[PlanetCCRMA] Configuring 2.6.11-0.3.rdt.rhfc2.ccrma for 0 xruns...
Mark Knecht
Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>
Wed Apr 13 10:24:03 2005
Fernando & other Planet inhabitants,
I have turned off Pro Tools for a few days and am trying to better
configure my Planet box for more serious recording. The current setup
is:
1) Athlon XP 1600+/Via MB
2) HDSP 9652
3) 1394 OHCI #1 - drive 1 & drive 3
4) 1394 OHCI #2 - drive 2
My intention is to use the built in 'RAID-like' features in Ardour
to split audio across multiple hard drives. I'm still in the process
of getting that set up and tested, but in the process I'm not happy
with *SOME* of the xruns I'm getting from this machine and I want to
make sure I'm doing everything possible to get the best performance.
Under normal, no load operation the machine runs fine with a
setting of 64/2. I can run Aqualung and I see an xrun every few hours
which is no big deal. However if I do copies from one 1394 drive to
another 1394 drive with Jack running I am getting an xrun every 30
seconds like clockwork. I do not know what's causing this and want to
get rid of it.
One thing I did notice was that when doing copies from one drive to
another the machine was bumping up against 100% CPU. It typically was
running at 70% CPU with spikes going higher. Possibly this is normal
CPU usage as I'm sure Linux wants to copy the files as fast as it can.
This may not be an issue during recording as Ardour will limit how
much disk usage it requires. None the less I don't want xruns.
OK, looking through older posts here by Fernando and others I'll
post the info I can think of to show the state of the box:
[root@Godzilla root]# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 6374396 XT-PIC timer 0/74396
1: 11410 XT-PIC i8042 2/11410
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 0/0
5: 9121 XT-PIC ohci1394, ehci_hcd, uhci_hcd,
uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd, eth0 0/9121
7: 1 XT-PIC parport0 0/1
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc 0/1
9: 0 XT-PIC acpi, ohci_hcd 0/0
10: 645 XT-PIC ohci1394 0/645
11: 573308 XT-PIC ohci_hcd, hdsp 0/73308
12: 135937 XT-PIC i8042 0/35937
14: 61930 XT-PIC ide0 0/61929
15: 1428 XT-PIC ide1 0/1427
NMI: 0
LOC: 0
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
[root@Godzilla root]#
NOTE: There are no USB devices on this machine. I may end up disabling
USB totally.
[root@Godzilla root]# cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [default ]: H-DSP - Hammerfall DSP
RME Hammerfall HDSP 9652 at 0xf4800000, irq 11
[root@Godzilla root]#
[root@Godzilla root]# cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.9rc1.
Compiled on Mar 22 2005 for kernel 2.6.11-0.3.rdt.rhfc2.ccrma.
[root@Godzilla root]#
[root@Godzilla root]# /etc/init.d/rtirq status
PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
242 FF 80 -5 120 0.0 SW< IRQ 8
20 FF 60 -5 100 0.0 SW< IRQ 9
407 FF 60 -5 100 0.0 SW< IRQ 5
961 FF 59 -5 99 0.1 SW< IRQ 11
344 FF 50 -5 90 0.0 SW< IRQ 1
263 FF 49 -5 89 0.0 SW< IRQ 12
303 FF 46 -5 86 0.0 SW< IRQ 14
305 FF 45 -5 85 0.0 SW< IRQ 15
411 FF 42 -5 82 0.0 SW< IRQ 10
2152 FF 40 -5 80 0.0 SW< IRQ 7
2179 FF 39 -5 79 0.0 SW< IRQ 4
2180 FF 38 -5 78 0.0 SW< IRQ 3
3266 FF 37 -5 77 0.0 SW< IRQ 6
[root@Godzilla root]#
NOTE: I would think that I'd want IRQ11 to be the highest priority
behind system functions, followed by IRQ's 5 & 10 to give me fast disk
access. How can I accomplish this?
[root@Godzilla root]# lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_seq_dummy 4228 0
sg 38816 0
floppy 58448 0
snd_mixer_oss 21376 1
realtime 5256 0
commoncap 6912 1 realtime
snd_seq_midi 10272 4
snd_seq_midi_event 8448 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 60048 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_hdsp 53796 9
snd_rawmidi 27424 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_hdsp
snd_seq_device 9612 4 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd_pcm 105608 3 snd_hdsp
snd_timer 27524 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 10756 2 snd_hdsp,snd_pcm
snd_hwdep 10528 1 snd_hdsp
snd 68228 18
snd_seq_dummy,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_se
q_midi_event,snd_seq,snd_hdsp,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_h
wdep
soundcore 9824 2 snd
nfsd 215072 9
exportfs 6656 1 nfsd
lockd 62376 2 nfsd
parport_pc 27332 1
lp 12104 0
parport 35912 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 19844 0
sunrpc 142276 19 nfsd,lockd
iptable_filter 2944 0
ip_tables 22912 1 iptable_filter
e100 36096 0
mii 4864 1 e100
dm_mod 60028 0
uhci_hcd 31632 0
ohci_hcd 21640 0
ehci_hcd 33800 0
video 15620 0
container 4352 0
button 6416 0
battery 9220 0
ac 4740 0
md5 4224 1
ipv6 259488 8
ext3 135816 4
jbd 65944 1 ext3
sbp2 23688 1
ohci1394 33540 0
ieee1394 307380 2 sbp2,ohci1394
sd_mod 18320 2
scsi_mod 129736 3 sg,sbp2,sd_mod
[root@Godzilla root]#
OK, here it looks to me like there are many modules that are probably
not needed. uhci_hcd, ohci_hcd, ehci_hcd, video and all the ACPI
stuff. Any reason to think they are causing the 30 second xrun? (APCI
seems likely. I'll try booting without it.
With that I'll stop for now and see what folks recommend as the
right steps to take first. I must say that I haven't even recrded with
the newest versions of Ardour. Probably last time was a month ago, so
I'll be doing that after I get the 3 drives set up and happy.
In the mean time, thanks!
Cheers,
Mark