pause/resume button

Michael Wheatley

Something I would love to have (but can't find) in SmartSDR is a pause/resume button.  I'd like to be able to leave SmartSDR running on my computer and be able to pause it's operation so I can free up resources to do other things on the computer for a minute or two, and then resume working with the radio.

SmartSDR consumes a fair amount of resource on my PC and makes other resource hungry applications run slowly.

Michael
KM6LHD

Tim - W4TME

SmartSDR is a thin client so a majority of the process is done by your graphics adapter; the CPU is not doing any DSP processing.  Pausing the application will not release memory because the objects are still resident in memory.  Only closing it will release the resources.

Michael Wheatley

Releasing memory isn't the issue.  It's releasing the processor resources -- when I am doing nothing in SmartSDR other than letting the waterfall run, it uses 22% of my CPU and a reasonable amount of the GPU resource.

Bill W2PKY

Try simply minimizing SSDR and see if that helps.

Michael Wheatley

Minimizing SmartSDR helps a bit but not enough.  Thanks for the tip, though.

George KF2T

Change the FPS rate and sizing of the waterfall/panadapter screen. It can make a big difference in graphics load. SmartSDR, by itself, doesn't do much processor-intensive stuff. It's mostly in the presentation. FPS of 10, increasing averaging, and a small window with, say, 10% waterfall will do wonders for your GPU load.

Bill -VA3WTB

As Tim mentioned, the  processor does not do much at all running SSDR. It is the graphics that work hard, Maybe finding a more powerful graphics card?  That is about all the resources SSDR is using.

Rich McCabe

Michael, wonder why its taking such a toll on your machine.

Minimizing mine drops the CPU to 1% and stops the GPU usage totally.

Mike va3mw

Hi Mike

I have to agree with Tim.  SmartSDR uses very little resources.  What do you have for memory installed?  Also, you can just **** it as it stops and starts up again pretty quickly.

Mike

K1UO Larry

Thats what I see here.  I can stop SSDR and restart it in a matter of a few seconds.

Dan -- KC4GO

what processor and speed do you have in  your system? I have an i7 at  2.08 GHz and with 2 pan-adapters  with a slice in each one FPS Set at 20 and Waterfall at max, Fill on and at Max I'm less than 10% and if I minimize it drops to 5 or less. 
I process video and many other activities with SSDR running. 

Tim - W4TME

To steal a line from a movie and modify it a little bit...

"I think your gonna need a bigger boat"

George KF2T

FWIW, on my Mac quad-core i7 with 16 Gb RAM, and 1536 Mb video RAM, DogPark SDR uses 18% of a CPU (4.5% per core). On my MacBook Air laptop (core duo and 4 Gb, 256 Mb Video RAM) it goes up to 25% of a CPU (12.5% per core). 

So, in both cases, pretty low loads on the system, but I see the advantage of more video memory.