[MPlayer-users] Cache usage in mplayer

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 12:33:45AM +0100, Jorge Gascon Perez wrote:
> But, under the 50%, mplayer starts to make a lot of calls to the USB
> disk for filling only a 1% of the cache, keeping
> the caché between 49% - 51%.  So a lot of reads per second are performed.
> 
> Obviously, my USB disk is in danger of burning in fire.
> 
> 
> I think that the optimal purpose of a cache is preventing the
> excessive access to a slower storage (hard disk).
> 
> So I think that the cache should go down from 99% to the 10% and under
> this 10% it should refill itself quickly
> to the 99% again, minimizing the disk access usage.

That risks issues with network streaming and actually it already causes
really bad issues with DVDs due to spinning down and the remaining 10%
are not enough buffer to wait for spinup.

> But, How can I change the code to get a better performance of mplayer's cache.

The cache is doing it exactly what it is supposed to do, and what you
propose would certainly significantly decrease its performance as
a cache.
So maybe you should explain what you want the cache to do it, since you
consider it to be bad that it does exactly what is necessary for caching...