Need to update Cortex PC ...

[chris_j_hunter]

looks like our PC is getting overloaded - but what would be better ?

it's a VIA EPIA EK 10000G with maximum RAM & runs with Windows XP Pro at around 1GHz and a CPU load of around 80% ...

would be good to get that down to around 30% - but how ?

is it just a matter of a faster CPU, or are there other factors, too ?

would a more recent Windows version be faster ?

any thoughts ... ???

[chris_j_hunter]

this seems to suggest Windows 8 could be twice as fast as 'XP ...

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Is-Twice-as-Fast-as-Windows-XP-on-a-7-Year-Old-Laptop-Video-329809.shtml

but would Cortex be OK with Windows 8 ... ?

[achapman]

XP is now end of life, so if you are replacing your PC I would certainly upgrade. I would suggest Windows 7 is the safer choice, but know of no reason why Windows 8 shouldn't work. That said I'm still running XP and don't intend to move in the near future as 'it just works'.
Windows 8 might be engineered to exhibit faster speeds with regard to certain tasks and applications, but I'd be surprised if Cortex was measurably faster using the same hardware with Windows 8 as opposed to XP. I'm also a little surprised that the CPU utilisation is so high, are you using CCTV or running additional programs as well as Cortex on the PC?
I'm running Cortex on a eleven year old laptop with 2Gb of RAM and it uses less than 10% CPU.

[toscal]

What do you mean maximum ram, figures please. To me that means 4Gb. But I know many VIA boards can only except upto 1GB.
You could try and install a graphics card, but don't know how much that would actually help.
Have you had a look in the prefetch directory you can delete all of the contents (do so at your own risk), this sometimes helps in speeding up the machine.
How much space is left on the hard drive, ideally greater than 20%.
Desktop should be a single colour back ground and very few shortcuts and absolutely no files stored on the desktop.
Is the machine always at 80% or is it at certain times. Do you have other things running on the system. Try a lower screen resolution this sometimes helps.

[chris_j_hunter]

many thanks, both, for thoughts ...

just checked, and it seems ours has just 1Gb of RAM - must be enough, surely ?

HD is hardly used (290Gb free out of 300Gb), and we’ve let Windows choose virtualisations etc ...

we looked at Windows settings, and went for anything that was said to stand a chance of speeding things up - made no noticeable difference ...

besides Cortex, we’ve nothing added & running, and Task Manager shows Explorer taking next-most (occasional spurts up to around five percent CPU utilisation) and everything else that Windows & Cortex needs runs at just a percent or two at-most ...

there are spells when CPU utilisation drops to around 70% and, when we stop IDRAnet, it falls to around 15% ...

we checked polling periods for modules, and found a couple with less than the standard five-minutes - one on 30s & the other on 10s - but bringing those into line those made no noticeable difference ...

also checked Cortex settings - Logging is still set to its defaults, and nothing seemed out of kilter ...

we already have StructureView rather than Comm’s showing on the left of the Cortex window ...

just now, we just tried minimising the whole Cortex window, and (to our surprise) saw an immediate ten to fifteen % improvement, which is quite helpful ...

hmm, and we’ve still a few more modules to install ...

[Viv]

many thanks, both, for thoughts ...

just now, we just tried minimising the whole Cortex window, and (to our surprise) saw an immediate ten to fifteen % improvement, which is quite helpful ...

I tried this on my own system and saw no significant change in CPU usage. Perhaps its related to a seperate graphics card?

Viv

[chris_j_hunter]

maybe ...

trace attached ...

Task Manager Performance.jpg

[chris_j_hunter]

>separate graphics card ...

we've none such - ie: we've just the basic VIA board plus and IVC200 video capture board (hardware there, but as-yet not utilised) ...

Chris

[Viv]

separate graphics card ...

Having a separate graphics card reduces the load on the CPU so I think in my case this is the reason I see no significant difference in minimising Cortex.

Viv

[chris_j_hunter]

ah, thanks ...

module polling intervals - would upping the interval a little, from the standard five minutes, have a significant effect on CPU loading ?

[Viv]

ah, thanks ...

module polling intervals - would upping the interval a little, from the standard five minutes, have a significant effect on CPU loading ?

The polling period whilst defaulting to 5 minutes is randomised in regards when it starts so that requests for module status are spread out to reduce peak traffic.
Also should a module report its status as a consequence of a change of state e.g. motion sensor triggers or door opens then the polling period is reset.

To a certain extent the polling period just re-affirms that the module is alive an well. So increasing the polling period will not normally have an adverse effect of behaviour or logging information. Unfortunatlly their is not a global change all module polling period option and I believe you have many modules.

Do not however increase the polling period of digital inputs used for pulse counting.

Viv.

[chris_j_hunter]

ah, thanks ...

so, what to try ?

given most Rooms are unoccupied at any given time, and temperatures & humidities will vary slowly, except where the Sun has fairly direct influence, then maybe it's possible to roughly estimate what proportion of CPU load might be saved by extending (default) polling times ...

assuming network nodes are the only ones polled (?) - about 70% of the total in our case - then a reasoned guess might be that something like 10% of polled nodes could be reporting changes in any whole cycle (perhaps half that, maybe double that) ...

ie: doubling the (default) polling interval, from five to ten minutes, might reduce the polling load on the CPU load by something like 40% ...

non-polled nodes (Macros, the Scheduler, etc) will also produce changes, of course, and changes will bring-on other activities ... so, at a guess, the polling load on the CPU will be about half of the total - ie: doubling the default polling interval might save 20% of total CPU load ...

hmm, it's tempting to try a bit more - say, an increase from five to fifteen minutes ...

will also check that retries are still limited to two (when a module - or is it node ? - fails to respond) - in-case the setting reverted when we (recently) updated to latest version of Cortex ...

Chris

[chris_j_hunter]

OK, gave it a go - upping the (default) polling interval from 5 to 15 minutes, for 70% of active nodes (several of the rest involve pulse-counting, and 70% seemed enough to show a difference) ...

traces before (upper) & after (lower) attached ...

Untitled.jpg

so - seems to have made next-to-no difference ...

‘twas worth a try - but will now revert to yesterday’s database !

Chris

[qba]

Hi Chris,
i recently experienced problems with high CPU utilization. Problem was related to defibrillator proces, and with Karam advice I changed API version: go to Cortex Tools and Select Cortex API, then change Default API to Version 1 and enable suppress logging 'Pulse ... ' if not already enabled. Then close this menu. Then Close and Restart Defibrillator application.
Maybe it will help to you too

[chris_j_hunter]

many thanks - did check that, and we were already set to Version 1 & the box was already ticked ...

OTOH, our experiment with increased (default) polling intervals might suggest something's not quite as it should-be ...

ie: we upped the interval for quite a bit more than a few modules, so it was odd to see just-about zilch effect !