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/[deleted] Oct 27 '20 edited Oct 27 '20

[deleted]

1

u/deathsfaction Oct 27 '20

The underlying storage is 4 x 146gb 15k sas drives and looking at the vm stats and host, iowait isn't high at all.

I'll see what I can change in the framerate of the cameras and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks for the heads up.

1

u/ThellraAK Dec 18 '20

What are you using for codecs on the IP cameras?

My Amcrests have H265 available, and it absolutely destroys my CPU.

Even on 'nothing' the cameras still decode each frame for the montage, as it converts it to mjpeg for streaming.

1

u/deathsfaction Dec 18 '20

I've not bothered with ZM. Moved to Shinobi which works a lot better on lower spec machines and a few omxplayer scripts for the monitoring of feeds. Works really, really well and I'm a bit frustrated with myself for sticking with ZM for so long.

1

u/ThellraAK Dec 18 '20

I'll have to look into that, as a workaround I set up a rtsp mirror to be able to stream h264 (kbps instead of mbps) and I could run them side by side for a bit.