Linux [SOLVED] Eden judder/skipping/hiccups, was OK in Dharma

Hello everyone,

First of all, I love XBMC, it's an amazing software. Thanks to all developers.
I've been using XBMC 10 over Ubuntu 10.10 on a ZOTAC HD-ID11 flawlessly for over an year.
I upgraded to XBMCbuntu 11.10 with Eden, and it's working fine, but there are a few performance problems.

Most noticeably is when starting a video. The first few seconds are horribly disychronized, then it "catches up" and runs smoothly.
However, long videos always have a frame and audio skip around the 30 minutes mark. It's not a big deal, mostly a second, but it's still annoying nonetheless.

I didn't have any of these issues in Dharma.
I have tried JumJum script (here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=70068). Interface performance has certainly increased, but the issues with video are still there.


My specs:
ZOTAC HD-ID11 (Intel Atom 510, ION 2, 2gb RAM)
HDD: 500gb 5400rpm, 64mb cache (2 partitions, 1 for the system 10gb and media 490gb, both using ext3)

I wonder if the problem is with the HDD/filesystem setup?

Thanks in advance for all the help

I don't think your hdd setup is a problem as long as your swap partition is big enough. I always install my systems with separate boot, root, swap, and home partitions and don't have problems.
Can you post a full debug log including the 30 minutes mark when the issue shows?

Hey, thanks for the reply.

So I was watching a video yesterday and the judder happened after 15 minutes. I was not running debug mode, but I got the log nonetheless. Hope it helps.

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=1720

I will run the same video using debug mode later.

This line caught my attention:
23:15:07 T:2859006832 WARNING: CALSADirectSound::GetSpace - get space failed. err: -32 (Broken pipe)

I think that's when the hiccup happened.

There may be many reasons for this problem, In order to track this down further I would recommend to remove the points of uncertainty.

- what's behind the gputemp command? If there is a call to nvidia-settings, please remove.
- for the time of investigation switch to default skin
- you have setup XBMC to use ALSA. completely remove pulse audio from the system

Then lets look into a debug log.

Hi

I'm having the same hiccups with my setup.

My setup is:
Shuttle XS35GT (nVidia ION2)
2 GB Ram
64 GB Kingston SSD

After a clean install I did the following:
Changed audio to HDMI
Changed output to custom = plughw:1,3
Changed passthrough to custom = plughw:1,3
Unmutede the spdif in alsamixer

I'v also tryed installing openelec 2 (based on eden)
And it's also having the same problems.

- Christian

(2012-04-20 16:56)DeathscytheDK Wrote:  Hi

I'm having the same hiccups with my setup.

My setup is:
Shuttle XS35GT (nVidia ION2)
2 GB Ram
64 GB Kingston SSD

After a clean install I did the following:
Changed audio to HDMI
Changed output to custom = plughw:1,3
Changed passthrough to custom = plughw:1,3
Unmutede the spdif in alsamixer

I'v also tryed installing openelec 2 (based on eden)
And it's also having the same problems.

- Christian

Your problem is caused by the powermizer issue on Shuttle XS35GT. Nvidia drivers > 190 don't let the GPU go max performance. Most likely a BIOS problem. I am in contact with Shuttle and hopefully they can provide a fix soon.

(2012-04-20 17:20)FernetMenta Wrote:  Your problem is caused by the powermizer issue on Shuttle XS35GT. Nvidia drivers > 190 don't let the GPU go max performance. Most likely a BIOS problem. I am in contact with Shuttle and hopefully they can provide a fix soon.

Realy? Thx for the quick answer

DeathscytheDK: check out this: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthre...le&page=4. It might be a similar problem with Shuttle.

So,

I disabled the gputemp in advancedsettings.xml, changed the skin back to Confluence. I checked my system for pulseaudio, but the only thing related was libpulse0, which xbmc depends on. (It's a standard XBMCbuntu install.)

I've played the same video again in Debug mode. There is some skipping in the beginning and after 15 minutes. I stopped around 25 minutes.

Here's the log, hope it helps: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=1762

Your first assumption seems to be correct.
I am looking over all reports related to judder/stuttering in particular on the Openelec forum: http://openelec.tv/forum/131-vdpau-nvidi...=420#31672
I don't think your problem is caused by the XBMC application itself, otherwise this issue would show up on every system. OE comes without pulse audio installed this is why I suspect PA. Not sure whether PA is on XBMCbuntu but it's default on Ubuntu. Have you tried apt-get remove pulseaudio* ?

There is a minor problem causing this hardly noticeable stutter every 3.5 minutes or so. The display's refresh rate is 23.971 instead of 23.976. You should be able to cure with a custom modline forcing the refresh rate to 23.976.