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PatK
Team-Kodi Member
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It's an old dog PC, teaching it new tricks.... humm. For starters disable the RRS feeds, but in general pull up the OSD (keybaord o command) while watching a video and look for the bottle necks.
Your log file: The page you are looking for does not exist.
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Weird... I use an old 2.40Ghz Core 2 Quad 6600 on an old Asus board with 3GB RAM and Win 8.1. My graphics is supplied via nVidia Geforce 610. KODI runs lovely.
What is VLC like on that Dell?
What else do you have running? Do you have all the Dell crudware on there still, or have you stripped it back to a bare machine with a fresh install? Have you been to Dell Support to grab all the drivers? Ditto with AMD and their R7 240 drivers?
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Yeah, I appreciate it's an old PC, but if my significantly older Revo can run it way better, I'd expect this to do so as well.
In every other aspect, this PC is much faster, it plays game much better, so Kodi is a surprise.
When I get back from work tonight I'll do the RSS and OSD things, and post a new log file link that works.
VLC runs just fine, and playback isn't an issue in Kodi, it's the UI that is a problem.
It's a fresh install, so no Dell crapware, Steam is running as well, is that going to drain much away from Kodi when it's just in the background?
I must confess I haven't grabbed drivers from dell, I might give that a try tonight too.
I've got up to date R7 drivers installed.
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Oh, and thanks for the help guys!
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Yeah, I updated to the newest BIOS already. I've got no yellow question mark issues, and you're right about Windows Update.
I'm also doing audio over HDMI, so I'm going to bother with that update I don't think.
Yeah, I've got correct drivers for the card from AMD.com, they updated themselves recently, and my performance in everything else is just fine.
My current thinking is that it is most likely to do with where the images and information for the library is stored, but I don't know much about this. I'm leaning towards this because the problem is caused by library scrolling, and is worst in TV shows where the data is densest.
Thoughts?
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2015-05-16, 15:24
(This post was last modified: 2015-05-16, 15:25 by BatterPudding.)
Trivial\stupid thoughts:
* In the BIOS have you disabled the onboard AUDIO and VIDEO?
* In Windows Control Panel \ Sounds is this now just listing the single sound card?
* Got any USB devices hanging out of broken USB ports? Broken USB cables? Broken SATA cables?
* Hit eject on the DVD drive - make sure there isn't a scratched\broken disk in there. (Yeah... sounds daft... but I have seen it happen)
* I would reinstall the AMD drivers and follow the custom options in the installation package. Then install *just* the drivers and avoid all the auto-updating and other helper apps. I'd even skip all the 3D stuff unless actively using it on this screen.
* Is the "blip blip" noise on when you scroll the library? Have you been messing around with a few too many settings in the Audio and Video options? Have you accidentally enabled a feature your hardware doesn't support?
Deeper testing of KODI
The "images and information in the library" is stored in %APPDATA%/Kodi which usually means your C drive. Is the hard disk cleanly defragged? Plenty of free space on it?
I saw a simple idea for testing library and settings issues. Try this.
* Close KODI.
* Go to %APPDATA% and locate the KODI folder. This is where ALL of your settings, addons, database, library, textures, everything is stored.
* RENAME KODI to KODI-HIDDEN
* Now start KODI. It will start up as if it was a new installation. As it starts, it will reinitialise all of its settings. And have a nice empty library.
Give this a kick around. When empty of data, is it feeling snappy?
Add a single source with only a couple of TV shows.
Now is it still feeling snappy? Or has the lag kicked in?
Now try adding everything in again. What is it like now?
This experiment lets you know if there is anything fundamental about the hardware that is wrong. It also lets you check it isn't a dodgy add-on or a bad setting.
Once you have finished experimenting, you can put your original settings and data back by CLOSING KODI again. Then return to %APPDATA%. Now rename that newly created KODI folder to KODI-TEST. And rename your original folder from KODI-OLDHIDDEN back to KODI.
Now restart KODI... and if the stuttering all comes back... then you know it is something about your KODI config.
Does that test make some sense? This method of testing lets you swap back and forth between "clean" KODI settings and your "dirty" settings without having to loose any of your library.
The way you describe your stutter sounds more like video GUI issue that reading in images issue to me.
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Ok, I guess you might call this progress.
Disabled onboard audio etc, as per the stupid/trivial section. No joy, but at least it eliminates those possibilities.
Testing of Kodi has revealed it is to do with adding content.
'Out of the box' so to speak, running confluence and browsing an empty Kodi, I get 16-20 FPS, which whilst still lower than my Revo, is presumably to do with the resolution I'm running (1080p) as opposed to 720p on the Revo's TV. Correct?
As soon as I add a single TV show (30 Rock, 134 episodes), it slows right down to 8-10FPS browsing episodes within the show.
Could there be a reason for this other than the relative slowness of the PC? I don't understand why it would be the case, given how much faster this PC is than my Revo.
Thanks for all your help.
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Actually, just tried running at a lower resolution on the Optiplex's TV to see if that made any difference. It didn't.
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2015-05-18, 11:27
(This post was last modified: 2015-05-18, 11:29 by BatterPudding.)
Sounding like some kind of issue bringing up the artwork itself? Is that art online and therefore a possible networking issue? Or is there a hard disk issue here?
Networking - what is HD Streaming on YouTube like? Damaged cables? Check driver - maybe try out Dell's Vista driver?
Have you tried without Steam running? Or at least go into Steam and make sure it has either fully updated or fully paused. Stop it from hammering your network when KODI is trying to pull in the new images.
I have Steam installed on my KODI PC, but I don't let it run all the time. It is not visible by the task tray and not set to Start with the Computer. I do notice that it can kick off some enormous updates at times.
Hard Disk - check event viewer for any NTFS\ATPI\DISK errors in case the hard disk is failing and spluttering.
What else is running on the desktop? I had an old PC the other week where an iTunes install was causing strange problems because bonjour was broken. So I stripped out everything Apple\Bonjour\iTunes related. Made a noticeable difference.
Have you thought about killing Aero on the Windows desktop?
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i am having the exact same problem as you.
my pc is old dell optiplex 755, C2D E6600, 2gb ram, AMD R7 R240. Previously using on board graphic got no problem at all, so i assume the problem is with the graphic card.
now still trying to find the best driver for this GC that can run kodi smoothly.
will update u if i found the suitable one, but will be glad if others can give solution too. if still cant, then i might switch back to on board graphic.
thanks!
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You are not going to want to go back to On Board video on that old Dell as your AMD card will be a certain improvement over the basic Intel graphics. Especially as the onboard graphics will steal more of your precious system memory whereas the AMD card has its own memory to use. Looking at the specs online, even the cheapest version of that AMD R7 240 has 1GB of RAM onboard.
