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ntarantino · 2011-01-22, 11:07

I finally got the ATV(black) and was able to get everything up and running.

All I want this thing for is XBMC.

When I use XBMC there is a very noticeable difference was the interaction. Very sluggish compared to 1st gen. Any ideas what is causing this?

By the way, this was the first time out of the box ATV too. Could it be a bad install? Thoughts?

melagodo · 2011-01-22, 11:10

ntarantino Wrote:I finally got the ATV(black) and was able to get everything up and running.

All I want this thing for is XBMC.

When I use XBMC there is a very noticeable difference was the interaction. Very sluggish compared to 1st gen. Any ideas what is causing this?

By the way, this was the first time out of the box ATV too. Could it be a bad install? Thoughts?

I'm experimenting the same, like others here. But still, we've finally got xbmc Wink

melagodo

ntarantino · 2011-01-22, 11:11

Agreed!

I am more than excited that files are all playing, just wanted to make sure I wans´t losing my mind.

shuntros · (This post was last modified: 2011-01-22, 11:48 by shuntros.)

I'm finding it more than a little sluggish to be honest. Idle AppleTV.app shows CPU use at <1%, yet when I launch XBMC it idles at around 25% whilst doing nothing.

Code:
PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS  RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE

  134 top          2.9%  0:00.87   1    22     56   524K  1488K  1060K    16M 

  131 AppleTV     25.2%  0:19.03  20   215    577 11828K  3012K    37M   163M

When I play a video (in this case 720p) it pretty much redlines:

Code:
PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS  RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE

  134 top          1.6%  0:05.16   1    22     56   528K  1488K  1064K    16M 

  131 AppleTV    106.9%  1:31.85  24   226    906 49328K+ 1984K+   94M+  228M+

Video buffers for around 10 seconds initially, then stutters like mad and only plays at about 4fps.

My media server is connected via powerline networking (gets throughput of >80Mbps) and atv connected via 802.11n wireless. Just to check it's not a bandwidth problem I connected my MacBook Pro direct to the atv's ethernet jack, it then had no need to buffer at all, but the playback was still the same; ie. unwatchable.

Any comments or ideas?

melagodo · 2011-01-22, 11:50

shuntros Wrote:]

Video buffers for around 10 seconds initially, then stutters like mad and only plays at about 4fps.

Any comments or ideas?

I first run into the same problem!
After a couple of xbmc crashes managing my library, SD content plays now just fine.
I still have buffering problem with 720p and 1080p though....

melagodo

shuntros · (This post was last modified: 2011-01-22, 12:16 by shuntros.)

melagodo Wrote:I first run into the same problem!
After a couple of xbmc crashes managing my library, SD content plays now just fine.
I still have buffering problem with 720p and 1080p though....

melagodo

Just tried some standard def stuff and that works fine. 720/1080 not a hope at present it appears; not highly compressed stuff anyway. Maybe mkv's may fare better.

**Shoesy** · 2011-01-22, 13:03

PM3 skin seem to help with interface stuttering.

I haven't had too much problem with playback from my SMB shares apart from the initial buffer...

p.s. thanks Davila et al- you're the greatest.

pmcd · 2011-01-22, 13:12

No problems with 720p streamed from a WHS. No stuttering, buffering, etc... The playing part is great. It did crash when I tried to play the birds60 test clip.

But the GUI is very sluggish. Perhaps it is because I can't get it to be fullscreen in the preferences ( but it is fullscreen). Not sure but far less responsive than the ATV1 for GUI. Playing is another story.

philip

shuntros · 2011-01-22, 13:38

Depends what you're playing it would appear.

If you've got 100/1000 ethernet you can play HD mkv files without a problem (my 11n wireless buffers every 10 seconds or so with a 720p mkv, but hard wired is fine). However they're not heavily compressed so not as much work for the ATV to do. It coughs like hell when you try and put HD WMV (yuk) or XviD files through it.

pmcd · 2011-01-22, 19:42

shuntros Wrote:Depends what you're playing it would appear.

If you've got 100/1000 ethernet you can play HD mkv files without a problem (my 11n wireless buffers every 10 seconds or so with a 720p mkv, but hard wired is fine). However they're not heavily compressed so not as much work for the ATV to do. It coughs like hell when you try and put HD WMV (yuk) or XviD files through it.

Perhaps the codec used in the xvid file is not h.264? Then you wouldn't get hardware decoding and do ...

I do have a gigabit network though I don't see what advantage that is given that the ATV2 and most media players( effectively all really) are 100 Mbs devices.

Philip

topfs2 · 2011-01-22, 19:50

ntarantino Wrote:I finally got the ATV(black) and was able to get everything up and running.

All I want this thing for is XBMC.

When I use XBMC there is a very noticeable difference was the interaction. Very sluggish compared to 1st gen. Any ideas what is causing this?

By the way, this was the first time out of the box ATV too. Could it be a bad install? Thoughts?

The GPU in ATV2 is slower than that of ATV1. We will obviously continue to optimize but a lighter skin (like SLiK) might help out quite a bit.

Numus · 2011-01-24, 17:14

topfs2 Wrote:The GPU in ATV2 is slower than that of ATV1. We will obviously continue to optimize but a lighter skin (like SLiK) might help out quite a bit.

Ya but the processor is much better then ATV2 vs ATV1.. that should ofset the difference...

Anyone try a reduced texture skin like the ones made for the original xbox?

CrashX · 2011-01-24, 17:31

topfs2 Wrote:The GPU in ATV2 is slower than that of ATV1. We will obviously continue to optimize but a lighter skin (like SLiK) might help out quite a bit.

What about the GUI fixes you did last summer ?

topfs2 · 2011-01-24, 17:38

CrashX Wrote:What about the GUI fixes you did last summer ?

They might help if the skin utilize it properly but it also depends quite a bit on the GPU, the one in the beagle it didn't help as much as wanted (50% increase on average in confluence, much higher variance in fps though). When we have time we will most likely try this out. The fixes can't be merged in to mainline atm since it trades GPU for CPU (lots of extra processing to determine what to render) which is obviously far from optimal on the majority of HTPCs atm (ION etc). When we move to a more event driven processing and rendering it can be merged in without any downside on any platform.

spencers · 2011-01-24, 17:46

What about enabling DDS fanart? Would that help with the ATV2, as it does with my ION setup?