Video in Qubes 3.2

[ghbouc...@gmail.com]

Hi.

I often watch videos offline. I download .mp4 files dans I play them in a dedicated VM (debian template) with MPV.
When I launch a video, the VM CPU goes up to 98%, It is quite strange.

Anyone knows how to fix that ?

G.B

[Drew White]

What CPU?

How many threads do you have assigned to the VM?

How much RAM have you assignde to the VM?

If you have memory balancing, how much min and max?

[ghbouc...@gmail.com]

Hi.

I'm talking about the VM "virutal" CPU.

> How many threads do you have assigned to the VM?

8

> How much RAM have you assignde to the VM?
> If you have memory balancing, how much min and max?

Min 512Mo / Max 4096Mo

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 29 June 2016 17:41:49 UTC+10, ghbouc...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi.

I'm talking about the VM "virutal" CPU.

hint: 1 vCPU = 1 thread of the real CPU.

 

> How many threads do you have assigned to the VM?
8

Well, without knowing what CPU is, it is hard to provide complete assistance.

All I can say is, that's a lot of CPU usage, try to make it only 2 vCPU.

 

> How much RAM have you assignde to the VM?
> If you have memory balancing, how much min and max?
Min 512Mo / Max 4096Mo

Set it to not balanced, and only 1024.

Increase it to 2048 if you feel you really have to assign RAM to it.

 

[Chris Laprise]

> --

This touches on a pitfall I found in Qubes: If you play with memory or
device-assignment settings, the vm may end up not have memory balancing
enabled without you realizing it. Then you are running the vm with min
RAM only, and giving it something a bit challenging will cause it to
swap memory a great deal.

The other reason I can think of for very high CPU use during playback
would be that the video is very high res and high quality.

Finally, some players may expect graphics capabilities that are very
different from what Qubes allows. Not all of them will perform
acceptably with minimal graphics support (and they are probably not
tested that way).

Chris

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 29 June 2016 23:48:17 UTC+10, Chris Laprise wrote:

This touches on a pitfall I found in Qubes: If you play with memory or
device-assignment settings, the vm may end up not have memory balancing
enabled without you realizing it. Then you are running the vm with min
RAM only, and giving it something a bit challenging will cause it to
swap memory a great deal.

 
Exactly the thought that crossed my mind to say to do that.

The other reason I can think of for very high CPU use during playback
would be that the video is very high res and high quality.

Full HD video doesn't make THAT much difference compared to low resolution.
It still should not use 8 threads fully.
I can run MPV with 1 thread and 1 GB RAM on Debian Templated AppVM watching a Full HD video with no issue.
  Mind you I am using a high speed SSD. I don't know if that could be the cause either.

Finally, some players may expect graphics capabilities that are very
different from what Qubes allows. Not all of them will perform
acceptably with minimal graphics support (and they are probably not
tested that way).

MPV doesn't need that much. It works fine in my templates with nothing special added.

[raah...@gmail.com]

using vlc to play videos and changing the video output mode to x11, dropped my cpu use from over 60% to 20% maybe it will make a difference for you as well.

[Rusty Bird]

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Hi,

> I often watch videos offline. I download .mp4 files dans I play
> them in a dedicated VM (debian template) with MPV. When I launch a
> video, the VM CPU goes up to 98%, It is quite strange.

Try "-vo x11". mpv sometimes defaults to "-vo sdl", which is very slow.

Rusty
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