[Discuss-gnuradio] Buffer Question for Streaming with USRP

[Tom Hendrick]

Hi all,

I'm using a C++ program that modulates a signal that I feed to GRC via an mkfifo (named pipe) file.  The problem is that I get underruns from the USRP. 

There is a function in the C++ program that converts from double to float and then dumps it to stdout which I then feed to an mkfifo file in the command line.  With the buffer size of 32 bytes in the stdout line in C++  I get consistent underruns.  With the buffer size to 4096 bytes, I get an initial underrun and then none for about 1-2 minutes and then I start getting them more consistently, and about 500msec of no signal for each underrun.  With the buffer size set to the size of a 2 second packet (at 500 kHz) I get an underrun every 4 seconds with  a 1-2 seconds of no signal randomly in between my modulated signal.

Does anyone have any ideas if I need to use a certain buffer size?  I tried this on my netbook with an intel atom and also laptop with a duo core and got the same thing. 

When I run the C++ program and output to a regular file, and read in with the GRC script at the same time, I don't get any underruns at all, but of course this isn't real time.

My other idea is to find a way to do the conversion from double to float in GRC with a custom block.  I also wonder if going from stdout to a pipe file and then reading the pipe file from GRC is also a problem.


Thanks-Tom