Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Discussion about the MiniTiouner board and the MiniTiouner Digital ATV Receive Software. See also http://www.vivadatv.org/index.php
F6DZP
Posts: 217
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by F6DZP » Fri May 24, 2019 12:08 pm

Is there a formal way of reporting the bug in the LAV Decoder?
yes
https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/issues/287

Jean-Pierre F6DZP

g0mjw
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by g0mjw » Sat May 25, 2019 7:43 am

Jean-Pierre,

I notice that when Minitioune is running the CPU core it is using runs at 100% regardless of anything. This is a problem as it uses the maximum power it can. On a desktop this is of little consequence, but on a laptop it flattens the batters quickly. Is there any way to stop it using all the available CPU resource all the time? This is the same whether it is a Pipo or an 4GHz i7. Almost like it is in a loop running as fast as it can.

Mike

F6DZP
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by F6DZP » Sun May 26, 2019 5:41 am

Hi Mike,

I have tested Minitioune CPU% using my PIPO_8.
After starting, Minitioune use about 22% of CPU waiting for a signal.
I receive the H265 1280x720, with video rendering, the CPU% is during first mn between 22% and 34%
(perhaps the way Win10 shows the CPU% is not instant accuracy?) so I wait to get more values
after 1 hour (always decoding H265) the Minitioune CPU% is between 40% and 55% (overall PIPO CPU used is 66% - on the picture 69 % with Paint also running)
PIPO minitioune CPU used during H265 decoding.jpg
PIPO minitioune CPU used during H265 decoding.jpg (129.74 KiB) Viewed 5664 times
...
I stop the video transmission, Minitioune CPU% go down to a value between 31% or 40%.(overall PIPO CPU used is 52%)
...
PIPO minitioune waiting CPU used .jpg
PIPO minitioune waiting CPU used .jpg (137.8 KiB) Viewed 5665 times
...
using my destop with I7, Minitioune CPU% is less than 15%
...
desktopI7 minitioune waiting CPU used.jpg
desktopI7 minitioune waiting CPU used.jpg (148.06 KiB) Viewed 5658 times
...
...
I never got a 100% CPU as you say.

I used Minitioune v0.9beta8 and a MiniTiouneV2_BATC

First question for me: why do you have 100%CPU used on you PC or laptop ?

There is a part of CPU% use by Minitioune, another part used by the decoder (Mpeg2, H264, H265)
we must distinguish these 2 parts.
* main Minitioune %CPU is used for measuring (%lock, RF level, MER, constelations, oscilloscope, derotator scan..)
* decoder can use a big %CPU, depending the codec used, the decoder filter used and the GPU you have ( recent CPU have hardware decoder for H264 and H264)


Jean-Pierre F6DZP

g0mjw
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by g0mjw » Sun May 26, 2019 7:08 am

Interesting - it regularly uses 100% of one core thread. Even when not receiving anything. I have 8 and as soon as Minitioune runs the CPU as a whole goes to 12% - its not so easy to show - it was on CPU6 - you can see it is fully loaded until I stop Minitioune. The problem with this is it bumps up the core frequency to maximum.I postulate it is grabbing as much resource as it can get, from 1 CPU thread which is why you see the figures you do.
Capture.JPG
Capture.JPG (41.66 KiB) Viewed 5654 times
If you look at the CPU as a whole, it is 12% but as it is saturating one core - that's what flattens the battery and causes the laptop to get hot.
Capture2.JPG
Capture2.JPG (93.88 KiB) Viewed 5654 times
I don't know what is causing it but it is the same on all machines. The above were without a signal being received, so the codec is dormant.

Mike

F6DZP
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by F6DZP » Sun May 26, 2019 7:52 am

Yes , you have 80% (not 100%, not fully loaded) CPU on only one processor ( you have 8 processors).

The thread that works here is the measurement thread that read all data from the NIM, every 100ms, we have 512 I2C/USB access just for constellations
(512 points displayed), + others measurements...

if the whole CPU% is 12% , I am not sure that because one processor is 80% occupied and the other 2% occupied, the consumption is much higher than
if we have 12% CPU occupied on all 8 processors for a whole 12%.
so what could the difference in consumption?

I could divide the measurement thread in different threads, I'm not sure the gain in consumption could be high.
I could ask to display less points on constellation...
I could stop all measurement...
And just for the case we are using a laptop without power supply.

It works well on a PIPO or tablet with little processor, so I think it is not essential to spend time today on that. ( but could be taken in account in future?)
better to work on dual receiver.


Jean-Pierre F6DZP

g0mjw
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by g0mjw » Sun May 26, 2019 8:43 am

Hi Jean-Pierre

You are right it is only 12% of the total, but they way these core i7 CPUs work means they throttle up and down so it is throttles to the max 4 GHz and they immediately the CPU fan speeds up and power consumption increases on my laptop. I only have 4 processors but Intel calls them 8. Maybe it is just me but odd it is like that on all laptops. It could be the CODECs but they are not used when idle are they?

I am not sure why this is happening, but it's the sort of thing that happens in a tight loop like you might use for reading something as fast as you can. The compiler should normally be sorting this out automatically. This 512 actions every 100mS should not tax an i7 at all. Maybe it's sitting in a loop waiting for the 100mS to pass? This might also explain why the Gui is sometimes slightly slow to respond? Where is the Application->ProcessMessages() called? (Slow being a relative term here, its not really slow, just not always instant)

Dual receiver - yes please. When we have more instances, the CPU load is going to be interesting.

Mike

F6DZP
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by F6DZP » Sun May 26, 2019 9:14 am

you have 4 processors but multithreaded, that means that these processors can process 8 threads in parallel, so pseudo 8 processors.
maybe it's sitting in a loop waiting for the 100mS to pass?
it's a timer that is used.

Jean-Pierre

F6DZP
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by F6DZP » Mon May 27, 2019 5:45 am

Hello,

The 80%CPU used for one "processor"seems to be specific to Win10.

If I use Win7_32 (most of my PCs are Win7) the result is not the same. Using an I5, Minitioune occupied 14% CPU, whole CPU used is 22%
.
desktop-I5_Minitioune waiiting CPU used 14 percent .jpg
desktop-I5_Minitioune waiiting CPU used 14 percent .jpg (171.67 KiB) Viewed 5582 times
.
and the distribution of %CPU for each processors is more equal:
...
desktop-I5_Minitioune waiiting CPU used .jpg
desktop-I5_Minitioune waiiting CPU used .jpg (188 KiB) Viewed 5584 times
...

So, it is not Minitioune software that decides to use 80%CPU in your case, but Win10, (or the way that Win10 show CPU% used is not real ?? or strange? perhaps this pseudo 8 "processors" are half real processors and that should say that 80%pseudo CPU = 40% real CPU ?...)
.
By my side I consider that Minitioune using only 14%CPU is not a shame, when I look at the way the different processors are working under Win7, I don't see any warning that tell me that one processor is 80% or full used.
.
the way these core i7 CPUs work means they throttle up and down so it is throttles to the max 4 GHz and they immediately the CPU fan speeds up and power consumption increases on my laptop
I don't know what to do when Win7 and Win10 seem not to work same way and show so different result, my software is the same.
When a software use only 12 or 15% of CPU, I think we cannot say that it is a great power supply consumer.

Jean-Pierre F6DZP

g0mjw
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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by g0mjw » Mon May 27, 2019 6:21 am

There must be a reason - the problem it causes is the boost. A it maxes out the CPU core which goes to its maximum clock rate. This is serious as the CPU idles at 1 GHz but as soon as minitioune runs it boosts to 4GHz. Power consumption grown enormously. It seems we are not the only ones and as Widows 7 is end of life, this is going to impact more and more.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... rohardware

I checked the core affinity and it is enabled across all CPUs. Running in Windows 7 compatibility mode doesn't help. Maybe it is something to do with the compiler? Is it a 32 bit vs 64 bit thing?

Mike

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Re: Minitioune V0.9beta8 is available

Post by G8GKQ » Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm

Hi Mike

It doesn't seem to always occur in Windows 10 64 bit. Here's my lowly I3 running at 40 - 50% across all the cores while decoding the QO-100 beacon.

So, there is something different between your configuration and mine.

Dave, G8GKQ
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