XBMC resources low?

[CAS]

OK crap I'm back.

So after setting up SMB and sharing to my xbox (latest XBMC version 3.2) the library loaded up and the scraper starting putting in the data and artwork. It's quite a few files (about 800 or so movies). I am using the confluence skin.

The issue here is that I can boot up and run just fine never any issues. Playback was never an issue until setting up the sharing and building that large of a library. Now I can play a video and it works fine but then if I stop that movie and then try to start another it won't run. Also sometimes if I just scroll around through movies and click on one it will eventually time out. It's like I'm running out of resources, but then why will it play sometimes and why did I have no issues before?

Is the skin using too many resources? Even though my drive isn't full is the data/tags from the scraper just too much?

Thanks for any help in advance. Here is the log that shows a movie playing fine and then after stopping and waiting a moment for the system resources to free up. Then I started the same movie again and the playback failed to start. Usually I have to reboot after that to get anything else to play. Any ideas?

http://pastebin.com/embed_js.php?i=LPPRXmq8

[CAS]

Loaded up ALaska rev. to see if that would lighten the load. No avail. It worked better for a while.

Loaded up the same movie a few times in a row, then back to the same problem. While watching in debug mode it seems the RAM keeps going down but those resources never free back up. Hence, I can load the movie a time or two then nothing.

[CAS]

Loaded up confluence lite. Same issue.

I'm going to reproduce it again and post a new log

[Geeba]

Are you switching off unused resources? for example switch off discovery, FTP and hard set your fan speed... don't leave it on auto...

[CAS]

Are you switching off unused resources? for example switch off discovery, FTP and hard set your fan speed... don't leave it on auto...

I was not! Those are exactly the tid bits I've been digging around searching for.

One thing I did notice is that once I have played a movie and then stop it, the RAM never seems to free up again. For example it is always near 12000-16000 free (i'm viewing it in debug mode) and then after i stop a movie it never comes back up past 5000-9000 free and that is when I try to open a movie, it will fail to load. That probably doesn't help but I need to load another log up.

[CAS]

Geeba,
That seemed to do the trick! Thank you! I'll update this thread if anything relevant comes up regarding this issue again.

[byron]

@ geeba...what settings specifically are you using? " fan speed... don't leave it on auto..." the "..." makes me think you know other neat little tricks that you might wanna share

@ CAS... i run my skin in 480, play video content in 720 and that seems to help quite a bit as well. it doesn't look bad at all and i have about 10mb of memory left while browsing my skin with video content going in the background

[AZImmortal]

I didn't realize that you could run the skin at a different resolution from video playback. Where/how do you do this? I would look for it myself but I just moved and just about none of my stuff is set up yet, including my Xbox and TV.

[byron]

just go into system/settings/display and toggle to the res you want for the skin, and then go to system/settings/video/playback and toggle the res you want your vids to play at. my skin has 36mb free memory at start up, and when NOT in library mode i get 12-15mb left after a vid starts. in library mode it gets down to about 8mb, but thats still decent. i'm tellin ya, you really don't notice the loss of quality all that much - you have to keep in mind though, i've literally gone through every xml in my skin and gotten rid of 90% of the <include> tags and replaced them with the actual code from the includes_whatever.xmls. my skin is snappy as hell!!!

[AZImmortal]

I'm sure that I've come across those settings before but I guess I never realized that they independently controlled the resolutions for the skin and playback. Thanks for the tip.