Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
This command will search the message log for all output from the NTP daemon. You can also see that the date,
time, and time zone are now correct. The date changed from January 1 to October 22.
Your XBMC dashboard will also reflect this change. On every boot of OpenELEC, the correct date and time will
now be applied.
Memory Allocation
Now that you have OpenELEC working, it may be a good idea to look at memory allocation. By default, OpenELEC
uses the 128-MB split. This will give you 128 MB of GPU memory and the rest of the memory will be allocated to the
system memory. You should leave this the way it's set. You're going to need a lot more GPU memory for playing back
your HD movies. OpenELEC will run fine on 128 MB of memory. To verify that you are running the 128-MB split,
check the
/proc/meminfo
file or take a look inside the GUI of XBMC. Open System
➤
System info and you will see how
much memory you have.
Screen Resolution and Display Settings
Depending on your connected screen, you may need to adjust the resolution. To do this go to the settings page and
select System. Change the display value to match your screen.
While I am on the topic of displays, it may be a good idea to enable a function called dirty region redraw.
By default XBMC will redraw your entire screen whenever something changes in the UI. This could be as simple as a
mouse cursor moving or a button becoming highlighted when you select it. No matter what you do the entire screen is
redrawn. That sounds rather wasteful, especially on the Raspberry Pi. GPU cycles are very important to you now that
you're running a GUI application. This is where dirty region redraw comes into play. With this enabled, XBMC will
try its hardest to redraw only parts of the screen that have changed. So now when you highlight that button, only the
button, not the whole screen, will be redrawn.
This setting is still a little bit experimental and you may get unexpected side effects.
Dirty region redraw will be disabled the moment you start any form of video playback. To enable this, you are
going to need to use SSH to access the system. Once you have connected to the system via SSH, change into the
following directory:
# cd /storage/.xbmc/userdata
This directory holds a lot of the settings for XBMC, including some settings that you configure through the GUI.
Next, you're going to need to create a special file called
advancedsettings.xml
. This file is read on startup of XBMC.
Make sure you use vi and not Vim when creating files on OpenELEC. Create the file with the following command:
# vi advancedsettings.xml
Then fill it with the contents listed in Listing 7-5.
Listing 7-5.
Code to Enable Dirty Region Redraw
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<advancedsettings>
<gui>
<algorithmdirtyregions>3</algorithmdirtyregions>
<nofliptimeout>1000</nofliptimeout>
</gui>
</advancedsettings>
