processor maxed

Forum: Multimedia
Topic: processor maxed
started by: gnuts

Posted by gnuts on July 04 2004,04:41

I've got a HD install of DSL on pentium 120 Mhz 48Mb ram toshiba satelllite pro. I finally got the mp3 files into a directory and can play them with xmms, but the cpu meter reads 100% and the sound is crappy static crackily. it used to play them on Winamp just fine. Can anyone help me out? (I'm a total noob, so simple and clear would be great!) thanks.

Posted by dbarl on July 04 2004,16:13

My Satellite Pro 420CDT (99 mhz) chokes on anything encoded higher than 64kbps. Perhaps a different player would help, especially a non-gui one. To rule out any config issues, I'd try to play a low-bitrate mp3, either one you have or Apps > Sound/MPEG/VoIP > XMMS > Download Low bandwidth mp3 streams.

Posted by cbagger01 on July 04 2004,16:59

You could try a few things:

(1) Try the command line mp3 player. Type "mpg321" inside an xterminal window.

(2) Try upping the CPU priority of your music player. Some of them contain menu options to do so. Otherwise you will need to use a command line utility like 'nice' to do the job.

(3) "Doc, my arm hurts when I bend it backwards. Doctor: Then don't bend it backwards" Apologies to the Marx brothers, but don't try to do more with your computer than it is capable of doing. For example, I don't use my Pentium 3 computer for software HDTV decoding.

Good Luck.

Posted by gnuts on July 04 2004,21:56

I'll try those, but it ran winamp in windows 95 and played 128kbps just fine. would converting to .ogg help? do you know how I can get command line not in a window from a HD install? it doesn't give me boot options anymore.

Posted by cbagger01 on July 05 2004,16:19

Converting to .ogg will just make things worse.

ogg is a great format because it is an open standard, but it is more processor hungry than mp3

I would expect that you could get similar performance out of mpg321 when you run it inside an Xterminal window.

However, you should be able to get into a command prompt by editing your lilo configuration file and adding the "2" boot appended boot command. Search these forums for more details.

Also, you could set your default init runlevel to init 3 or init 1 by assuming the "root" user authority and editing your /etc/inittab file

But the quick and dirty way to get to the command prompt is to either:

"Exit the Window Manager" from the menu, or

press CTL-ALT-BACKSPACE

When you want to return to the Xwindows, just type "startx" on a blank line and hit the ENTER key.

Good Luck.

Posted by cbagger01 on July 05 2004,19:41

FYI,

Running a hard disk without DMA accelereation will cause the CPU usage to spike during disk access.

Try the following from an xterminal window, where /dev/hda is replaced by the name of your hard drive. It is usually /dev/hda:

sudo su
hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda
exit
exit

Good Luck.

Posted by gnuts on July 05 2004,20:42

I tried the DMA command and got this response:

/dev/hda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
using_dma = 0 (off)

the prompt reads "root@box:/#"

Thanks!

Posted by cbagger01 on July 06 2004,04:56

It sounds to me like DMA is not allowed for either your IDE disk controller or for your hard drive.

You can get more information on your hard drive by typing:

sudo su
hdparm -i /dev/hda
exit
exit

about supported modes. But it appears to me that you are out of luck with regards to DMA.

Posted by AwPhuch on July 06 2004,17:45

You guys are missing the point
< http://www.rt.com/man/hdparm.8.html >

Always go back to the man page if you have trouble...there are tons of options to use...

"hdparm -tT /dev/hda" give you your harddrive speeds in case you wanted to know

More ram might help as well

Brian
AwPhuch