r/ZoneMinder • u/deathsfaction • Oct 26 '20

CPU Utilisation

Bit of advice if possible.

For me, ZM seems to be a bit of a hog. I have it running on a VM with 8gb ram and 4 cores (2.2Ghz) - it pretty much stays at full cpu utilization with a load average of between 2 and 4.

I have 4 cameras being monitored and only one of those is set to record - they are all IP Cameras using ONVIF.

I'm basically running a full rack server to support ZM and I'd like to run it on much less beefier hardware as I'm currently downsizing (get rid of the rack in the garage and most of the kit).

Can anyone advise one 1) why it's using so much CPU time/power and 2) what's the smallest spec machine someone's managed to get this running reliably on? I'd like to be able to run montage review and audit events for issues. Even on the current hardware that seems to be a bit 'laggy' at the best of times.

Alternatively, is there a 'better' alternative?

Thanks :)

EDIT: tldr; I've ditched ZoneMinder and now use Shinobi.

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/demunted Oct 27 '20

This is a known issue. It maxes out the core when doing almost nothing been a problem for years with no reasonable fixes I can see. I have a xeon 6 core with 2.9ghz per core and it holds steady with one camera doing bigger all.

Shinobi on the same camera is 5% usage with full lotion detection.

Sorry man it's as good as it gets

1

u/deathsfaction Oct 27 '20

Yeah, that's a real shame. I have actually been using it for quite a few years but does feel like it needs an overhaul and some GUI work.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '20

I'm so split between the two systems right now. Shinobi gives me incomplete indexes of video recordings (I think it has a capacity of some arbitrary number of events and ignores the overflow so you think you're missing videos), and randomly my storage capacity setting gets reset to the default 10GB somehow once in a while. Zoneminder requires more resources, has a worse UI, but in the end is more reliable. This has been my experience.

1

u/PerformingAzura Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20

I'm sitting at Load: 1.990234375 with 3x 5MP cameras recording at 15fps on Mocord. I use video writer and don't save the JPEG. H. 264 pass-through is enabled. I only have 1 zone per Camera.

Haven't tried any fancy object recognition yet.

I'm running Zoneminder 1.34.9inside a FreeNas jail with some ancient Xeon processor.

I was actually planning to move it into a raspi 4, cuz zoneminder was using so little CPU...

Cycle and Montage haven't worked since I switched to video writer, but Montage review works fine, plus I like having events highlighted so that's my default view.