is annoying.

Drew

[gregmac]

Yeah, I'm using openjdk. I'll try switching to the Sun one. In the absence of anything but Sage telling me I needed to pick one, and given what is happening with Oracle and Java right now, I picked openjdk.

Doing further reading, Placeshifter seems just to just perform poorly in general. I've given up on the idea of continuing to use the server to run the UI. Unfortunate, since this means I need one more piece of hardware compared to what worked with Mythtv, but at least I can add low-power low-cost HD300's as opposed to expensive, low-power PCs (or slightly less-expensive but higher-power-consuming PCs).

[drewg]

Originally Posted by gregmac

Yeah, I'm using openjdk. I'll try switching to the Sun one. In the absence of anything but Sage telling me I needed to pick one, and given what is happening with Oracle and Java right now, I picked openjdk.

The problem is that Sage really only tests on the Sun Java VM. I've seen all kinds of weird bugs when using other Java VMs. If you want to use a different Java VM, try the IBM one. I ran that one for years. At least in my environment, it was about 2x as fast as the Sun JVM.

Drew

[loonsailor]

Originally Posted by gregmac

Unfortunate, since this means I need one more piece of hardware compared to what worked with mythtv

Yes, it's another piece of hardware, but for me that additional piece of hardware is what I love most about Sage. It's cheap, silent, tiny, uses almost no power, runs wireless (supposedly - I haven't tried this myself), looks good, and attaches to any old tv. My server lives in the basement where I don't need to think about it. I don't need to mess with LIRC or any weird remote control stuff because, with the HD boxes, remotes just work.

Don't curse the extra box. Embrace it!

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by drewg

If you want to use a different Java VM, try the IBM one. I ran that one for years. At least in my environment, it was about 2x as fast as the Sun JVM.

Drew

What drove you back to the Sun JRE?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

What drove you back to the Sun JRE?

I wanted to minimize the "weirdness" in my config for the V7 beta cycle so my bugs would be taken seriously, and not just chalked up to running a different VM. Also, V7 fixed a bug (DVB ringbuffer size too small in linux) that was driving me to the IBM JVM due to its smoother garbage collection. Last, between V7 & upgrading from an HD100 to an HD300, I don't notice much difference between the IBM and Sun JVMs any more.

Drew