[UNOFFICIAL][RK3228/RK3229][box]Libreelec builds

    Hi, I cleared flash then tried booting on SD but still no luck. I still notice that CPU usage seems higher, around 200-300% when playing either 1080p H264 or H265. It gets particularly high on uncompressed 1080p blurays, and the stuttering is more apparent. Not sure if there's a way I can show dropped frames instead of just cpu usage.

    It hasn't crashed yet though, maybe the lower clocks helped, but I'll update on that more.

    As for the legacy build I use knaerzche's LE 9.2 legacy release here. Specifically

    LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-9.2-devel-20200427213119-b7186bc-rk3228a-mxq4kpro.img.gz version. This boots in SD card just fine. The latest armbian rk322x-box xfce build also boots just fine on SD, but I guess it's too laggy for desktop use.

    Hi Habitual6824,

    thanks for your patience and your help :)

    Hoping it hasn't crashed again, I ask you please to try the following dts

    - rk3229-box-mxq4kpro.dtb.cpu --> I've reenabled 1.4 Ghz CPU clock (with dmc disabled and GPU max 400Mhz)

    - rk3229-box-mxq4kpro.dtb.dmc --> I've reenabled dmc (ddr3 frequency scaling) (with CPU at 1.3Ghz and GPU max 400Mhz)

    - rk3229-box-mxq4kpro.dtb.gpu --> I've reenabled 500Mhz GPU clock (with CPU at 1.3Ghz and dmc disabled)

    so I can try to figure out where the problem lies. Obviously, the important thing is to avoid crashes, but if I can get the most out of our rockchip it's better.

    regarding hardware video decoding, I noticed that you use kodi debug. Try turning it off. If I remember correctly the overlay showing cpu stats forces kodi not to use the best video decoding method (drmprime)

    for booting from sd I don't know what to say. Probably the bootloader I use has some incompatibility with your board. I would need lower level logging via the UART serial port. Anyway, I'll try to take a look at it.

    Ok having tried these once:
    - CPU: crashed after boot, just by navigating the menus

    - GPU: Didn't crash, no significant improvement in playback, or menu navigation

    - DMC: Didn't crash, I think menus were more fluid somewhat, and playback was significantly better as well. Was also able to try some smaller 4k movies that are small enough for the ethernet to handle, and it seems much better there as well. I still think there's a bit of stutter, but I don't know if that's due to the judder or something. The CPU usage is much lower as well during playback.

    I didn't notice any difference with debug logging on/off so I kept it on. Having it off didn't really affect perceived playback for the GPU dtb, and I can see that FPS is higher with DMC on, and lower. Still no SD boot.

    Hi, sorry for the late feedback. I think performance is decent, but I'd like to try a dtb with clocks that are close to stock (1.2Ghz CPU, 400Mhz GPU). I'm not sure if we're trying to reach fluid 4K H265 playback (not reaching remux bitrates), on the current dtb, but during playback of 4K H265, I almost managed to hit 100C on cpu/gpu temps. Luckily I had a upward firing fan on it, which lowered it to around 80C.

    I still also notice some stuttering during 1080p60 H264 playback, which I don't notice as much on the LE9.2 build. Monitoring cpu usage via top, I don't see it going high while playing this file. I also finally got what you meant by performance impact when logging is on, as it's much easier to see it's impact when playing the 60fps file than when playing film.

    I can attach a dmesg of both LE 9.2 and your build, maybe there's a difference there. But still thanks for the work so far, this is already far usable than the initial dtbs you had available :)

    Edit: I'm also doing playback tests via SMB, so I'm not ruling out the possibility of bitrate spikes beyond the eth port's speed on 4k stutters. I tried using a UGREEN usb hub + 1Gbe adapter, but it seems USB 3.0 power requirements keep it from turning on, even with the ax88179_178a adapter fix. So I'll update on that too.

    Hi Habitual6824

    thank you very much for the support you are giving me to make my port better.

    Technically when using hardware decoding the cpu/gpu shouldn't be fully loaded so the temperature rise may be due to the ram clock.

    I can certainly try to improve something, but keep in mind that to lower the price and save on components, the heat dissipation in these boxes is often non-existent. In some boxes there is not even a passive heat sink, and in others, it's too small.

    For the 4k speech, maybe it's better if we try the same thing. So I ask you to try any of these videos

    Samples - Official Kodi Wiki

    both locally and via the network and share results. In this way, if you show me the problematic ones, I try to reproduce them in my box to understand what can be done ((if anything can be done).

    I don't have a 4k TV so I usually see full HD content at most.

    However, I will prepare a dtb similar to the legacy (which will become the default for the other boxes too)

    Thanks again

    Michele

    edit: on mainline kernels, hardware decoding is implemented differently than on official rockchip kernels.

    It's already a miracle that there is very good rockchip support for hardware decoding, and that's thanks to the immense effort of volunteers. This is to say that not everything that is supported by the legacy rockchip kernel, currently works on my port as well.

    Hey guys! I just wanted to try latest version, as the latest I used "LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-9.2-devel-20200427220805-b7186bc-rk3229-v884k" boots fine but its old as hell, unstable and lots of bugs, and when I try to boot with "LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-10.0-nightly-20230206-b1e877a-rk322x" I get the following error:

    I read something about a mutitool to flash the img to the device but cant find it, can anyone tell me why I cant boot and how to resolve this?

    Thanks!

    EDIT: found the multitool, it doesnt seem to boot at all because get a blackscreen. Yet I still get to boot fine with "LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-9.2-devel-20200427220805-b7186bc-rk3229-v884k.img" without issue.

    I use balena etcher for all my Android boxes and Win MiniPCs without any issue.

    Tried all these with the same error:

    LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-10.0-nightly-20220707-e38bfe3-rk322x.img

    LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-10.0-nightly-20221122-32b2e05-rk322x.img

    LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-10.0-nightly-20230206-b1e877a-rk322x.img

    Edited once, last by ochentay4: Found multitool here: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12656-csc-armbian-for-rk322x-tv-boxes/ (February 27, 2023 at 12:27 AM).

    The error you are getting is related to the kernel not being able to detect your sd card (or controller).

    Please try running the dmesg command from the prompt you see in the error phase (connect a USB keyboard to type it) and send some useful info.

    Otherwise I don't know how to help you, the causes of the failed boot can be many. Having a box with nand also depends on what you have installed as a bootloader in internal memory.

    However, as soon as I have some time, I'll do a test by installing legacy libreelec in one of my boxes to try to understand something.

    Quote from ilmich

    The error you are getting is related to the kernel not being able to detect your sd card (or controller).

    Please try running the dmesg command from the prompt you see in the error phase (connect a USB keyboard to type it) and send some useful info.

    Otherwise I don't know how to help you, the causes of the failed boot can be many. Having a box with nand also depends on what you have installed as a bootloader in internal memory.

    However, as soon as I have some time, I'll do a test by installing legacy libreelec in one of my boxes to try to understand something.

    How do I export dmesg output?

    Here it is

    Hi, thanks a lot

    the last test,

    https://ilmich.libreelec.tv/test/LibreELEC-RK322x.arm-10.0-nightly-20230302-b1e877a-rk322x.img.gz

    unfortunately not having the board I don't know how to help you if it doesn't work.

    However, I see that the sd controller is not working.

    This may depend on

    - the controller is not active (strange)

    - you are using a bad or incompatible sd card (with the mainline kernel).

    The rk3229 can also support uhs sd cards but in practice, it depends on the box

    In my build, the speed of the sd bus doesn't go to the maximum to have better compatibility.

    oh yeah now it works. want to remind you that I tried several SD cards, an old 2GB, and 2 differents 32GB all did the same. But this build works! Testing it now!

    Currently running rk3229-box-v88mars-ovclk dtb. Is there any way to install LibreELEC to internal NAND?

    woow thank you so much.

    now read the first post because by default the device is generic.. you need to switch the dts in order to enable ddr3 frequency scaling.. leds etc etc