Performance Issues with AMD64 3000+, 1.5GB RAM, FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE

[Mark Kane]

Mark Kane wrote:
> Ariff Abdullah wrote:
> 
>> These are my suggestions:
>> 1) enable 'options PREEMPTION'. This is a MUST.
>> 2) use SCHED_ULE instead of SCHED_4BSD. ULE is pretty stable on me,
>>    but I can't guarantee (especially combining with PREEMPTION).
>>    It doesn't hurt to give it a try.
>> 3) Apply these patches:
>>
>> http://staff.mybsd.org.my/skywizard/FreeBSD/sound/jroberson_flushbuf_RELENG_5.diff 
>>
>> http://staff.mybsd.org.my/skywizard/FreeBSD/sound/snd_RELENG_5_20050825_035.diff 
>>
> 
> 
> Well I added PREEMPTION to the kernel yesterday as well as the first 
> patch by Jeff Robertson. Immediately upon kernelinstall and reboot I 
> tried untarring Firefox and Thunderbird, as well as tarring them both 
> back up. Not a single skip, stutter, or freezing of the mouse/display!
> 
> I did more testing last night like listening to audio with downloads 
> open and encoding video, and I didn't hear one skip at all. The only 
> time I heard a little static was when I was burning a DVD and listening 
> to audio at the same time, but I can understand that.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who replied, this seems to be fixed for now. :)
> 
> -Mark

I do notice that when doing some things like using unrar to extract a 
file or loading a video into video encoding software I do get some of 
the same little crackles and static in the audio. I didn't notice this 
static/crackling ever before applying that first patch. I am still 
skip/stutter free though :).

Might the second patch help the crackling/static?

Thanks

-Mark