[gizmotoy]

Hello,

I recently installed the latest wide release of Eden (i.e. from website, not a nightly build) under Windows on the latest Mac Mini hardware (2GHz i7 Quad, Intel HD3000 Graphics, 10GB RAM). I'm noticing something unusual when I use Aeon Nox as my skin.

Essentially, any UI navigation animation that requires loading up a large image is choppy. This includes switching between the main sections on the home screen, or within poster walls if I enable Fanart. The same poster wall with Fanart disabled navigates smoothly. Interestingly, if I cycle between a small subset of the main menu items, it's also perfectly smooth. It's almost as if it can cache 2-3 of these and load them immediately. If I scroll through the menu continually in one direction, though, I get the choppy behavior.

I know the video card isn't the greatest, but it's handling full-bitrate Blu-Ray rips just fine. I wouldn't have thought a static image would trip it up, especially with so much RAM available (only about 2GB used out of 10GB).

Is there anything I can look at to try to figure out what's going on or squeeze out some extra performance? I disabled the Fullscreen in a Window option since I read that can cause problems, but had no luck.

Thanks!

[prawnee]

Dirty Regions?

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Dirty_regions

[phil65]

wow... my 5 year old first gen c2duo with 2.1 ghz is faster than a new mac mini
graphic cards doesn´t matter. skins only depend on cpu.
is your artwork stored locally?
tried dirty regions? disabled bg effect in settings? disabled the full-width widgets? tried openelec?

[gizmotoy]

I hadn't read about dirty regions before, but it sounds promising. I'll try that first thing.

phil brought up a good point in that I'm accessing a file server that's remote to the HTPC and accessed via the network. The posters and fanart are stored there, though I'd be perfectly happy if a copy of them was brought locally into the library or something and sped up the UI. Either way, that doesn't explain the main menu.

I did disable the background effect. I'm not sure about how to disable the widgets but I'll figure it out. I tried to disable some things like Next Aired, but I'm not sure if I did it right. Which widgets are full-width?

As you can tell, I'm new to XBMC and trying to get my bearings. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll let you know how it goes.

[gizmotoy]

No good news to report, unfortunately. Dirty Regions seemed to help some of the other parts of the UI seem snappier, but had no effect on these obvious choppy animations. I assume that's because it's redrawing the entire screen as it changes the background image, so there's no savings in using dirty regions.

I went through the skin and settings and disabled everything I could find. Still no luck.

This should be plenty of horsepower to display an image, I don't get it. Any other ideas? I'll look into OpenElec, but I'm not sure it'll get along with a Mac or if it has HD audio support on this hardware (the reason I'm using Windows in the first place). I'll need to do some research.

[phil65]

No good news to report, unfortunately. Dirty Regions seemed to help some of the other parts of the UI seem snappier, but had no effect on these obvious choppy animations. I assume that's because it's redrawing the entire screen as it changes the background image, so there's no savings in using dirty regions.

I went through the skin and settings and disabled everything I could find. Still no luck.

This should be plenty of horsepower to display an image, I don't get it. Any other ideas? I'll look into OpenElec, but I'm not sure it'll get along with a Mac or if it has HD audio support on this hardware (the reason I'm using Windows in the first place). I'll need to do some research.

no idea. must be something system-specific, most people here use nox on much lower-powered platforms.

[gizmotoy]

Cool, at least that helps me track it down. I'll take it to another part of the forum then since it appears to not be skin-specific after all. Thanks for the help.

[phil65]

Cool, at least that helps me track it down. I'll take it to another part of the forum then since it appears to not be skin-specific after all. Thanks for the help.

they´ll probably send you back here.

[gizmotoy]

Cool, at least that helps me track it down. I'll take it to another part of the forum then since it appears to not be skin-specific after all. Thanks for the help.

they´ll probably send you back here.

It looked like it would go that way at first. I have cleared Nox as the source of my issue, though. I tried the OS X port of XBMC, and Nox works perfectly. Menus are 10x smoother, even with all widgets and background effects enabled. Screens with fanart, even though it's still on the network, are extremely snappy.

So thanks for your help. Nox is a great skin, I just have to figure out what's up with my Windows install. Thanks again!

[johnjohn1981]

Cool, at least that helps me track it down. I'll take it to another part of the forum then since it appears to not be skin-specific after all. Thanks for the help.

they´ll probably send you back here.

It looked like it would go that way at first. I have cleared Nox as the source of my issue, though. I tried the OS X port of XBMC, and Nox works perfectly. Menus are 10x smoother, even with all widgets and background effects enabled. Screens with fanart, even though it's still on the network, are extremely snappy.

So thanks for your help. Nox is a great skin, I just have to figure out what's up with my Windows install. Thanks again!

i take it you are running window$ through bootcamp?
if so try installing the graphic drivers from nvidia and see if that helps

[gizmotoy]

they´ll probably send you back here.

It looked like it would go that way at first. I have cleared Nox as the source of my issue, though. I tried the OS X port of XBMC, and Nox works perfectly. Menus are 10x smoother, even with all widgets and background effects enabled. Screens with fanart, even though it's still on the network, are extremely snappy.

So thanks for your help. Nox is a great skin, I just have to figure out what's up with my Windows install. Thanks again!

i take it you are running window$ through bootcamp?
if so try installing the graphic drivers from nvidia and see if that helps

That's correct.

This box has Intel HD3000 graphics. Unfortunately I tried with both the latest Intel and Apple drivers. The behavior is the same for both.