Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, ASRMichael said:

Presume you using USB also. If so put IRQ/130 5

 

You see your 1st photo it’s sitting now in core 0. The 2nd photo is obsolete now, even though it shows counts. The counts includes now before & after all in one. 
 

 

So if use the  .  It will show a sort total activity count?

[ASRMichael]

When you use “.” Its only to find out where all your IRQ are & what numbers they are. Once you have IRQ numbers forget about the “.” Because as soon as you hit your core isolation the “.” Info changes. In your case all of them go to core 0. 
 

Only thing that matters now is this. You can see you’ve set IRQ131 to core 4. But IRQ 130 is set to core 0. So change it also to one of your gstp cores. 
 

Hopefully that makes sense? 

 

 

[TheAttorney]

5 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

When you use “.” Its only to find out where all your IRQ are & what numbers they are. Once you have IRQ numbers forget about the “.” Because as soon as you hit your core isolation the “.” Info changes. In your case all of them go to core 0.

This information can be misleading - depending on your start point. I regularly use the "." dot function.

 

On ASRMichael's server, there is a specific issue: By default, IRQs are spread across all cores, but on core isolation, the IRQs all get squashed into the first set of cores listed - in his case 0-3. So it's usually worthwhile to spread them out again by applying IRQ core isolation.

 

But on my 7i7DN NUC, running core isolation does not change the default IRQ core allocation. And, from looking at RickyV's screenshots, his NUC (also 7i7DN I think) appears to behave exactly the same as mine - which is:  At point of allocation, the display shows that all IRQs are allocated to 0 (see screenshot above), but in practice none of the IRQ shift from their default allocation (unless you specifically allocate an IRQ). This can be seen by hitting dot in the core isolation field (also see RickyV's earlier screenshots above).

 

Therefore RickyV and myself do not need to trouble ourselves with un-squashing the IRQs. All we need to do is look at the dot display and see which are the busiest IRQs and whether it's worth allocating those to a more appropriate core. And I find it useful to occasionally check dot to see that all is working as expected and which are the busiest IRQs. When simply playing music, some IRQs hardly increase  from one minute to the next, so it's hardly worth bothering with even if they're not in the perfect allocation.

 

When just playing music to USB, by far the busiest IRQ is the USB (XHCI) one. This is the crucial one to consider moving to a quieter core - that is also allocated to the gstp process.

 

My networking uses wifi-only, so I have an additional WiFi IRQ and this is the second busiest after XHCI - but it is several orders of magnitude less than XHCI when playing local files (a different story if I was to stream Qobuz etc). So, in relative terms, it's hardly worth bothering with, but nevertheless I found a slight improvement by moving the WiFi IRQ away from gstp and onto a Stylus-only core (when playing local music, any network activity is just control and display functions, so makes sense to keep it away from gstp - it may well be different when streaming Qobuz etc).

 

If all this sounds frightfully complicated to IRQ-newbies, then it's much harder to write about than it is to actually do. And I think it's worth the effort. As start point, all you need to do is hit dot in the core isolation field, as long as you have the latest Euphony version 117.

 

PS. The dot display shows cumulative IRQ activity since last reboot. So if you move an IRQ to a different core, then the old core will still show activity - but frozen at the point of move. The count only gets reset at reboot.

[c-w]

Has anyone tried comparing
1) USB IRQ on the same core as gstp
vs
2) USB IRQ on a dedicated core - not the core reserved also for gstp or anything else

 

I cannot really tell the difference but my current system is not extremely resolving right now....

[ASRMichael]

@TheAttorney @RickyV
 

Maybe Zeijko can confirm. It’s not about how busy cores are it’s about setting the Ethernet or USB IRQ to the same cores as gstp. 
 

Also if you look at RickV 1st post it shows his usb (IRQ/130) was in core 5. It’s When he set core isolation it moved itself onto core 0. Now he should set it back to IRQ/130 5. After he’s done this the IRQ that handles usb is in the same core range as his gstp processes. That’s what he want. 
 

Unless I’m completely misunderstanding things. 

[TheAttorney]

1 hour ago, c-w said:

Has anyone tried comparing
1) USB IRQ on the same core as gstp
vs
2) USB IRQ on a dedicated core - not the core reserved also for gstp or anything else

I'll give it a go tonight. I did consider this a while back, but can't remember if I actually tried it.

 

@ASRMichael, all I know from my limited tests is that moving USD IRQ from a core that shared both gstp+Stylus to a core that ran gstp alone gave me the biggest increase in SQ during this exercise.  The first core was definitely busier in terms of % CPU and temperature. It could have been a coincidence, but it was good enough for me. What c-w seems to be alluding to, is that the quietest possible core could indeed be important - yet to be confirmed by a listening test.

 

It's possible that RickyV's NUC did not behave exactly like mine (although it seemed very similar), but too many screen shots and examples have flown by in the meantime, so I'm not inclined to trawl through it all in detail at this point. Onwards and upwards. Everything is WIP at this stage 🙂.

[ASRMichael]

20 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

I'll give it a go tonight. I did consider this a while back, but can't remember if I actually tried it.

 

@ASRMichael, all I know from my limited tests is that moving USD IRQ from a core that shared both gstp+Stylus to a core that ran gstp alone gave me the biggest increase in SQ during this exercise.  The first core was definitely busier in terms of % CPU and temperature. It could have been a coincidence, but it was good enough for me. What c-w seems to be alluding to, is that the quietest possible core could indeed be important - yet to be confirmed by a listening test.

 

It's possible that RickyV's NUC did not behave exactly like mine (although it seemed very similar), but too many screen shots and examples have flown by in the meantime, so I'm not inclined to trawl through it all in detail at this point. Onwards and upwards. Everything is WIP at this stage 🙂.

You make a good point. WIP, it’s a feature that is worth exploring further. I encourage everyone to try it. Both on gstp cores & least busiest as well. 

[mantis07]

When I hit apply in CPU Isolation I'm not seeing gstp. Is this normal for an AMD CPU (Ryzen)?

 

Thanks

Tony

[ASRMichael]

15 minutes ago, mantis07 said:

When I hit apply in CPU Isolation I'm not seeing gstp. Is this normal for an AMD CPU (Ryzen)?

 

Thanks

Tony

What core isolation are you using? You only see gstp if using Stylus. If using HQP  you shouldn’t use any core isolation. As HQP has it on own. 

[mantis07]

2 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

What core isolation are you using? You only see gstp if using Stylus. If using HQP  you shouldn’t use any core isolation. As HQP has it on own. 

I’m not using any. I just wanted to see what processes are running and noticed no gtsp. I use Room 99% of the time. I set the audio system to Stylus, rebooted and still didn’t see gtsp.

 

thanks

[ASRMichael]

Did you type 0-19 into core isolation? 19 being maximum cores you using. You might have 8 for example. Can you post a screenshot? 

[mantis07]

I have 16 cores it looks like:

 

[ASRMichael]

11 minutes ago, mantis07 said:

I have 16 cores it looks like:

 

Because you’re using Room media player not Stylus media player. 

[mantis07]

This is what I get with just Stylus running - no Roon. It seems AMD doesn't show gspt? I'm wondering what is suggested to try first? Maybe isolate stylus and go from there?

 

Thanks!

 

[Topk]

3 hours ago, mantis07 said:

This is what I get with just Stylus running - no Roon. It seems AMD doesn't show gspt? I'm wondering what is suggested to try first? Maybe isolate stylus and go from there?

 

Thanks!

 

You can give a few cores to stylus, maybe 2 or 3. It is very strange that you don’t have gstp.

[StreamFidelity]

I tried Euphony. I like the tidy user interface and the options in RAM for buffering and loading Euphony from RAM.

 

A little prehistory:

 

I am a convinced HQPlayer user and like to use DSD 256 with the modulator ASDM7EC. These algorithms require two cores with at least 4GHz for stereo. No problem for an Intel Core i9-9900K. Since I have a fanless PC, I have to throttle the temperature development. I do this in the BIOS with a fixed clock rate of 4.2GHz. Very high-performance under Windows 10 Pro and without any problems.

 

Unfortunately this does not work under Euphony. Regardless of the setting, two cores are always occupied with 100% utilization.

 

 

It seems to be a problem that has existed for a long time. Too bad.

On 9/17/2019 at 7:23 PM, ASRMichael said:

Now with Euphony...........In Ramroot and non RAM Root (HQ player and Roon Server)

 

The settings above simply do not work. Here what I have tried;

 

Settings above - Stuttering/skipping. All 3 processors maxed out at 99-100%%.

Removed Core isolation, given me back 1 extra core, so 4 in total, All 4 processors maxed out at 99-100%%, still skipping.

Turned on Turbo increasing from 2.9Ghz to 3.6Ghz, All 4 processors maxed out at 96-99%. still skipping

Turned on Hyper Threading - All 4 processors maxed out at 95-98-100%. still skipping

Even defaulted my Bios, run everything as standard, still same result. 

Running from Sandisk USB, tried another brand, Tried with and without Ramrrot - No difference

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

I tried Euphony. I like the tidy user interface and the options in RAM for buffering and loading Euphony from RAM.

 

A little prehistory:

 

I am a convinced HQPlayer user and like to use DSD 256 with the modulator ASDM7EC. These algorithms require two cores with at least 4GHz for stereo. No problem for an Intel Core i9-9900K. Since I have a fanless PC, I have to throttle the temperature development. I do this in the BIOS with a fixed clock rate of 4.2GHz. Very high-performance under Windows 10 Pro and without any problems.

 

Unfortunately this does not work under Euphony. Regardless of the setting, two cores are always occupied with 100% utilization.

 

 

It seems to be a problem that has existed for a long time. Too bad.

Do you have the same issue with HQP Embedded linux image? Just checking you not making the assumption it’s just Euphony?

[StreamFidelity]

24 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Do you have the same issue with HQP Embedded linux image?

 

No idea. I haven't tried it. I think the Euphony has the HQPlayer 4 Embedded 4.20.3 from January. So a bit out of date but new enough.

 

Incidentally, PCM works very well.

[Topk]

If you want extreme isolation, you can use this as a template (based on 32 virtual cores):

 

0-1 systemd-logind 2 systemd-journald 3 systemd-resolved 4 systemd-udevd 5 avahi-daemon 6 systemd-timesyncd 7 lvmetad 8 dbus-daemon 9 haveged 10 dhcpcd 11 udevil 12 nfm 13 stylus 14-15 gstp 16-31

[ASRMichael]

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

No idea. I haven't tried it. I think the Euphony has the HQPlayer 4 Embedded 4.20.3 from January. So a bit out of date but new enough.

 

Incidentally, PCM works very well.

How have you found Euphony versus your optmized Windows? Or are you still evaluating? 

[StreamFidelity]

1 hour ago, ASRMichael said:

How have you found Euphony versus your optmized Windows?

 

The advantages of Euphony are the ease of use, the updates at the push of a button and the few processes running. Unfortunately, the core assignment for the HQPlayer is not as efficient as in Windows. It remains to be seen whether a newer version of HQPLayer will fix this problem.

 

The advantages of Windows are that it is widely used with a variety of good tools. But focusing the processes on audio means a lot of work. If that succeeds, Windows sounds great.

[maxst67]

Is there the new version of Euphony 20210421 other he tried it? Impressions? I'm nailed to 102 and before updating I would like to understand if it's similar to 108 or it's just an update of 117

[ASRMichael]

39 minutes ago, maxst67 said:

Is there the new version of Euphony 20210421 other he tried it? Impressions? I'm nailed to 102 and before updating I would like to understand if it's similar to 108 or it's just an update of 117

Try for yourself. 

[ASRMichael]

On 4/20/2021 at 4:38 PM, StreamFidelity said:

 

The advantages of Euphony are the ease of use, the updates at the push of a button and the few processes running. Unfortunately, the core assignment for the HQPlayer is not as efficient as in Windows. It remains to be seen whether a newer version of HQPLayer will fix this problem.

 

The advantages of Windows are that it is widely used with a variety of good tools. But focusing the processes on audio means a lot of work. If that succeeds, Windows sounds great.

New version of HPQ on latest update. 4.22.3

[NanoSword]

Today I started to experiment using  PGGB with Euphony .  I feel it is interesting tool for upsampling but I have some issue euphone is shortens the song especially long song . I need to figure out  the reason for shortens the song.

 

PGGB brings benefit to the sound  I feel the timing is more accurate more natural sound  with black background and reduce some of the harshness with better bass and amazing vocal .