dual core or quad core AMD processors

[tvmaster2]

I have been using a dual-core AMD Athlon 2.9 processor for a few years.
It's fine for Sage playback thru media extenders.

However, lately I've started adding iPad apps, HBO Go Netflix, Playon into the equation, and I've noticed extreme jerkiness/sluggishness when you request to playback a HD stream on the iPad, in addition to whatever live TV is running thru Sage. Requesting a stream for a lower resolution device like an Android phone causes no problems.

Streaming from my home network on the iPad, directly to HBO Go, etc, in HD, causes no problems. Only when a HD app makes a request to the Sage server (Playon - Air Video HD)

Would a quad-core help to alleviate this problem, and is live transcoding the reason for the bottleneck?

4 gigs of ram in a W7 32bit box (need 1394 channel change, so that's it for ram). Video card is Gigabyte on-board HD4200 Radeon.

So, would a quad-core eliminate the sluggishness? What kind of frame rates does the server have to offer up for two, simultaneous HD streams: 200fps?

[KryptoNyte]

What's the current processor usage when you experience the sluggishness?

[SWKerr]

If I recall Playon recommends a 4x CPU. I have an i5 4 core on my main server and I have noticed that if I am compressing a BluRay I get that kind of playback problem on both Plex and Playon. Plex seems a little better under load than Playon but they are essentially re-encoding video on the fly so cpu would be important.

So I would say it is likely you need a 4 Core. If you have Comskip or something cpu intensive running you might try disabling it to see how it works. Intensive I\O can use significant cpu so 2 cores really are not that much past the basics. There is a Systems test built into Playon that might tell you something as well.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

What's the current processor usage when you experience the sluggishness?

100% for a couple of minutes, then it bounces back and forth between 85 - 100 %, when two HD streams are used

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

If I recall Playon recommends a 4x CPU. I have an i5 4 core on my main server and I have noticed that if I am compressing a BluRay I get that kind of playback problem on both Plex and Playon. Plex seems a little better under load than Playon but they are essentially re-encoding video on the fly so cpu would be important.

So I would say it is likely you need a 4 Core. If you have Comskip or something cpu intensive running you might try disabling it to see how it works. Intensive I\O can use significant cpu so 2 cores really are not that much past the basics. There is a Systems test built into Playon that might tell you something as well.

Thanks. It passed the system test, but I don't believe I had two streams active.
Air Video seems to be able to stream a HD file, but it transcodes to SD on the fly, which apparently isn't as taxing?