High CPU usage with no real work to be done - what gives?

[Sklunge]

Hi All, I'm trying to figure out why Blue Iris is using so much CPU. Just to dispell all of the usual suggestions, here's some info about my setup. I have 12 Hikvision cams, all at 10fps. They are spread across 3 POE hubs, each of which connects to a different port on the same gigabit switch the server is connected to. Nothing else but cameras and the server is on this switch. The 64bit version of Blue Iris is running on a 64bit version of Windows Home Premium, on a 64bit Intel i3 3Ghz processor with 8GB of RAM. Nothing else is running on that system: just the OS and Blue Iris. The camera are all set to record Direct-to-Disc. Motion Detection is being done on the cameras themselves, which trigger Blue Iris when there's motion via ONVIF triggers. The vast majority of the time, the console isn't running, so no views are being rendered. Literally all that Blue Iris is doing is chilling and waiting to be told to record when a cam pics up motion. So why is the Blue Iris thread constantly at 48-55% CPU load? That's very high for a system that technically isn't doing anything. Logging in via console or web browser will push CPU usage to between 70-80%, presumably from rendering the multicam view, but being at such high CPU usage makes the interface sluggish and frustrating to use. Despite 8GB of RAM being available, it only seems to use around 1.2GB. Any ideas? I'd really like to solve this, because I like Blue Iris. I've been doing experiments running ZoneMinder in a VM on my desktop, and even running in emulation it's able to handle all 12 cameras with no effort, so, I don't get what's wrong here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[fenderman]

Hi All, I'm trying to figure out why Blue Iris is using so much CPU. Just to dispell all of the usual suggestions, here's some info about my setup. I have 12 Hikvision cams, all at 10fps. They are spread across 3 POE hubs, each of which connects to a different port on the same gigabit switch the server is connected to. Nothing else but cameras and the server is on this switch. The 64bit version of Blue Iris is running on a 64bit version of Windows Home Premium, on a 64bit Intel i3 3Ghz processor with 8GB of RAM. Nothing else is running on that system: just the OS and Blue Iris. The camera are all set to record Direct-to-Disc. Motion Detection is being done on the cameras themselves, which trigger Blue Iris when there's motion via ONVIF triggers. The vast majority of the time, the console isn't running, so no views are being rendered. Literally all that Blue Iris is doing is chilling and waiting to be told to record when a cam pics up motion. So why is the Blue Iris thread constantly at 48-55% CPU load? That's very high for a system that technically isn't doing anything. Logging in via console or web browser will push CPU usage to between 70-80%, presumably from rendering the multicam view, but being at such high CPU usage makes the interface sluggish and frustrating to use. Despite 8GB of RAM being available, it only seems to use around 1.2GB. Any ideas? I'd really like to solve this, because I like Blue Iris. I've been doing experiments running ZoneMinder in a VM on my desktop, and even running in emulation it's able to handle all 12 cameras with no effort, so, I don't get what's wrong here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the forum. What is the exact model of your i3? are you using the blue iris DEMO? What is your camera resolution set to?

 

[Sklunge]

Hello, thanks for responding. If you know how to do paragraph breaks, I'd love to edit my OP. The exact model of processor is an Intel i3 540 3.06GHz. I am using the full paid version of Blue Iris. The cameras are running at 1080p.

 

[fenderman]

Hello, thanks for responding. If you know how to do paragraph breaks, I'd love to edit my OP. The exact model of processor is an Intel i3 540 3.06GHz. I am using the full paid version of Blue Iris. The cameras are running at 1080p.

You should simply be able to hit enter and start a new paragraph.
That processor is too weak for blue iris running 12x2mp cameras. It also does not support intel hd quicksync which is required to take advantage of hardware acceleration. An i5-4590 elitedesk or optiplex can be had for 300. The powersavings alone will likely pay for the machine in a few years.
If you are logging in via a remote desktop application that will also explain high cpu usage (RDP, teamviewer, logmein etc)
Remember that if you have pre trigger frames set (which is a must) blue iris is always recording at least to memory because it needs to have the pretrigger frames available if motion is detected

 

[Sklunge]

Thanks for your response. For some reason, my Enter key isn't giving me a paragraph break. Anyhoo. You're correct that remote login should use more CPU, but that doesn't explain the 50% CPU usage when the Blue Iris process is idling. Because Blue Iris is set to Direct-to-Disc, and no overlays are being used, there should be no reason to transcode video ever - not even for preroll video. When you set a pre-roll, you're basically setting the size of the ram buffer for each cam. That should consume RAM, but there's no earthly reason for it to consume CPU as well if Direct-to-Disc is enabled. I appreciate you feel that the processor is too weak - it's certainly older - but too weak for what, exactly? Given that no transcoding is happening, and no motion detection is happening, what is Blue Iris doing that needs CPU? Essentially the only job it has left is dumping data from a LAN connection to disc, and you can do that without the kind of CPU hit I'm seeing.

 

[fenderman]

I dont know the inner workings of blue iris, but it requires more cpu power than you have for the number of cameras and resolution you are using. Are you running headless and using a remote viewing app?
Regardless, it simply wont work with your setup. Its not something i "feel" its fact. You either need to get an i5 haswell (which is about 4 times more powerful and supports quicksync) or use another software application.

 

[bp2008]

Blue Iris always decodes the video streams for all enabled cameras, regardless of whether anything is consuming the video or not. I don't know this with 100% certainty, but like 99% because that is what the CPU usage patterns have been telling me for years ... since even before the direct to disk feature was added. Opening the local live view at a low frame rate and/or low resolution has almost no impact on CPU usage. BI's web server is always ready to send a jpeg image of a camera group, live, without significant delay or a huge burst of CPU usage that would be indicative of starting to decode a bunch of video streams from their last iframe up to current time all at once.

Blue Iris was simply designed to work this way, where it would always have access to live, decoded video data, and I imagine it would be an enormous undertaking for that to change now.

 

[springheal]

Sklunge,12 cams with an i3 processor no matter how it's setup is just not going to happen using BI.

Ken of BI even recommends a minimum i5 processor and preferably i7.

Either upgrade your system or switch to something else.

P.S. For me, BI with i7 and only 4 cameras.

 

[fenderman]

Sklunge,12 cams with an i3 processor no matter how it's setup is just not going to happen using BI.

Ken of BI even recommends a minimum i5 processor and preferably i7.

Either upgrade your system or switch to something else.

P.S. For me, BI with i7 and only 4 cameras.

i5/i3/i7 are meaningless designations. There are i7's that are less powerful than i3's..it all depends on the generation and model.

 

[bp2008]

Not to mention the OP is successfully using BI with his i3-540 and 12 cams already... saying it isn't going to happen is kind of silly.

 

[springheal]

Not to mention the OP is successfully using BI with his i3-540 and 12 cams already... saying it isn't going to happen is kind of silly.

I read the OP as using ZoneMinder in a VM with no issues. Not BI. Or am I missing something?

A search on the BI site will confirm my statement re Ken's recommended specs.

 

[fenderman]

A search on the BI site will confirm my statement re Ken's recommended specs.

Kens recommend specs are not useful as he does not state the models or generations of i7..there is a HUGE variation between the generations as well as models.

 

[bp2008]

I read the OP as using ZoneMinder in a VM with no issues. Not BI. Or am I missing something?

He said Blue Iris is using 48-55% in service mode. But no big deal. I often misread things too. :friendly_wink: That is actually a surprisingly good result for 12x 10fps Hikvision cameras given how old and relatively slow his CPU is. Perhaps the cams are only 1 megapixel each?