[AbRASiON]

LibreElec 9.2.0

I  updated a Raspberry Pi 3B to a 4B.
Considering the 4B is rated as a 4k device and I have a 1080p TV, I was convinced, the UI of Kodi / LibreElec would be wonderful. Dead smooth 60fps.
As it stands, it looks about 15 to 30% better than my Pi3B 

It's most noticable scrolling a list of thumbnails up and down, it's juddery, looks like 20fps maybe?
I know it's not a software / driver bug, kinda - because if I drop to 720p it's very smooth, so it's probab not a setting?
This is both 50 and 60hz modes.


Am I doing something wrong? I updated my Kodi machine specifically in the hope of making my wife find the Kodi experience more pleasant, I have a hard time getting her to use it.
Pi 4B, 4GB

Anyone seen this? Any comments? Is the UI being improved for frame rate?

[Klojum]

As it stands, it looks about 15 to 30% better than my Pi3B 

I'd say that is about the CPU performance increase going from a RPi3 to RPi4.

Personally I would be more concerned about video playing quality than overall GUI speed.
The GUI is fine for me when running Kodi via Raspbian Buster on a RPi4 4GB.

in the hope of making my wife find the Kodi experience more pleasant, I have a hard time getting her to use it.

Really..? Fractions of seconds are an issue when using a HTPC application? Because we're not talking about playing a high-speed game on a Windows 10 computer here. The RPi should also have a GUI option where it sets the menu fps rate (although that is for during a video, afaik).

How fast does a GUI need to be for you: scrolling at 30 lines a second? Faster than that? Read speeds from an SDcard can very a lot per manufacturer/brand/etc, so thumbs can display that stutter before being displayed. Some skins are 'heavier' which take their toll on the CPU. Try using a SSD via USB3.0, and use LE's storage partition from the SSD.

[Klojum]

Also thanks for posting your 'question' on the LibreELEC forum as well, and not waiting for an answer.

[AbRASiON]

As it stands, it looks about 15 to 30% better than my Pi3B 

I'd say that is about the CPU performance increase going from a RPi3 to RPi4.

Personally I would be more concerned about video playing quality than overall GUI speed.
The GUI is fine for me when running Kodi via Raspbian Buster on a RPi4 4GB.

in the hope of making my wife find the Kodi experience more pleasant, I have a hard time getting her to use it.

Really..? Fractions of seconds are an issue when using a HTPC application? Because we're not talking about playing a high-speed game on a Windows 10 computer here. The RPi should also have a GUI option where it sets the menu fps rate (although that is for during a video, afaik).

How fast does a GUI need to be for you: scrolling at 30 lines a second? Faster than that? Read speeds from an SDcard can very a lot per manufacturer/brand/etc, so thumbs can display that stutter before being displayed. Some skins are 'heavier' which take their toll on the CPU. Try using a SSD via USB3.0, and use LE's storage partition from the SSD.   

The frame rate drops below even 30 fps when scrolling up or down, it has a 'judder' to it and would be better if it it was higher.
This isn't about what's 'acceptable' my Pi 3B+ was 'acceptable'  I've purchased a device, capable of 4k Kodi and which benchmarks significantly faster and I'm running it at 1/4 the resolution it's capable of.    Yet it's still not a huge amount better.

What I really hoped to acheive was "slick and nice feeling"  (Like my Intel NUC) which is great with Kodi.


Also, pretty sure it's GPU, not CPU.     Because if I drop to 720p, it's vastly faster.

[AbRASiON]

Also thanks for posting your 'question' on the LibreELEC forum as well, and not waiting for an answer.

The more places I ask, on new years day of all days, the more likely I am to get results.   Smarmy responses are not required.

[Klojum]

You could know by now that there are pretty good response times on both LibreELEC and Kodi forums. And as multiple Kodi members are also active on the LibreELEC, doubleposting the question seems overkill.

[AbRASiON]

You could know by now that there are pretty good response times on both LibreELEC and Kodi forums. And as multiple Kodi members are also active on the LibreELEC, doubleposting the question seems overkill.

I was not aware of this at all, infact I didn't know LibreElec existed until 12 months ago and as you can see from my registration date, I've been using Kodi a while.
I'm kind of surprised it's not a subforum of here.

Regardless it seems my options are to wait and hope and also overclock, I'm hesitant to do, we'll see.

[Klojum]

I'm kind of surprised it's not a subforum of here.

There are two LibreELEC threads by dev Milhouse on the Kodi forum, specifically for nightly builds regarding RPi and Generic.

LibreELEC is a stand-alone project, but of course has big ties to Kodi development.

[AbRASiON]

I'll head there, Millhouse has been very helpful at times, thank you.

[AbRASiON]

I have had very little time in the last 3 months - anyone know of any progress?

[popcornmix]

The Pi4 does suffer from tearing in GL updates which makes animations appear less smooth. This is caused by the fkms driver.
Kodi 19 on Pi4 will use the kms driver which doesn't have this issue. The gui looks smoother as a result.

The kms driver is under active development but is not yet stable enough for release.

[AbRASiON]

Hello popcorn dude, thanks for the reply - I missed this somehow.

Obviously it's very difficult to balance making a flawless and slick UI, with targetting super low hardware that Kodi (and LibreElec) is capable of - so thanks for the hard work.
I'd kill for hard 60fps mode (I'm only 1080p) or even very very slight motion blur in the UI (like very slight!) but, alas these are super unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Either way knowing it'll improve soon is nice.   I'll start following Kodi 19 news. (Isn't that a big change? 64bit only etc?)

[popcornmix]

You can test with milhouse nightly builds.
The builds are pretty stable but note Kodi 19 has moved to Python 3 for addons, so you may want to check if addons that are important to you have been updated.

[AbRASiON]

You can test with milhouse nightly builds.
The builds are pretty stable but note Kodi 19 has moved to Python 3 for addons, so you may want to check if addons that are important to you have been updated.

Yeah I might cook up a spare MicroSD for fun but I'd miss my skins / addons -  by doing so, kind of makes it difficult to identify my specific user interface issues.
Maybe I'll mess, closer to launch date - I imagine it's gonna be a while considering the huge changes.

[AbRASiON]

You can test with milhouse nightly builds.
The builds are pretty stable but note Kodi 19 has moved to Python 3 for addons, so you may want to check if addons that are important to you have been updated.

Yeah I might cook up a spare MicroSD for fun but I'd miss my skins / addons -  by doing so, kind of makes it difficult to identify my specific user interface issues.
Maybe I'll mess, closer to launch date - I imagine it's gonna be a while considering the huge changes.

I tested version 19 on a Pi3 and the performance seemed very nice to be honest - it wasn't even a 3B+ just a 3B
Many addons / skins not working, understandable - but considering "wife factor" I'll be very, very patient so the transition is easy for her.

Love all the hard work