Vista's new network stack

... seems to have been a brilliant idea.
So far, we have A bug preventing Vista users in an entire city, from connecting to a linux server, and copying a file over a network consuming 41% CPU ( more here)

So yeah... It certainly was a good idea to code a new network stack, wasn't it?

 

Wow...that's just ironic. I'm sure that was an 'accident.'

 

lol
Sounds like a nice idea. I didn't know that! I heard that if you are watching video or listen to music that is being downloaded - it can seriously slowdown your machine since it has higher priority. Even wireless network link speed drops. Not mentioning the cpu usage. I hope SP1 will fix some of that.

BTW second link doesn't work, but I managed to handle it.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Apparently, it's not just higher priority, it's realtime priority. (Anyone who's ever tried giving a process realtime priority knows why this is a bad idea)
That's a "feature" of their media playback though. It's a crazy thing to do (Especially when it's hardcoded and can't be controlled or disabled by the user), but it's not in itself related to the network stack.
But the fact that it kicks into action so often when using the network shows how ridiculously high CPU usage the network stack apparently requires as well. It shouldn't take 41% CPU to copy a file over a network in the first place. If it didn't do that, the media player wouldn't have to jump to realtime priority all the time, and people might have had a usable computer.

Oops, fixed it.

 

i've read this only affects gigabyte networks on PCs that have more than one network card. wireless speeds, as far as i've seen from my personal experience and from what i've read, are not affected.

 

To Jalf: I agree. High CPU time for network traffic? Insane. I was always curious why networks don't work as expected/advertised.

To elscorcho: I didn't know that either. I read about the multimedia issue in Vista SP1 white paper I think. Or I may be mistaken. Anyway - I hope it will be fixed one way or another.

Cheers guys,

Ivan

 

I posted about this in the latest News Bits on Friday but I'd like to start another dedicated discussion on this issue in here.

Edit: thread merged

 

After reading your post, I tried playing several media media files (music, video, a combination of both) using WMP and I my network usage never got above 5%. I guess this may not be as widespread has some may had thought

 

I was discussing that in other thread with Jalf! That was it. Yes it is bad thing, but I hope it can be fixed easily (registry it says?).

Hm. we'll see.

Thanks Chaz!

Ivan

 

If you have Vista, there's a registry fix detailed in the article I linked. Those who try it please let us know if you see any difference.

Ivan, what was the other thread you were discussing in?

 

I'm going to hazard a guess that you did your test on a wireless notebook while surfing the internet. AFAIK, this doesn't affect wireless users on a home broadband connection; this is related to actual network usage (copying files across a network while plaing WMP files, etc).

Check out all of the related articles in the original link. There's quite a bit of information about this problem.

 

this one

 

Thanks - didn't recognize the issue from reading that thread.

 

lol after all those merges and Jalf saying what thread and me responding to Chaz - my post is gone! Well everything is fine now anyway. I was typing for nothing!

And Jalf - thanks for answering Chaz!

Ivan

 

I applied that "fix", here are things I have noticed:

1) You know after boot-up, it shows the Vista Orb then transitions to the login screen? Well the Vista Orb takes a lot longer to disappear.

2) When I play music and load a webpage or tab(s), the audio lags so much that my system lags with it.

I have now reverted the fix. All was well before I did it.

 

Yikes. So it's not just the network stack using ridiculous amounts of CPU time? The audio one does the same?
Sad.

Anyway, remember that the registry fix isn't an official one. (No guarantee that it'll work, or won't cause other issues)

 

I tried copying a 4GB ISO from my computer to the NAS while watching a standard def video and still didn't any obviously slowdown in the file's transfer time. This, however, is definitely a serious problem since all of my friends who use Vista encountered this problem. Indeed, Vista has a lot of problems (too much IMHO for a general use OS), but luckily, it seems that I've eschewed most of them.