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XBMC comes to Android

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 10, 2013 20:14 UTC (Thu) by sbakker (subscriber, #58443)
In reply to: XBMC comes to Android by scarabeus
Parent article: XBMC comes to Android

Yeah, XBMC's main loop is horrific. I noticed a similar thing on my RPi. The program runs in a "game-loop", executing about 100 times/sec, even if there is no input, and nothing to update on the screen. On every loop iteration it performs non-blocking read attempts on all its inputs. (Hence, when I told XMBC that I wasn't using an infrared remote, its CPU usage dropped from 99% to 70%, since it was performing much fewer read attempts.)

There does not seem to be any plans to change this any time soon.


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XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 10, 2013 20:18 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Let me guess, at least one input is some hideous thing on which select() doesn't work?

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 15, 2013 14:46 UTC (Tue) by charlieb (subscriber, #23340) [Link]

> Let me guess, at least one input is some hideous thing on which
> select() doesn't work?

That's one possibility. Another is that XBMC is ported from Windows by people who don't understand or don't care about linux.

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 17, 2013 15:25 UTC (Thu) by oliv3r (guest, #86764) [Link]

Actually, both are true or neither.

XBMC is ported from ... the Xbox and the loop was designed in that way. The term 'game-loop' isn't far off.

They do want to change that, but it would require a major rewrite. I think while XBMC is amazing and it will grow to be more amazing too, it will require a full on rewrite to be more portable and less demanding on resources. Event driven and all that.

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 18, 2013 6:38 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

Actually that is something amazing that is worth a mention, that an application designed to run on the original Xbox game console has been made to run not only on standard desktop systems but also Android. I think there may be a point to be made about the homogenization and standardization of computing, that our modern operating systems and hardware are similar enough that a program can be made to run in such different environments. Early computers were much more wild by comparison.

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 18, 2013 7:54 UTC (Fri) by Fowl (subscriber, #65667) [Link]

I blame C.

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 19, 2013 15:48 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

You can also blame Unix (and POSIX).

XBMC comes to Android

Posted Jan 19, 2013 18:04 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

Although the Xbox environment is not POSIX or Unix. In any event I was just caught momentarily in awe that anything works at all 8-)

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