XXHighEnd

I’m seeing some pretty weird CPU usage.  I have my device buffer size set to 64 and the buffer size on my Lynx card is also set to 64.  My CPU appointment scheme is #3.  File split size is 200MB.  I’m playing QAP with Engine 4 in Adaptive Mode. 

Here’s the weird behavior:  On the first track of an album, the right CPU usage fluctuates in approximately 2-second intervals between 1% and 12%.  On the second and subsequent tracks of the same album, the CPU fluctuates in 2-second intervals between 2% and 50%.  If I hit the NT (next track) button, the CPU-usage resets to 1-12% fluctuations, and on subsequent tracks back to 2-50% fluctuations.

Any thoughts?  Does it matter?

By the way, the same thing happens without upsampling, but the range of fluctuations is lower: 1-4% for the first song, and 3-14% for subsequent songs.

Now that indeed seems strange !

What happens if you set the Split File size to 100, so you'll be sure in the middle of a track there's disk access needed (you'll see it on the large cpu spikes as well), and might it then be so that the 50% behaviour starts at the first peak (which will be after (dunno) 50-60 seconds of playback) ?

If not (which already seems likely because the 200 also will access the disk I think), I'm puzzled ...

Reducing the file split size doesn't change the behavior. 

I experimented by trying "special" mode instead of "adaptive", and I get the same behavior where the CPU is much lower on the first track than on subsequent ones. The band of fluctuations in cpu-utilization is tighter: 12-15% for song 1 and then 50-54% for song 2-N, but the difference between the first and subsequent tracks is even more dramatic. 

Is this okay, Peter?  The X3PB log in adaptive mode typically isn't typically showing any errors.

No Danny, this is FAR from okay. As said, I am puzzled. I wish I had that here, so I could dive into it.
During me cracking my brains, if you have anything (maybe) useful to add, please let it know ...

:scratching:

PS: Do you have anything to compare with (another soundcard) ?

FYI, I also notice (in y-6 too) some cpu spikes when changing tracks.

But what bothers me ( Peeter, see update in the "awfully slow" thread) is the slowness, the time it takes to start the first track and the gallery behaviour.

Hi Telstar,

I'm afraid you are doing that to yourself by asking for the ultra low latency, *and* wanting to use the PC at the same time :yes:. It can't be done. In any case it is not related to what Danny has here.

Peter

Edit :
PS: But in the other topic I now see your problems are actually different, as it seems. In any case, it doesn't belong in this topic, ok ?

Don't know if it's usefull, but now  I am back to Y9-5-6 and the CPU is going crazy too.
Soundcard buffer is at the lowest, Q1 = -4 (lowest possible) and the sound is ok (but normal mode).
At start of playing the display goes black and takes some minutes to reappear.
If  I open taskmanager it takes a long time to open and shows nothing.
After some minutes it shows a lot of 100% spikes on al four cores for the complete period available in the graph.

But the music is ok!

The behavior I am seeing in special mode is different from what you’ve experienced.  The CPU-utilization graph on the task manager is so consistently odd that it looks like a sewing machine stitch: 1%-12%-1%-13%-1%-12% at 2 second intervals through the entire first song and then the same thing for the second through nth song only the swings are 2%-50%-2%-53%. The music is fine.

Yesterday I tried changing the buffer sizes but the problem was still there, albeit at overall lower CPU-utilization levels with larger buffer sizes.   I checked with Earflappin offline since I know he has roughly the same set-up, and his system is working normally.  He suggested I do a fresh install of XXHE , which I will try later today.

One other thing I will have to try, however painful, is to reinstall 64-bit Windows 7.  I recently installed 32-bit on top of 64-bit in the hope remote desktop (from my macbook) would be more stable.  Of course it didn’t help, and I never noticed this odd CPU behavior with the virgin 64-bit OS. Of course, I never ran .9-y7 either.  And now Peter is threatening a 64-bit version of XXHE, so I guess I'll want to re-install 64-bit anyway.    :heat:

Danny,

I got this weird behavior after playing with the player-priority, Q1 and split-file size.
You tried these?

Yes, I've tried changing split size and priorities and neither changed this utilization behavior any more than what you'd expect they would.

I just finished the test of re-installing XXHE .9-y7, and I'm getting the same strange behavior.  Next I'll try .9-y6.

Danny - Can you try whether "Copy to XX drive" Yes/No makes a difference ?

Also, you may try Performance Monitor (button on the TaskManager "performance" tab) to see what is causing the 50% cpu, once it occurs.

“Copy to XX drive” doesn’t seem to make a difference.

The biggest CPU-user in Resource Monitor during tracks 2-n is XXEngine3 by a wide margin.   Second is usually System Interrupts. 

I just tried .9-y6 in special mode and the CPU behavior was as I remember it: with a buffer size of 32, the CPU was pretty consistently between 9-11% regardless of track number.   Back to .9-y7 and the same yo-yo usage.  This sort of disproves my premise that it could be related to installing 32-bit Windows 7.  Do you think, however, that it’s worth re-installing 64-bit?

No ...
Regarding what you just wrote ... it must be me, somehow. But how ? ... I will try to find it.

Thanks,
Peter

The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced this must be me; There is just no logic in the driver behaving differently at a next track, while you don't want to know what is different on my side when a next track is occurring. So, *will* find it.
Don't ask me why this only occurs with you though. But there are so many bugs to "create" ...

Notice that 50% is just something constantly looping (within one core).
Peter


PS: Did you try it all without Wallpaper, OSD Text and OSD Tunning Time ? ... it must be related to that (I think) ...

PPS: This all is Unattended, right ? If so, why not post the X3 and X3PB log files ... Grab them when you're sure the 50% showed for some 20 seconds or so.

:sleeping:

I'm running in Attended mode.  Here are the logs from my last run where I played two and a half songs.  The CPU-usage on the first song fluctuated in 2-second intervals between 0 and 14%, and on the second and third song between 1 and 50%.  My buffer size is set to 64 with Q1=1 and using QAP.

Found it !!
This happens with Attended when the Wallpaper is set not to show !
So for now, just set that to show and it is solved.

But I will solve it for real of course.

:heat:

Unfortunately, turning on "Show as Wallpaper" hasn't solved the problem.  I'm seeing the exact same behavior.

And a Wallpaper ?

I had to show "At Attended" too.  Now I 'm getting the same cpu-usage in subsequent songs as I do in song-one. Are the 2-second intervals between 0% and 16% what I should expect?  Should I use a bigger buffer to bring cpu-usage down? I am seeing 0-10 buffer errors per minute, but I rarely hear any ticks or pops.  If I make the buffer larger I start to lose some of the sonic magic. 

By the way, thanks very much for your terrific service!!!

Ah, great Danny. I was disappointed already. But good, not anymore.

Now we know this, at this moment I don't trust what I see from the cpu at all. The point is, the interval is exactly the same for both the 50% case as the 16% (or whatever) case. Even the interval in the first core is so.

But hey, it sounds good here ! hahaha

I gues when I found this one (the bug), I/we will know more.

Okay, Peter.  In the meantime, I'll sit back and listen to some music.