[Asterisk-Users] How "expensive" are the different codecs? (Regarding CPU time)

Post by Michael Vogel
Hi!
The encoding, decoding and recoding cost cpu time, that's sure. But does
this time differs much depending on the used codec?
Is - for example - a G729 faster than a GSM codec?

at the CLI, type "show translation" and it will show a chart of how long
(in milliseconds) it will take to translate from one codec to another.

flynn

Michael Vogel

2004-12-15 16:23:38 UTC

Post by el Flynn
at the CLI, type "show translation" and it will show a chart of how long
(in milliseconds) it will take to translate from one codec to another.

Thanks! That helps me a lot. Am I right that this chart is calculated
depending my machine's speed:

#######################################################################
zhad*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)

G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 13 13 47 15 12 43 - 253 124
ULAW - 41 - 1 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
ALAW - 41 1 - 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
G726 - 82 43 43 - 45 42 73 - 283 154
ADPCM - 43 4 4 38 - 3 34 - 244 115
SLINR - 40 1 1 35 3 - 31 - 241 112
LPC10 - 58 19 19 53 21 18 - - 259 130
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - 52 13 13 47 15 12 43 - - 124
ILBC - 59 20 20 54 22 19 50 - 260 -
zhad*CLI>
#######################################################################

Encoding to speex or ilbc seems to be too heavy for my machine ;-)

Thanks!

Michael

el Flynn

2004-12-15 17:13:54 UTC

Post by Michael Vogel
Thanks! That helps me a lot. Am I right that this chart is calculated

yes, the numbers will vary depending on your system load.

Post by Michael Vogel
#######################################################################
zhad*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)
G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 13 13 47 15 12 43 - 253 124
ULAW - 41 - 1 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
ALAW - 41 1 - 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
G726 - 82 43 43 - 45 42 73 - 283 154
ADPCM - 43 4 4 38 - 3 34 - 244 115
SLINR - 40 1 1 35 3 - 31 - 241 112
LPC10 - 58 19 19 53 21 18 - - 259 130
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - 52 13 13 47 15 12 43 - - 124
ILBC - 59 20 20 54 22 19 50 - 260 -
zhad*CLI>
#######################################################################
Encoding to speex or ilbc seems to be too heavy for my machine ;-)

hmm.. those numbers look a little... high... does it show the same values when
your box is idle? mine gives the following, when there's no traffic going through:

demo*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)

G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 2 2 3 2 1 - - - -
ULAW - 4 - 1 3 2 1 - - - -
ALAW - 4 1 - 3 2 1 - - - -
G726 - 4 2 2 - 2 1 - - - -
ADPCM - 4 2 2 3 - 1 - - - -
SLINR - 3 1 1 2 1 - - - - -
LPC10 - - - - - - - - - - -
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - - - - - - - - - - -
ILBC - - - - - - - - - - -

flynn

Michael Vogel

2004-12-15 21:33:59 UTC

Post by el Flynn
hmm.. those numbers look a little... high... does it show the same
values when your box is idle?

My box _is_ idle at the moment ;-)

Post by el Flynn
mine gives the following, when there's no
demo*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)
G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 2 2 3 2 1 - - - -
ULAW - 4 - 1 3 2 1 - - - -
ALAW - 4 1 - 3 2 1 - - - -
G726 - 4 2 2 - 2 1 - - - -
ADPCM - 4 2 2 3 - 1 - - - -
SLINR - 3 1 1 2 1 - - - - -
LPC10 - - - - - - - - - - -
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - - - - - - - - - - -
ILBC - - - - - - - - - - -

Oooops ... Thats a "little" difference ;-)

Bye!

Michael

Andrew Aken

2004-12-23 04:48:53 UTC

We changed from Fedora to Debian and saw the following increase in
performance:
Before:
G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 6 6 15 6 5 22 - - 192
ULAW - 128 - 1 11 2 1 18 - - 188
ALAW - 128 1 - 11 2 1 18 - - 188
G726 - 136 10 10 - 10 9 26 - - 196
ADPCM - 128 2 2 11 - 1 18 - - 188
SLINR - 127 1 1 10 1 - 17 - - 187
LPC10 - 241 115 115 124 115 114 - - - 301
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - - - - - - - - - - -
ILBC - 144 18 18 27 18 17 34 - - -

After:
g723 gsm ulaw alaw g726 adpcm slin lpc10 g729 speex ilbc
g723 - - - - - - - - - - -
gsm - - 2 2 3 2 1 6 - - 14
ulaw - 3 - 1 3 2 1 6 - - 14
alaw - 3 1 - 3 2 1 6 - - 14
g726 - 4 3 3 - 3 2 7 - - 15
adpcm - 3 2 2 3 - 1 6 - - 14
slin - 2 1 1 2 1 - 5 - - 13
lpc10 - 4 3 3 4 3 2 - - - 15
g729 - - - - - - - - - - -
speex - - - - - - - - - - -
ilbc - 4 3 3 4 3 2 7 - - -

Of course we did also upgrade from a PIII 500 to dual 3 GHz Xeon
processors, but I doubt that had anything to do with it.

Post by el Flynn

Post by Michael Vogel
Thanks! That helps me a lot. Am I right that this chart is calculated

yes, the numbers will vary depending on your system load.

hmm.. those numbers look a little... high... does it show the same
values when your box is idle? mine gives the following, when there's
demo*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)
G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX ILBC
G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 2 2 3 2 1 - - - -
ULAW - 4 - 1 3 2 1 - - - -
ALAW - 4 1 - 3 2 1 - - - -
G726 - 4 2 2 - 2 1 - - - -
ADPCM - 4 2 2 3 - 1 - - - -
SLINR - 3 1 1 2 1 - - - - -
LPC10 - - - - - - - - - - -
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - - - - - - - - - - -
ILBC - - - - - - - - - - -
flynn
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Steve Underwood

2004-12-15 15:40:05 UTC

Post by Michael Vogel
Hi!
The encoding, decoding and recoding cost cpu time, that's sure. But
does this time differs much depending on the used codec?
Is - for example - a G729 faster than a GSM codec?
Bye!
Michael

They vary a lot. G.729 is pretty slow. iLBC and speex in the same
ballpark. G.723.1 even slower. GSM 06.10 is reasonably fast.

Encode usually takes a low longer than decode - maybe 3 to 6 times,
depending in the codec. One encode + one decode of G.723.1 is nearly
20MIPs on a DSP chip. Multiply that by maybe 5 or 6 for MIPs on a
Pentium. G.729 is maybe 11 DSP MIPs.

Regards,
Steve

Tony Mountifield

2004-12-15 16:01:48 UTC

Post by Michael Vogel
Hi!
The encoding, decoding and recoding cost cpu time, that's sure. But does
this time differs much depending on the used codec?

Yes, it does. The Asterisk command "show translations" will display a table
of relative CPU costs for transcoding from one codec to another.

Tony

--
Tony Mountifield
Work: ***@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: ***@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

Adam Hart

2004-12-15 16:44:02 UTC

Try 'show translations' in asterisk's CLI

(GSM is much faster than G.729)

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-15 17:08:24 UTC

-----Original Message-----
Michael Vogel
Sent: December 15, 2004 10:26 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] How "expensive" are the different
codecs?(Regarding CPU time)
Hi!
The encoding, decoding and recoding cost cpu time, that's
sure. But does
this time differs much depending on the used codec?

Absolutely.

Is - for example - a G729 faster than a GSM codec?

The Asterisk console command (at the CLI> prompt):

show translation

Will provide a matrix that gives an idea of the CPU penalty of each
codec on your system. One of my lab systems returned this (sorry, I
haven't licensed G.729 yet):

(view with a fixed-width font such as courier)

Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)

g723 gsm ulaw alaw g726 adpcm slin lpc10 g729 speex
ilbc
g723 - - - - - - - - - -
-
gsm - - 2 2 3 2 1 4 - -
18
ulaw - 3 - 1 3 2 1 4 - -
18
alaw - 3 1 - 3 2 1 4 - -
18
g726 - 4 3 3 - 3 2 5 - -
19
adpcm - 3 2 2 3 - 1 4 - -
18
slin - 2 1 1 2 1 - 3 - -
17
lpc10 - 4 3 3 4 3 2 - - -
19
g729 - - - - - - - - - -
-
speex - - - - - - - - - -
-
ilbc - 4 3 3 4 3 2 5 - -
-

The rule of thumb is generally this: the more bandwidth a codec uses,
the less CPU it will require. So G.711 uses the most bandwidth, but
almost no CPU. Conversely, a highly compressed codec will require the
CPU to perform complex calculations on it; the better the compression,
the more time it will take. Some codecs are better than others (GSM is
pretty easy on the CPU relative to it's bandwidth).

I'll paraphrase that old adage:
- Low Bandwidth
- Low CPU Use
- Reasonable Audio Quality
Pick any two.

Keep in mind that the only time a codec will eat up CPU is if
transcoding is required. If Asterisk does not need to convert between
formats, then the load on the CPU will be essentially the same,
regardless of the codec in use.

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-15 17:57:40 UTC

-----Original Message-----
Michael Vogel
Sent: December 15, 2004 11:24 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] How "expensive" are
thedifferent codecs? (Regarding CPU time)

Post by el Flynn
at the CLI, type "show translation" and it will show a chart of how
long
(in milliseconds) it will take to translate from one codec

to another.
Thanks! That helps me a lot. Am I right that this chart is calculated
##############################################################
#########
zhad*CLI> show translation
Translation times between formats (in milliseconds)
Source Format (Rows) Destination Format(Columns)
G723 GSM ULAW ALAW G726 ADPCM SLINR LPC10 G729A SPEEX

ILBC

G723 - - - - - - - - - - -
GSM - - 13 13 47 15 12 43 - 253

124

ULAW - 41 - 1 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
ALAW - 41 1 - 36 4 1 32 - 242 113
G726 - 82 43 43 - 45 42 73 - 283 154
ADPCM - 43 4 4 38 - 3 34 - 244 115
SLINR - 40 1 1 35 3 - 31 - 241 112
LPC10 - 58 19 19 53 21 18 - - 259 130
G729A - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEEX - 52 13 13 47 15 12 43 - - 124
ILBC - 59 20 20 54 22 19 50 - 260 -
zhad*CLI>
##############################################################
#########
Encoding to speex or ilbc seems to be too heavy for my machine ;-)

YIKES! What kind of processor have you got there?

Michael Vogel

2004-12-15 21:26:34 UTC

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
YIKES! What kind of processor have you got there?

;-)

Its a:
- Pentium II (Deschutes) 333MHz
- 128mb memory

I'm using it as:
- Mailserver (IMAP, SMTP)
- Webserver (mainly for webmail)
- Newsserver
- Packet Radio station
- VNC server
- Proxy
...

Some system information:

zhad:~# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 870123727 XT-PIC timer
1: 2614 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
4: 3082002249 XT-PIC baycom_ser12
10: 10847 XT-PIC OPL3-SA2/3
12: 870006570 XT-PIC wcfxo
14: 5783522 XT-PIC eth0
15: 5800309 XT-PIC sym53c8xx
NMI: 0
LOC: 870168660
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
zhad:~# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 126740 kB
MemFree: 1684 kB
Buffers: 1728 kB
Cached: 17288 kB
SwapCached: 60720 kB
Active: 94872 kB
Inactive: 11684 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 126740 kB
LowFree: 1684 kB
SwapTotal: 345356 kB
SwapFree: 172840 kB
Dirty: 344 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
Mapped: 92468 kB
Slab: 13100 kB
Committed_AS: 397756 kB
PageTables: 2208 kB
VmallocTotal: 901112 kB
VmallocUsed: 2108 kB
VmallocChunk: 898828 kB
zhad:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 5
model name : Pentium II (Deschutes)
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 333.370
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr
bogomips : 657.40

zhad:~#

and "top" tells me:

22:22:10 up 10 days, 1:49, 5 users, load average: 0.01, 0.09, 0.13
167 processes: 163 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 12.1% user, 7.4% system, 0.0% nice, 80.5% idle
Mem: 126740K total, 124172K used, 2568K free, 4760K buffers
Swap: 345356K total, 173684K used, 171672K free, 22992K cached

Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

Bye!

Michael

Antony Stone

2004-12-15 21:56:19 UTC

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
YIKES! What kind of processor have you got there?

- Pentium II (Deschutes) 333MHz
- 128mb memory
- Mailserver (IMAP, SMTP)
- Webserver (mainly for webmail)
- Newsserver
- Packet Radio station
- VNC server
- Proxy
...
22:22:10 up 10 days, 1:49, 5 users, load average: 0.01, 0.09, 0.13
167 processes: 163 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 12.1% user, 7.4% system, 0.0% nice, 80.5% idle
Mem: 126740K total, 124172K used, 2568K free, 4760K buffers
Swap: 345356K total, 173684K used, 171672K free, 22992K cached
Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

My advice would be to whack in a load more RAM - basically, try to get the
poor little thing so it doesn't need to use swap. That will make a big
difference to performance.

Regards,

Antony.

--
I know I always wanted to be somebody, but I guess I should have been more
specific.

Please reply to the list;
please don't CC me.

Michael Vogel

2004-12-16 23:04:40 UTC

Post by Antony Stone

Post by Michael Vogel
Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

My advice would be to whack in a load more RAM - basically, try to get the
poor little thing so it doesn't need to use swap. That will make a big
difference to performance.

I just doubled the memory, now I have 256mb and I am using - by now -
zero bytes for swap ;-)

The values at "show translation" doesn't change. And they change only a
little bit when I unload the "baycom_ser_hdx"-module that generates
three times more interrupts than the wcfxo-module.

Bye!

Michael

Michael Levenson

2004-12-15 18:07:25 UTC

I'm trying to setup my FWD# so that when it reaches my * my IVR plays.
Currently this works by me having it go to a dummy SIP/# as shown here in my
extensions.conf

exten => ${FWDNUMBER},1,SetMusicOnHold(default)
exten => ${FWDNUMBER},2,Dial(SIP/XXXX},10,tr)
exten => ${FWDNUMBER},3,Wait(2)
exten => ${FWDNUMBER},4,Answer
exten => ${FWDNUMBER},5,Wait(1)
exten => ${FWDNUMBER},6,Goto(mainmenu,s,1)

Is this the correct way? Is there a better way on doing this?

Thanks
Mike

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-15 21:59:18 UTC

-----Original Message-----
Michael Vogel
Sent: December 15, 2004 4:27 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] How "expensive"are thedifferent
codecs? (Regarding CPU time)

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
YIKES! What kind of processor have you got there?

;-)
- Pentium II (Deschutes) 333MHz
- 128mb memory
- Mailserver (IMAP, SMTP)
- Webserver (mainly for webmail)
- Newsserver
- Packet Radio station
- VNC server
- Proxy
...
zhad:~# cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 870123727 XT-PIC timer
1: 2614 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
4: 3082002249 XT-PIC baycom_ser12
10: 10847 XT-PIC OPL3-SA2/3
12: 870006570 XT-PIC wcfxo
14: 5783522 XT-PIC eth0
15: 5800309 XT-PIC sym53c8xx
NMI: 0
LOC: 870168660
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
zhad:~# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 126740 kB
MemFree: 1684 kB
Buffers: 1728 kB
Cached: 17288 kB
SwapCached: 60720 kB
Active: 94872 kB
Inactive: 11684 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 126740 kB
LowFree: 1684 kB
SwapTotal: 345356 kB
SwapFree: 172840 kB
Dirty: 344 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
Mapped: 92468 kB
Slab: 13100 kB
Committed_AS: 397756 kB
PageTables: 2208 kB
VmallocTotal: 901112 kB
VmallocUsed: 2108 kB
VmallocChunk: 898828 kB
zhad:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 5
model name : Pentium II (Deschutes)
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 333.370
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep
mtrr pge
mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr
bogomips : 657.40
zhad:~#
22:22:10 up 10 days, 1:49, 5 users, load average: 0.01,
0.09, 0.13 167 processes: 163 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 12.1% user, 7.4% system, 0.0% nice, 80.5% idle
Mem: 126740K total, 124172K used, 2568K free,
4760K buffers
Swap: 345356K total, 173684K used, 171672K free,
22992K cached
Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

YES!

And by that I mean "all of the above".

Asterisk will run, but the sound quality is almost certainly going to be
awful (like a poorly-tuned radio station). Go ahead and try it if you're
just playing around, but if you put it into production, don't bother
asking anyone what's wrong when your quality sucks, 'cause you already
know the answer.

If you have serious plans for Asterisk, you'll probably want to look at
giving it a dedicated server.

Cheers, and best of luck (Asterisk has ben run on less than what you
have, so don't be discouraged, just be aware of what you're getting
into).

Jim.

Michael Vogel

2004-12-15 22:27:00 UTC

-----Original Message-----
Michael Vogel
Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

YES!
And by that I mean "all of the above".

;-)

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
Asterisk will run, but the sound quality is almost certainly going to be
awful (like a poorly-tuned radio station).

By now I only have got sometimes crippled sound. Phonecalls from
FXO-device to FXS-device are working perfect. They don't seem to have
echos by now.

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
Go ahead and try it if you're
just playing around, but if you put it into production, don't bother
asking anyone what's wrong when your quality sucks, 'cause you already
know the answer.

Okay.

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
If you have serious plans for Asterisk, you'll probably want to look at
giving it a dedicated server.

My "serious" plans are only playing around with it and using it only for
my own.

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
Cheers, and best of luck (Asterisk has ben run on less than what you
have, so don't be discouraged, just be aware of what you're getting
into).

Okay. At first I will try to fetch more memory. I hope I can organize
some at work (from old machines).

Bye!

Michael

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-17 00:20:49 UTC

Post by Antony Stone

Post by Michael Vogel
Is it a little bit too much for such a machine? What could be the
bottleneck? CPU? Memory? Interrupts?

My advice would be to whack in a load more RAM - basically, try to
get the poor little thing so it doesn't need to use swap. That will
make a big difference to performance.

I just doubled the memory, now I have 256mb and I am using - by now -
zero bytes for swap ;-)
The values at "show translation" doesn't change. And they
change only a
little bit when I unload the "baycom_ser_hdx"-module that generates
three times more interrupts than the wcfxo-module.

Hmmm. I propose that we make your system the list guinea pig! If we can
get that one tweaked, there's no telling what alse we can do with
Asterisk!

Have you tried running Asterisk at pseudo-realtime priority? (asterisk
-p)

Michael Vogel

2004-12-17 05:57:02 UTC

Hmmm. I propose that we make your system the list guinea pig! If we can
get that one tweaked, there's no telling what alse we can do with
Asterisk!

I'm not really sure that I completely get the meaning of this sentence.
(Which can be because of the fact that its 06:47 AM or that I'm no
native speaker or both ;-)) But I guess you meant that we could try to
test everything that is known to work - including some voodo - and to
see if it works? ;-)

Have you tried running Asterisk at pseudo-realtime priority? (asterisk
-p)

That helps in one way: At the moment my system is doing its morning
routine. That means it makes a tar archieve of my /home directory to my
backup drive. With the -p option the "show translation"-values are equal
to the values when my system is idle.

I guess this option could help me a lot regarding the sound problems I
got sometimes.

Bye!

Michael

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-17 06:06:39 UTC

Hmmm. I propose that we make your system the list guinea pig! If we
can get that one tweaked, there's no telling what alse we can do with
Asterisk!

I'm not really sure that I completely get the meaning of this
sentence. (Which can be because of the fact that its 06:47 AM or that
I'm no native speaker or both ;-)) But I guess you meant that we
could try to
test everything that is known to work - including some voodo - and to
see if it works? ;-)

You understand. I was kidding a little bit, but yes, I am also wondering
just what things can be done to get a slower machine to work as well as
possible.

Have you tried running Asterisk at pseudo-realtime priority?
(asterisk -p)

That helps in one way: At the moment my system is doing its morning
routine. That means it makes a tar archieve of my /home
directory to my
backup drive. With the -p option the "show
translation"-values are equal
to the values when my system is idle.

And otherwise not?

Post by Michael Vogel
I guess this option could help me a lot regarding the sound
problems I
got sometimes.

Yes, it might help a lot.

Cheers,

Jim.

Michael Vogel

2004-12-17 06:29:26 UTC

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
You understand. I was kidding a little bit, but yes, I am also
wondering just what things can be done to get a slower machine to
work as well as possible.

Okay. So lets try.

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
Have you tried running Asterisk at pseudo-realtime priority?
(asterisk -p)

That helps in one way: At the moment my system is doing its morning
routine. That means it makes a tar archieve of my /home directory
to my backup drive. With the -p option the "show
translation"-values are equal to the values when my system is idle.

And otherwise not?

Otherwise - without the -p option - the system had values of 400ms (and
higher) converting speex when it wasn't idle. Now the value is
constantly at about 210.

Post by Michael Vogel
I guess this option could help me a lot regarding the sound
problems I got sometimes.

Yes, it might help a lot.

I will see when doing some calls over sip (there I had the most
problems). Maybe at the evening. Now I have to breakfast, shower and go
to work.

Bye!

Michael

Jim Van Meggelen

2004-12-17 07:16:17 UTC

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
You understand. I was kidding a little bit, but yes, I am also
wondering just what things can be done to get a slower machine to
work as well as possible.

Okay. So lets try.

What are you running in terms of a kernel or distro?

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
Have you tried running Asterisk at pseudo-realtime priority?
(asterisk -p)

That helps in one way: At the moment my system is doing its morning
routine. That means it makes a tar archieve of my /home directory to
my backup drive. With the -p option the "show translation"-values
are equal to the values when my system is idle.

And otherwise not?

Otherwise - without the -p option - the system had values of 400ms
(and higher) converting speex when it wasn't idle. Now the value
is constantly at about 210.

Nice. The system is now giving Asterisk the priority it needs. Don't
forget to change that in your rc.local, or wherever you're starting
Asterisk from.

Post by Michael Vogel
I guess this option could help me a lot regarding the sound
problems I got sometimes.

Yes, it might help a lot.

I will see when doing some calls over sip (there I had the most
problems). Maybe at the evening. Now I have to breakfast, shower and
go to work.

And I need to go to bed!

Cheers,

Jim.

Michael Vogel

2004-12-17 08:40:53 UTC

Hi!

Post by Jim Van Meggelen
You understand. I was kidding a little bit, but yes, I am also
wondering just what things can be done to get a slower machine to
work as well as possible.

Okay. So lets try.

What are you running in terms of a kernel or distro?

I'm running a Debian Woody with a handmade 2.6.5 (based on a woody backport)

Post by Michael Vogel
Otherwise - without the -p option - the system had values of 400ms
(and higher) converting speex when it wasn't idle. Now the value
is constantly at about 210.

Nice. The system is now giving Asterisk the priority it needs. Don't
forget to change that in your rc.local, or wherever you're starting
Asterisk from.

I'm starting it from a start-stop daemon. AT the moment I'm having a
little fight with it. When starting from the script it tells me
"Starting Asterisk PBX: Unable to set high priority". Starting it from
the shell works.

But I guess I can convince the script to cooperate ;-)