Suggested buffer settings for Raspberry Pi 4 4GB version

1st Official Post

    So, the topic says it already: Libreelec barely needs 500 Megs of RAM when running, so a lot of RAM could be used for buffering for the 4GB version of the Pi 4. Which settings for advancedsettings.xml would you suggest?

    Joerg

    Most would highly disagree because they say three times the amount stuff.

    But if you watch your memory using the on-screen data, you'll see that's far from true, nothing ever gets close to a 3x rollover let alone a 1.5 rollover.

    But on a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4, you can honestly and safely go with a 2GB buffer / cache (below).

    But again, some would argue against it, but what have you literally got to lose but nothing by trying it out.

    Mode: 1

    MemSize: 2147483648

    Factor: 5 (if you require this setting)

    Edited once, last by MoreBloodWine (August 26, 2020 at 5:17 AM).

    Thanks, I changed advancedsettings.xml according to your settings. But where do I actually see how much buffer is being used? When I say "free" it says that only ~300 Megs are used...

    Whatever button brings up the on screen data display during playback, you can pause a movie, and let it fill near the entire buffer with those settings. But using a keyboard, I believe it's the C button.

    But it will vary by device and how you connect / interact with it.

    The osd also, for me anyway. only shows what is being used.

    But u can still pause the movie. Minimize it and go to system info to see all the free/used mem.

    When the buffer is full using those settings. You'll see the mem stuff come to a standstill and sometimes twitch back and forth between a single percentage but never increase any further. From there, even if all you can se is used based on the screen you're on. Free mem isnt hard to calculate if your starting with 4g and subbing what you know it already takes after boot.

    Also. Make sure your tags are right which are...

    <advancedsettings>

    <cache>

    <buffermode>1</buffermode> <memorysize>2147483648</memorysize> <readfactor>5</readfactor>

    </cache>

    </advancedsettings>

    I will say you may need to tweak the memory size a bit, it just depends on what else you have running on that system.

    Edited 5 times, last by MoreBloodWine (August 26, 2020 at 5:55 PM).

    What's wrong with the default caching mechanism? The following photo shows the actual RAM usage on my rpi box:

    The value of 334M is what you will see in kodi's interface (the green color in the mem bar). It doesn't mean that the box uses at this moment only 334M. You also have the blue and yellow colors, which correspond to buffers and cache respectively. When you access files, the two will grow and at some point they will use almost the whole free RAM space. Even if you don't see it in Kodi interface, it doesn't mean the RAM is wasted because nothing is using it.

    Quote from joerg2366

    ... But where do I actually see how much buffer is being used? When I say "free" it says that only ~300 Megs are used...

    I'm unsure, but wouldn't it be seeable under /proc ?

    maybe

    cat /proc/meminfo ?

    or under the related process number(s) of Kodi (?) under /proc