Reported CPU Usage - BI GUI vs Task Manager

[Creeps]

I just did a little upgrade on my BI system. I went from a 1st gen I7 (with no Intel HD graphics) to a 4th gen Xeon E3-1225v3 (Haswell based). Okay this Xeon doesn't support HT, but it should be a significant boost on overall performance.

Before the upgrade I was noticing the BI GUI reporting ~60% CPU usage with my camera setup (with the I7 and 2GB GeForce card). After the upgrade ( and a backup and restore of BI settings) the reported BI GUI CPU usage is a constant 76-80%. Darn it! BUT when I look at the CPU usage in the Windows Task manager its fairly constant at ~22% (its a dedicated BI system). First question, why are these numbers so different? 80% CPU reported in BI and 22% CPU reported in task manager (see pics). And I guess why is this worse that the older CPU?

So given that the E3-1225v3 supports the Intel P4600 graphics I thought I'd enable the Intel accelerated hardware option (globally in camera settings). This didn't make any different to the reported CPU usage. And when I look GPU-Z it reports ~4% CPU load so I'm guessing this hardware acceleration isn't working with BI?

Any thoughts or guidance much appreciated.

 

[fenderman]

Did you restart after enabling HA?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Are you running windows 10 pro with the Xeon processor? Did you check about problems with the Xeon processor on windows 10. Are you running the bi as a service ?

How many cameras ?

What was the i7 model ?

 

[danbutter]

Just a quick me too here. I have a 4th gen haswell i5 and BI always says very high cpu usage except for at night while most of the cams are black. Windows however says high teens low 20% cpu used. Strange.

 

[bp2008]

It is probably just a matter of Blue Iris being wrong about the CPU utilization. The number shown in Blue Iris is supposed to be the total CPU usage for the whole PC, and should be roughly equivalent to the % shown on the Performance tab of task manager. If it is not, Blue Iris Options > Other has a CPU usage divisor option that can help you tweak the CPU readout to be more accurate.

 

[Creeps]

Are you running windows 10 pro with the Xeon processor? Did you check about problems with the Xeon processor on windows 10. Are you running the bi as a service ?

How many cameras ?

What was the i7 model ?

Yes the system has been restarted. I've been running it a couple of weeks now and done some standard windows updates and restarts in that time. I should have mentioned that its running Windows Server 2016 Standard. Does anyone know whether this affects BI's ability to run Intel HA?

The previous CPU was an i7 870 and although the new e3 v3 loses HT it should be a significant improvement. My own benchmarks suggest double the CPU performance and generally the overall system is very snappy (its also running SSD drives). One of the reasons for changing was to see if I could make some use of the Intel HA on the new CPU.

I have 8 cameras and its a right mixed bag. Most are Hikvision or Reolink and running H.264. I have a couple of older cameras only capable of MJPEG. Yes this could be cleaner, but concern right now is why the same configuration on what should be a better system is being reported as worse. And it would also be nice to use the Intel HA. I've attached a screenshot of my cameras and BR.

 

[Creeps]

It is probably just a matter of Blue Iris being wrong about the CPU utilization. The number shown in Blue Iris is supposed to be the total CPU usage for the whole PC, and should be roughly equivalent to the % shown on the Performance tab of task manager. If it is not, Blue Iris Options > Other has a CPU usage divisor option that can help you tweak the CPU readout to be more accurate.

Thanks BP. Okay so I changed the CPU divisor option to 3 and hey presto the reported CPU usage is now one third of the previous value and closer to the windows value. So is it common for BI to not report CPU usage accurately - hence the need for this divisor option? Is it just an issue with this generation/type of CPU, and if so should I create a support ticket? Using the divisor option feels a bit like papering over the cracks as it assumes the error in reporting is linear and consistent i.e. with half the load on the system would the difference still need to be divided by 3? It would be nice if BI is going to report this value that it was accurate. Interestingly the mem/RAM reporting seems spot on.

 

[Creeps]

Just a quick me too here. I have a 4th gen haswell i5 and BI always says very high cpu usage except for at night while most of the cams are black. Windows however says high teens low 20% cpu used. Strange.

Dan, what is the exact model/type of your CPU? Does it include and have you enabled Intel HA? If so what Intel drivers are you using? I've attached a screenshot of mine for anyone interested. I'm using the latest ones (for this model) direct from Intel.

Also what OS are you running?

 

[bp2008]

It is not a very common problem, but it is common enough for Blue Iris to have implemented the option to work around it!

CPU usage reporting is an imperfect science. You may notice that task manager even disagrees with itself. The Processes tab shows higher numbers than the Details tab.

Most likely what is happening is when Blue Iris asks Windows for CPU usage values, on your system, it is returning values in the range of 0 to 400 (because you have 4 cores) instead of the usual range of 0 to 100. Why it would only happen this way for a small number of system configurations is anybody's guess. Anyway I'm guessing if you used a CPU divisor of 4 it would more closely match Task Manager's details tab (which doesn't actually show a total CPU usage number … you need to find the System Idle Process number and subtract it from 100). If you compared against the Processes tab, 3 might have looked like a more appropriate value since the Processes tab usually shows higher CPU usage numbers.

 

[Creeps]

It is not a very common problem, but it is common enough for Blue Iris to have implemented the option to work around it!

CPU usage reporting is an imperfect science. You may notice that task manager even disagrees with itself. The Processes tab shows higher numbers than the Details tab.

Most likely what is happening is when Blue Iris asks Windows for CPU usage values, on your system, it is returning values in the range of 0 to 400 (because you have 4 cores) instead of the usual range of 0 to 100. Why it would only happen this way for a small number of system configurations is anybody's guess. Anyway I'm guessing if you used a CPU divisor of 4 it would more closely match Task Manager's details tab (which doesn't actually show a total CPU usage number … you need to find the System Idle Process number and subtract it from 100). If you compared against the Processes tab, 3 might have looked like a more appropriate value since the Processes tab usually shows higher CPU usage numbers.

Thanks. Makes sense. Do you think this issue is linked to just the processor type or processor/os combo? I guess the question is, is there anyone else out there with a 4th Gen Haswell based Xeon (E3-12xxV3) that isn't seeing this issue? And if so what OS are they running.

Just FYI I was running Server 2016 with the i7-870 and this seemed fine so nothing obviously wrong with the OS platform. I would still like to understand why the Intel HA isn't working and wonder whether switching to windows 10 could help. Although that said I'd rather not do this unless absolutely necessary as the server platforms are much cleaner and easy to manage overall.

 

[awsum140]

I'd comment that Winduhhs runs multiple services and they may, individually, be under the 1% reporting threshold but if take cumulatively could account for at least some of the discrepancies.