[mark007]

If you enable DDS, you'll see a HUGE improvement in any skin's responsiveness:

advancedsettings.xml:
<useddsfanart>true</useddsfanart>

There's a few threads out there that go into detail about why using .dds files results in the performance improvement you'll see once you convert to those files.

Thanks for that and that helps but my argument is that disk reads and writes should be done in a smarter way to perhaps get rid of the need for such workarounds / tweaks. There seems to be so much room for improvement it would be of benefit to everyone if xbmc didn't just read data from disk right when it's required as it's often not going to read it quick enough to prevent the smoothness of the GUI suffering.

To me it's like a tom-tom telling you to turn left 0.5 meters from a junction instead of preparin you for it in advance. Hopefully a not too distant xbmc can also prepare itself for data that is about to be needed instead of getting itself in a twist at the last second withthe GUI slowing down as a result.dds just buys it more time but it's not a long term solution.

[contentedbloke]

I too have this issue. I'm using Night Skin with Dharma 10 and have a fairly fast system with an Intel Q6600 CPU & 3GB RAM. Whenever I browse my TV Shows or Movies library, there's a significant lag in both the audio beeps as well as the transition from one title to the next. As someone else pointed out, when the left / right key is kept pressed, some of the posters appear empty as the system is not able to read the images on time.

I have only about 70 movies and about 10 TV shows, yet this problem is pretty obvious. I read somewhere that the audio lag would be fixed when the audioengine is being rewritten. I hope that the graphics are also fixed.

[mark007]

Although I created the trac ticket to have a look into improving xbmc skin performance, it hasn't been assigned to a future build yet... I don't know if its just that no developers are interested in looking at it or none of them have any ideas / competence to implement improvements... would love to see skin performance improvements in 11.0

[DanMan]

Does installing multiple skins slow down your current skin in use?

[pecinko]

Does installing multiple skins slow down your current skin in use?

Nope.

[zepfan]

You could always not use Windows!

[freakalad]

I've built myself a fairly beefy (*ULTRA*-skinny Ubuntu) box, running Aeon MQ2 @ Dharma, which works pretty well, but the fans (CPU & GPU) would rev up like a jet-engine under load, making the viewing experience a bit.... tiresome.

I've now gotten myself an Apple TV 2 (ATV2) - something that's smaller, "sexier" & *MUCH* quieter, but comes with sacrificing sheer grunt (so no MQ2 - I've tried). I've settled on the lightest skin for the platform - xeebo (would like something else with a bit more "flash").
Unfortunately menu transitions are still somewhat painfully slow: 5 - 15+ seconds.

All data is pulled over LAN (SMB in most cases); I've also tried NFS on the Ubuntu host.

I really don't have content dispersed, & basically falls into 4 volumes: movies, tv, music & pictures.

What I'd *really* like, and what would make the whole experience seem a *LOT* more "snappy", is maybe some sort of aggressive pre-caching of content.
Maybe make very low res thumbnails & an initial index of say, 100 items, that could be *quickly* be referenced when changing menu option/navigation, rather than loading everything. That way, the new screen comes up quickly, populated with some very basic content, allowing me to continue navigating *quickly* while the rest of the index is being built up in the background.

This was a problem & minor annoyance on my "beefy" box, but has become really pronounced on the new ATV2.