Increasing performance of UI on Pi4, SDCard brand? Overclocking?

1st Official Post

    Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the UI perform particularly snappy?

    Video playback is fine, the UI with aura skin at least, still kinda not ideal.

    I'm curious if a reasonably priced high performance SD card will make the UI better? If so, what brand is the one you're all using?

    I use the flirc, no fan case, I'm ok with mild overclocking if necessary.

    I purchased the Pi4 18 months ago and I'm still unhappy with the performance of the user interface.

    I have not yet updated to Kodi 19, as my understanding is, its a huge change which breaks many add-ons and I assume my favourite aura skin is no good on it.


    Anyone figured this out? 720p forced UI does help, but it's quite ugly.

    If anyone says Kodi 19 is a huge Pi4 increase, cool, I'll consider it sooner but still intend to wait fair while :(

    Edited once, last by FeFiFoFum: Merged a post created by FeFiFoFum into this post. (March 6, 2021 at 3:26 AM).

    • Official Post

    I find K19 generally better than K18, but then I also don't think the K18 is sluggish. I notice a large difference in navigation scroll performance between IR devices and a BT device and remotes using a flirc dongle; but the same difference exists in K18 too.

    Support for that skin (Aura) seems to have stopped so you will run into problems sooner or later, try something that is still supported instead.

    Quote from PANiCnz

    USB boot with a USB SSD adapter. Far superior to even the best SD card.

    I mean heck ok, that's a bit fancy! but, would it genuinely provide higher performance? there's little point in me doing it, if it won't actually help.

    I have spoken with Chewitt before about the GPU drivers on the Pi 4 not being great on LibreElec 9 as well, but Ithink this is a long term problem.

    Quote from chewitt

    I find K19 generally better than K18, but then I also don't think the K18 is sluggish. I notice a large difference in navigation scroll performance between IR devices and a BT device and remotes using a flirc dongle; but the same difference exists in K18 too.

    This is more about rendering times than input lag (in my opinion) it it's either the CPU, GPU or the disk read for each thumnail.

    As much as the SSD idea is cool, it becomes bulky and combersome - does anyone have any data quantifying a performance increase with much better disk performance? It 'feels' more CPU and GPU ish but I'm willing to try.

    (Would prefer a slick MicroSD for speed TBH but anyhow)

    Quote from Klojum

    In a long video listing, the RPi4 already scrolls much faster and smoother than an Intel / Generic device like my Gemini Lake box despite the more "oomph" it has... ?(

    This is absoloutely not the case using the Aura skin with 75TV shows and 2200 movies.

    However, I LOVE aura and will stick with it as long as I can. It's a very powerful and clever skin.

    I particularly like the 'up next' style widgets I can drop at the front 'next episode of TV show' and 'newly added series' - the layout is wonderful, thumnail size is good, the menu is logical. My wife hated Kodi before Aura and now she at least tolerates it.

    Edited 2 times, last by FeFiFoFum: Merged a post created by FeFiFoFum into this post. (March 6, 2021 at 9:46 PM).

    Hi,

    I think your problem is not with LibreELEC, but with the skin itself.

    I just got a new RPi4 that is meant to upgrade my actual RPi3+OSMC I have been running for years.
    Due to the Kodi 19 situation you mention above, I ended up installing LibreELEC 9.2.6 on it, an it runs great. Faster and with less CPU usage, specially h265, but also the UI.

    I read your message and decided to test Aura myself and let you know how it goes in a PRI4 system that has just been built 2 days ago.

    And the short answer is: it doesn't.

    I followed this instructions to install: Add-on:Aura - Official Kodi Wiki

    I did it twice, and it always gets stuck on "Initialising Skin..." If you scape this it moves into "Loading Home menu..." but the home menu is missing items (Movies and TV shows).

    When you exit settings, you lose contro and need to reboot LibreELEC via ssh>reboot.

    I didn't look any further, but it is clear to me that this skin has problems. MatteN mentioned above it's support has stopped. And things are going to get a lot worse with Kodi 19, as python2 is not supported anymore.

    If you do not like Estuary, you will have to find again some other skin your wife likes.

    My advice: make sure it doesn't use python2 or at least that they have it in their roadmap. Otherwise you will be in the same situation again when you move to Kodi 19.

    I also suggest you stick with 9.2.6 for now, and use a spare SD card to test LibreELEC v10+ before deciding to upgrade.

    About your question about the SD cards: I really doubt it will make any difference.

    With a fast microSD card, my system boots in 20s and is fast and snappy.

    With my slowest microSD card (a card I cannot use for Kali for how slow it is), my system boots in 30s and is fast and snappy.
    My understanding is that once booted, LibreELEC loads mostly everything in memory. I personally use my slow card for LibreELEC and save the good one for other tasks on other RPis I have around.

    Regards,