Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc?

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matt.beadon at gmail

Jul 2, 2009, 1:52 PM

Post #1 of 3 (330 views)
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Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc?

I often check on my myth system over vnc since I don't have a keyboard
attached but ever since I installed it I've been hampered by the fact that
the frontend doesn't always update the screen over vnc.
So what I'd see is that on the tv all the menus would appear but over vnc I
would just see the background image. This didn't seem to change with
different themes so I grumbled and figured it was something odd about
vnc/frontend.

Then I had a crash (likely HVR-2250 related) and after restarting the menus
had disappeared from the tv as well as over vnc. After poking around the
logs&web I found an old suggestion from this mailing list archive that
pointed me to using "-O ThemePainter=qt" when launching the frontend. I
tried it and [insert sounds of marching bands] poof now the menu works on
the tv and over vnc. :-)
I guessed that "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL" would also work and since I have a
geforce 9300 I decided to use it instead of qt. This choice was based on
the setup comments that said something to the effect of "if you have decent
hw use opengl".

My questions are:
1) have I got something misconfigured that requires this ThemePainter
argument or is this a default that should be added for everyone?
2) Any ideas how a crash on ext3 drives could change the behaviour of the FE
like this? Anything I should check/repair?
3) Does anyone else have problems where watching a recording or livetv with
a vnc client attached causes the cpu to max out and create huge latency over
the network? It gets so bad that even mythweb times out until I can get the
playback stopped then everything goes back to normal. While this is
happening playback on the tv looks fine and using the remote has no unusual
delay. It seems to be only the networked functions that suffer.

My config:
debian 5.0.2 Lenny with 0.21-fixes from debian multimedia repo
nForce 610 mobo with Geforce 9300 graphics card attached via svideo to
crappy SD tube tv.

thanks
Matt

knowledgejunkie at gmail

Jul 2, 2009, 2:23 PM

Post #2 of 3 (297 views)
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Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc? [In reply to]

On 02/07/2009, Matt Beadon <matt.beadon[at]gmail.com> wrote:

> I guessed that "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL" would also work and since I have a
> geforce 9300 I decided to use it instead of qt. This choice was based on
> the setup comments that said something to the effect of "if you have decent
> hw use opengl".
>
> My questions are:
> 1) have I got something misconfigured that requires this ThemePainter
> argument or is this a default that should be added for everyone?

Had you previously configured your frontend to use the Qt painter
instead of the OpenGL painter. If you want to the setting to stick,
start mythfrontend with the -O parameter you are currently using, and
then change the configured paint engine on the first page of the
Setup->Appearance screens.

> 2) Any ideas how a crash on ext3 drives could change the behaviour of the FE
> like this? Anything I should check/repair?

As a first suggestion, the database should always be regularly
checked, and repaired. MythTV provides a helper script
optimize_mythdb.pl for this purpose.

Nick

--
Nick Morrott

MythTV Official wiki:
http://mythtv.org/wiki/
MythTV users list archive:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin
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pgallaway at gmail

Jul 7, 2009, 7:51 AM

Post #3 of 3 (238 views)
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Re: Why do I need to launch frontend with "-O ThemePainter=OpenGL"? And what relation does this have with vnc? [In reply to]

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Matt Beadon<matt.beadon[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> I often check on my myth system over vnc since I don't have a keyboard
> attached but ever since I installed it I've been hampered by the fact that
> the frontend doesn't always update the screen over vnc.

I have a similar setup on my BE/FE closeted system with no keyboard or
mouse. I launch x11vnc with the -noxdamage option to allow for
refreshes to occur over VNC connections while using the "opengl"
painter. From what I have read in this thread by launching with the
command line option switch you were unintentionally switching to the
qt painter and resulted in an [unintentional] fix to your problem.
From the wiki: "Using the OpenGL painter, a more modern/advanced UI is
possible."
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythUI

It's not entirely clear what that means in real performance terms but
it sounds good ;)
--
~pAul.
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