Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 23:56:47 -0400 From: "Scott I. Remick" <scott@sremick.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Weird "nice" behavior Message-ID: <pan.2005.07.06.03.56.44.535357@sremick.net>
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I'm seeing something strange/annoying tonight... maybe someone could help explain why it's happening. FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE I'm trying to do a large local rsync in the background, while listening to streaming audio via RealPlayer and do other stuff. I have the rsync running at nice level 20 ("nice -20") which I've confirmed via ps: 1001 77010 1452 0 116 20 45056 44332 select SN+ p1 0:30.89 rsync -av - 1001 77011 77010 295 139 20 45048 44232 - RN+ p1 20:17.12 rsync -av - 1001 77548 77011 0 116 20 45200 44460 select SN+ p1 0:12.06 rsync -av - RealPlayer is running at normal nice (0): 1001 80675 80650 16 98 0 30004 12516 select S p2 0:22.69 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80688 80675 0 96 0 30004 12516 select S p2 0:00.01 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80689 80688 0 20 0 30004 12516 pause S p2 0:02.67 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80692 80675 24 -8 0 13844 6772 piperd I p2 0:00.00 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80693 80675 24 -8 0 13844 6772 piperd I p2 0:00.00 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80694 80688 24 20 0 30004 12516 pause I p2 0:00.00 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80695 80688 0 20 0 30004 12516 pause S p2 0:01.34 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80696 80688 0 8 0 30004 12516 nanslp S p2 0:01.13 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin 1001 80765 80688 0 8 0 30004 12516 nanslp S p2 0:01.10 /usr/local/lib/RealPlayer/realplay.bin Not sure why it spawns so many processes, but whatever... Anyway, what's happening is despite rsync being nice 20, RealPlayer is incredibly choppy. Even if I'm not doing anything else on the system. Now here's the weirder part: if I DO do something, such as just scrolling a window, the audio stream stops being choppy. It's as if it takes some OTHER application claiming CPU cycles to get rsync to properly play "nice" and release up time, at which point RealPlayer gets the cycles it deserves. But for some reason, rsync with just RealPlayer on its own will not play "nice" and give up time to RealPlayer like it should since RealPlayer is running at 0 and rsync is running at 20. Can someone explain this behavior, and offer suggestions to fix it? Thanks!
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