Electron CPU usage

[Mykle1]

It’s all pretty much discussed in this topic

[CGabo]

Yes, I know. Just wanted to clarify that the topic is still current with:
stretch img. with update to 4.9.61-v7+ #1049 and electron v1.7.9

and no issue with:
jessie img. with update to 4.9.57-v7+ #1045 and electron v1.6.2

-> There are some combination of OS / MM / electron which cause a high CPU load.

[austin]

I have been doing a lot of testing on this. I started using the latest Pixel and MM and had temperature and lockup issues. I then noticed that CPU usage was very high. I started doing lots of tests. I finally found that the best CPU usage and temperature was when using Electron 1.6.15. You can see the results in the screenshots.

If you need/want to use Pixel do not use Electron greater than 1.6.15. I tried many combinations along with matching the version of node the electron recommends. Nothing 1.7.x worked that well. As you can see in CGabo’s image on Pixel Electron 1.7.9 uses 100% cpu at time. In my screenshot on Jessie it used 70-80% only. Not sure why this is.

My recommendation would be to have Magic Mirror pin the Electron version to 1.6.15 at this time.

[Mykle1]

@austin said in Electron CPU usage:

My recommendation would be to have Magic Mirror pin the Electron version to 1.6.15 at this time.

Perhaps, but without a doubt, and confirmed months ago by numerous users (including myself) the combination that works best, and with the least amount of CPU load on a Pi, is Raspian Jessie, MM v2.1.0 and Electron v1.4.15. All the results are in the topic above which started 3 months ago. It was a hell of a ride! :-)

[schlachtkreuzer6]

FYI:
with the latest system update (yesterday) and upgrade (yesterday) and latest update of MM its better than before ^^ but still running way to high. My pi is not showing up the overheating symbol (: animations still are crap,…

[Mykle1]

@schlachtkreuzer6

I’m not using the Pi anymore. The one Pi mirror I have will stay using Jessie, MM v2.1.0 and electron v1.4.15. It doesn’t make any sense to change it. It runs flawlessly.

My other boards can handle the newest MM and electron so I use those there.

[schlachtkreuzer6]

@Mykle1 okay, which alternatives do you use? (:

[Mykle1]

@schlachtkreuzer6 said in Electron CPU usage:

okay, which alternatives do you use? (:

Me, personally? I’ve taken to old laptop boards. Basically, a 10-12 year old laptop will outperform any Pi, in all categories. ubuntu installed turns a POS laptop into a killer MM macine and the laptops that old are as inexpensive as a new Pi, or free in some cases.

Here are some things that others are using
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4513/stronger-raspberry-pi-3-alternatives.

Laptop mirror
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4930/vanity-mirror-thy-name-is-woman-using-laptop

[cowboysdude]

Just my two cents but as people want more from the mirror then “You look Good” compliments and here’s the weather the pi is going to fall further behind.

Some of these modules are intensive and need the power to run…

SO many are looking into small computer boards, like myself, mini-itx with a real processor and memory. Mine also uses an SSD… so power and speed are good :)

[rovarma]

After performing a clean install of the MagicMirror on Raspbian Stretch I was also running into this issue: high CPU usage, stuttering in the UI when animations are playing, etc. I didn’t really expect the MagicMirror to perform well in the first place (since it’s browser-based) but this was worse than I expected, so I did some investigation. The problem is twofold:

• The version of Electron (1.6.2) does not work on Stretch. Many users (including me) work around this by manually installing Electron 1.7.9, which does support Stretch. After this, the MagicMirror can be installed as normal (aside from some bugs in the install script, which I fixed locally) and will appear to work.
• However: Electron 1.7.9 does not have support for hardware acceleration on the Raspberry Pi (1.6.2) does. So normal rendering will appear to work fine, but anything to do with animation (and alpha blending in particular) will slow to a crawl.

The solution is to use Raspbian Jessie for now and ignore Stretch until this is fixed in Electron.