Re: q ad mp3-software

[Mike McGuire <mjm19@po.cwru.edu>]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:56:54AM +0200, Robert Waldner wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I´m on a rather slow machine, a Pentium running at 50 MHz. This is just 
>  fine for working, and should be reasonably fast for playing mp3´s.
> 
> With mpg123 (stable) CPU-usage is ~ 70 %, but I get random clicks and 
>  other nasty distortions. Ok, renice mpg123 to -3, so it should be 
>  served before anything else (other than swap et al). No change. xmms is 
>  out of the question anyway, it eats 50 % CPU on my P3/850MHz-notebook, so 
> I don´t wonder that it doesn´t live up to the task on the slow box (not 
>  even when setuid root´ing it and using the "realtime priority"-thingie).

A friend of mine's got a setup where he wrote a wrapper 
or something for mpg123 where he sets it's priority to 
something ridiculous. Higher than 'nice' will set it, I 
think he said it preempts the kernel in some places. ;) 
Needless to say, this makes the box useless for anything 
else while playing mp3s. :)  His is a plain old Pentium 
laptop, not sure if it was that slow even (50MHz). Yeah. 
So you can look into scheduling system calls, sounds fun.
:)

HTH,
Mike McGuire