RuneUI on (non-smart) TV

[hondagx35]

[hansh64]

Hi Frank,

Sorry I forgot to mention that: I am using USB audio!

Edit: tried to increase Rsize and Wsize to 524288, added some other NFS parameters and tried to play the files concerned from USB stick (FAT32 formatted) but still some occasional "plops".

Maybe some kernel parameters should be altered (took a look at the orion_optimize.sh script)? As said before the original RuneAudio 0.3b didn't cause these plops.

Thanks,
Hans.

[hansh64]

Hi Frank,

Just for experimenting I run mpd (standard from repo) on a 11-year old Dell Latitude D610 laptop, single core Pentium Mobile (max 1.7 GHz, ondemand running only at 800 MHz) with minimal (headless) ArchLinux (32-bits, latest) and standard (not realtime) kernel. I use the USB 2.0 ports on the docking station as the laptop itself only has 1.1. With this configuration I detect no plops anymore with HD-audio.

Maybe the plopping on my RPi2 has anything to do with kernel parameters (latency etc.)? Using original RA 0.3b still has some (although less) plopping problem but produces slightly better sound (more body).

(Will also try Lenovo T410 laptop with Fedora Workstation 23 and everything else loaded (Gnome, etc.)).

Thanks!

Hans.

[hondagx35]

Hi Hans,

thank you for the report.

I will do some testing, butI have to get a usb dac first.

Frank

[hansh64]

Hi Frank,

Did some "cheating" by experimenting with Moode. I found out that the plops were completely gone, however I noticed that the basic installation of Moode uses the RPi2 at the maximum frequency (900 MHz by using force_turbo=1) and uses a larger default buffer size for MPD (audio_buffer_size "4096"). Applying both settings to the original RA 0.3b config made the last occasional plops disappear!

Next few days I will also experiment with these settings on the image you last sent me (with the Midori browser).

Did you get your hands on an USB DAC already?

Greetz,
Hans.

[hondagx35]

Hi Hans,

many thanks for reporting your results here.

As it does not harm i will implement this (force_turbo=1) in the new image.

Yes i made some tests with a really cheap USB DAC.
I did not recognize any plops while playing, skipping or changing songs.

BTW: A new image for the RP3 will be available soon.
This image will also work with RP2 (local browser included).

Frank

[PeteB]

[hansh64]

Hi Pete,

With force_turbo=1 the frequency is set on my RPi2 to 900 MHz, both when playing or idle. When omitting this setting the RPi is set to the ondemand governor, which means CPU frequency can fluctuate between 600 and 900 MHz based on system load. However, playing with the ondemand governor with hires FLAC files (24/192) (so force_turbo=1 remarked out of the config.txt) does not increase CPU frequency and CPU load doesn't go beyond 7% or 8% in my case. I play my FLAC files from a NFSv4 connected server (2006 hardware! 3.0 MHz Pentium 4).

Maybe staying at 600 MHz might be the cause for the occasional plops when playing these hires files requires more CPU for a fraction of a second than the ondemand governor can respond to.

In my case force_turbo=1 did the trick!

Greetz,
Hans.

[PeteB]

Thanks Hans, good to know. I thought the Pi would work at the higher operating frequency while the playback continued. Obviously not, and I can't get a continuous reading of that from the RaspiCheck app, cool as it may be.

Regards,

Pete