Sage & High CPU Useage?

[rwc]

I've got a P4 2.8Ghz w/ 512 ram and 1 PVR-350

When sage is running, it chews up 50% of the cpu without me even watching anything! Is this normal? How can I decrease the load on the CPU?

thanks!

rwc

[ukmgranger]

This doesn't sound right!
Does the CPU usage go up when you start watching TV?

[rwc]

Nope! that's the weird part...

It stays around 50% with a recorded show, a dvd, or a dvd dumped to the hard drive.


rwc

[ukmgranger]

With my system Sage uses about 30%. I think people are saying that about 10-20% is the norm.

is the CPU usage still high when Sage is sleeping?

[jphhughes]

Make sure you have SageTV configured to use the 350 TV out so it in fact is using the hardware decoding. I have a 350 with 2.8 and it never goes above 20% when reording or viewing livetv.

[salsbst]

Originally posted by rwc
I've got a P4 2.8Ghz w/ 512 ram and 1 PVR-350

When sage is running, it chews up 50% of the cpu without me even watching anything! Is this normal? How can I decrease the load on the CPU?

thanks!

rwc

What % of that is SageTV using (see Task Manager)? When sleeping, with a PVR 350, SageTV should definitely be below 10%.

EDIT: unless it is doing something like compressing to DivX or marking commercials in the background.

[kny3twalker]

Why are you all having so high of CPU usage
I am not recording at MAX quality but very high quality 4.25 GB/ hr and my CPU usage with VMR9 NVDVD in SageTV is only 15-25 % usage


MAX quality will make a little difference but both of you are running high CPU usage

ANY ffdshow or post processor running?

and while sleeping 0-2% CPU usage

have any of you tried running msconfig
to see what is running at bootup

start menu
run
msconfig

then the start up tab

[rwc]

Thanks for all the replies....

The task manager was just saying 50%--regardless of if I was watching a show, the size of the window, or if it was sleeping.


I don't have ffdshow running (yet)...

The strange part is that last night when I checked, it was down around 6%.... maybe sage was doing someting "in the background" (scheduling?) Is there anyway to find out if this was the case? Maybe it was just a ghost in the machine?

I'll keep an eye on it to see if it happens again.

Thanks!

rwc

[kny3twalker]

maybe sage was doing someting "in the background" (scheduling?) Is there anyway to find out if this was the case?

are you using the default STV
or are you using a custom one made the members here?

have you looked in the task manager to see what is running?

do you possibly have spyware installed?

have looked at the msconfig?
I posted this just a second ago

do you have any spyware tools?

are you using other software other than SageTV on that computer?

[rwc]

I'm using the default STV right now.

No spyware that I know of...I've run adaware and it all seems clean

I'll double check msconfig when I get home, but I'm 99.9% sure everything's clean.

I use IE, powerstrip, and Media Player on occassion, but that's it.

No games, no office stuff, no graphics programs...just stuff for sage


There was a comment somewhere (I should search for it) about a console in sage...what does it show?

rwc

[web_maven]

You did not respond to "jphhughes". With the PVR350 you must use the Composite or SVideo output on the PVR350 if you use any other output like your main video card tv out then the PVR350 will use software decoding. Confirm that your video output is from the PVR350 if not then that's your problem.

Raymond

[rwc]

Yes, I'm using a ATI Radeon card (I forget the model #)...

I'm displaying at 1280x720 via the video card...if I turn on the pvr-350 output, will the decoding be hardware decoded, but still using the video card at the correct resolution?

rwc

[salsbst]

I think some folks have missed the fact that this is not about decoding or resolution or anything playback-related:

When sage is running, it chews up 50% of the cpu without me even watching anything!

[stanger89]

Originally posted by rwc
Yes, I'm using a ATI Radeon card (I forget the model #)...

I'm displaying at 1280x720 via the video card...if I turn on the pvr-350 output, will the decoding be hardware decoded, but still using the video card at the correct resolution?

rwc

No, the 350 decoding, only works on the TV out on the 350. If you're using the VGA/DVI/Component out on your Radeon then you are using software decoding.

[rwc]

Wow...that's stinky!

Is there any way to get hardware decoding outof a video card?

[salsbst]

Video cards can assist at the hardware level with decoding... some more than others. Depending on which Radeon you have, it is probably assisting to one degree or another. At the resolution you are at the 350's TV out isn't worth anything. During playback, my CPU regularly rises above 50% doing VMR9 at 1776x1000i. That's not something I worry about.

Anyway, none of this is related to your 50% CPU usage if you observed that when you weren't playing back video. That, if it is truly coming from Sage (the processes tab in Task Manager will tell you) is something to investigate if it recurrs/persists.

[rwc]

Thanks for the help...but HOW do I investigate? Just start going throught the performance monitor and try and find the bottle neck?

Is there some sort of log or console I can use?

thanks again!!

rwc

[Opus4]

SageTV will periodically rethink the upcoming recording schedule, especially after you watch a show, delete one, schedule a recording, etc. Depending on how many channles, favorites, & so on, sometimes this could take while & can cause your cpu usage to jump during that time. It should go back down to near 0% usage after a short time. Does that fit what you are seeing? In post #8, you mentioned that the cpu usage had gone back down.

- Andy

[salsbst]

Well, the processes tab of the task manager tells you how much CPU time each process is consuming. The next time you have CPU usage at a level that seems too high, jump to the task manager to see what the culprit is. If you find that it is Sage (perhaps you have found that but it wasn't clear from your posts), then try to observer how long it lasts.

I don't really know how much CPU it takes, nor how long in real time, to do things like guide data updates and scheduling. But my impression is that a sustained (more than a minute) period of 50% CPU usage by Sage seems a bit much... but even if it DOES use the CPU that much, that's not necessarily a real problem unless some other interactive application is starving for the CPU. Do you have any actual problems, or are you just trying to be vigilant? Sage's background tasks should have a low thread priority and thus shouldn't starve other higher priority processes, so there may not be a problem with 50% usage.

[rwc]

Yep...that sounds like it exactly!

thanks!

rwc