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On performance
#31
Nazgulled Wrote:My NVIDIA card is not old...

I can play 1080p content without hardware acceleration and I can't have a smooth skin? I find it odd that no matter how incredibly Aeon is, it's not something that it should required more processor power than a 1080p movie playback.

it's all relative man, I've been on web sites that use Flash that brought my system to a crawl. And they weren't exactly complex. I don't think XBMC's really optimized for super high resolution skins (yet) I could be wrong here though. I'm pretty sure this skin is well optimized, it's not like he worked on it for a few weeks and put it out without testing it. I have yet to see another fully 1080p skin to compare it to, to see which runs smoother. Hopefully some tweeks will come out that will give a performance boost.
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#32
Nazgulled Wrote:My NVIDIA card is not old...

I can play 1080p content without hardware acceleration and I can't have a smooth skin? I find it odd that no matter how incredibly Aeon is, it's not something that it should required more processor power than a 1080p movie playback.

aren't playing content and rendering skin two different things? I mean video playback in xbmc uses CPU right? and skin GPU, that might be why 1080p video content runs smooth and xbmc with aeon stark doesn't?

I have a 8500GT HDMI in my other HTPC, gonna try and put it in to my main one running 1920x1080 and see if it makes any difference.
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#33
HTPC

CPU: Phenon 9550 at 2.5ghz
Board: MSI 780G
Vid: Build in Radeon 3200
XBMC usually latest version at 1080p HDMI

performance is fine, little stutter when moving in cover flow.
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#34
mindweaver Wrote:aren't playing content and rendering skin two different things? I mean video playback in xbmc uses CPU right? and skin GPU, that might be why 1080p video content runs smooth and xbmc with aeon stark doesn't?
I'm not an expert, but since my GPU can be used to playback HD content with DXVA, why can't it run a skin? Because DXVA is directx and the skin/xbmc is opengl? Still, if the GPU has the power to process HD video through directx, that power is probably available to opengl too, no?
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#35
Nazgulled Wrote:I'm not an expert, but since my GPU can be used to playback HD content with DXVA, why can't it run a skin? Because DXVA is directx and the skin/xbmc is opengl? Still, if the GPU has the power to process HD video through directx, that power is probably available to opengl too, no?

Probably a limitation of XBMC itself, if XBMC support hardware acceration this skin would fly, but it's doubtful H.A. was ever intended for XBMC. It's not a lack of power, it's a lack of implementation. Possibly in the future we'll see it added. As far as I know XBMC itself doesn't even support GPU accelerated video playback. So expecting it to accelerate a skin is maybe a tad bit optimistic Smile
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#36
Windows XP SP2
Intel Core2Duo E4500
1GB RAM
GeForce 9800GT
Resolution: 1080p

Absolutely nothing installed or running except XBMC. Aeon performance is smooth in general except for these things:

1) When I click "Movies" I get 2+ seconds of a blank screen before it shows my library. This may be because I have a fairly decent sized library (700 movies).
2) Scrolling. Scrolling in basically all modes is choppy. In Showcase scrolling in the mode where the covers are angled/animated (can't remember what it's called) is significantly choppier than scrolling in the other mode. Wall mode navigating is fine but scrolling is choppy again.
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#37
quebert Wrote:Probably a limitation of XBMC itself, if XBMC support hardware acceration this skin would fly, but it's doubtful H.A. was ever intended for XBMC. It's not a lack of power, it's a lack of implementation. Possibly in the future we'll see it added. As far as I know XBMC itself doesn't even support GPU accelerated video playback. So expecting it to accelerate a skin is maybe a tad bit optimistic Smile
That was not the point I was making...

All I'm saying is that my hardware should handle the skin, there's something else in the middle that's causing it to stutter a bit. I don't believe it's the hardware itself...
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#38
Nazgulled Wrote:That was not the point I was making...

All I'm saying is that my hardware should handle the skin, there's something else in the middle that's causing it to stutter a bit. I don't believe it's the hardware itself...

XBMC is that something else in the middle. Just because your hardware is capable of running it, the code it's running is more important than the hardware. No doubt XBMC SHOULD be able to run this skin smoothly but it doesn't for a lot of us. So no it's not hardware it's XBMC.
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#39
I don't think the "middle" is XBMC... If the "middle" thing messing up the smoothness in this skin for me was XBMC, I think that would be a global problem. Since others don't have the problem, specially others with very similar hardware to mine (not more powerful, not less) and they run the skin just fine, the problem lies somewhere else... Some program, some Windows configuration, some setting somewhere, I don't know...

But it doesn't make sense that it's the hardware because otehrs play it smooth with similar hardware, it doesn't make sense to be XBMC because others, well, play it smooth.

There must be something else interfering...
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#40
Nazgulled Wrote:I don't think the "middle" is XBMC... If the "middle" thing messing up the smoothness in this skin for me was XBMC, I think that would be a global problem. Since others don't have the problem, specially others with very similar hardware to mine (not more powerful, not less) and they run the skin just fine, the problem lies somewhere else... Some program, some Windows configuration, some setting somewhere, I don't know...

But it doesn't make sense that it's the hardware because otehrs play it smooth with similar hardware, it doesn't make sense to be XBMC because others, well, play it smooth.

There must be something else interfering...

what sort of frames are you getting? One person would be perfectly happy getting 23fps saying Stark is running perfectly. While the next getting 23fps says it's running like crap. If we got the same frame rate and I said my setup was running smoothly it would just be a different of opinion. On this box Stark is a little jumpy but not horrible. I haven't done a log to see exactly what my frame rate is, but I'd say it's mid 20's. While I do notice it running kind of clunky I'm sure others would see it and not notice a thing.
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#41
Nazgulled Wrote:I don't think the "middle" is XBMC... If the "middle" thing messing up the smoothness in this skin for me was XBMC, I think that would be a global problem. Since others don't have the problem, specially others with very similar hardware to mine (not more powerful, not less) and they run the skin just fine, the problem lies somewhere else... Some program, some Windows configuration, some setting somewhere, I don't know...

But it doesn't make sense that it's the hardware because otehrs play it smooth with similar hardware, it doesn't make sense to be XBMC because others, well, play it smooth.

There must be something else interfering...

It is a combination of software AND hardware. Someone who has a setup that is similar to yours means absolutely nothing. That small difference can make all the difference in the world.
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#42
Also, AFAIK, frame rate during normal skin usage dosn't even need to be that high. If you have a frame rate of 23 fps and the skin seems jumpy, then it isn't the frame rate causing that.
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#43
Nazgulled Wrote:My NVIDIA card is not old...

I can play 1080p content without hardware acceleration and I can't have a smooth skin? I find it odd that no matter how incredibly Aeon is, it's not something that it should required more processor power than a 1080p movie playback.

I know that video playback now uses both cores but I'm not sure if XBMC does.
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#44
smcnally75 Wrote:It is a combination of software AND hardware. Someone who has a setup that is similar to yours means absolutely nothing. That small difference can make all the difference in the world.
That's what I said...

smcnally75 Wrote:Also, AFAIK, frame rate during normal skin usage dosn't even need to be that high. If you have a frame rate of 23 fps and the skin seems jumpy, then it isn't the frame rate causing that.
I don't believe that. The framerate on screen says how many times the screen is being refresh/second, if the framerate is 20, it's being refresh 20 times/second, if it's 50, then it's 50 times/second. How can the framerate not be the cause? PM3.HD reports a 50fps framerate almost constantly and the skin runs smooth, I know the skins are different, but serves to prove a point.

And I also just happened to find something else interesting...

I normally use XBMC at 1920x1080 @ 50Hz and this is what happens with Aeon:

Main Menu: Around 50fps (smooth)
Music List View: Around 25fps (still smooth but not as smooth as the main menu)
Music Showcase View: Around 20fps but it normally goes below that (not smooth)

I tried to run XBMC at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz and here's what I got in Aeon in the same screens:

Main Menu: Around 60fps (smooth, probably better than the 50fps but I don't notice it)
Music List View: Around 30fps (a little smoother than the 25fps when I run @ 50Hz)
Music Showcase View: Around 20fps but it normally goes below that (not smooth)

When I say "around xxfps" it means that if I don't do anything and just leave the screen as it is, it will eventually keep at that constant framerate. But if I move from one menu option to the another, it goes above or below that value but never too much.

Now, do you notice anything unusual? I do... The framerate in the list view is half of the screen refresh rate. I don't have a clue what this means for real, but at least means something is wrong on my end!
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#45
It's simple: If you can't render a frame in the time it takes to display one (i.e. one frame per 50 seconds or whatever) then VSYNC enabled means it'll drop by half. After that, it'll drop to 1/3 the FPS and so on. Turn off vsync and it won't drop as much.

Aeon has an insane number of controls onscreen simultaneously (around 1200 last time I checked whilst in media views). This increases the CPU load significantly.

Sluggishness moving between items (i.e. while scrolling and the like) is more disk-based slow down than anything else.

Cheers,
Jonathan
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
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