I know I’m late to this party, but I’ve just recently started exploring Roon. Since the disastrous rollout of the new Sonos App / Firmware, etc.
Anyway, Ive got a NUC with AMD Ryzen 7 4750 + 32 GB Ram and set it up as a Server. There should be plenty of computing power. I added a folder of music from my NAS and manually added a few Internet radio URLS
The playback is horrendous, not just files from my library, even the radio stations. Lots of lag and dropouts I never got with the Sonos System. My WiFi is a well covered MESH network. Any idea as to why my playback performance COULD be so atrocious? Thanks, Howard
Note that there are no NUCs with AMD Ryzen. NUC is originally an Intel brand, now being handled by Asus.
ROCK is officially supported only on the NUC models on the compatibility list:
It may work on other computers, or it may not. On other computers, the supported way to run Roon is installing Windows or Linux and running RoonServer there.
I don’t know if ROCK has a problem with the Ryzen platform (probably not) or some hardware in the machine (possibly the NIC). However, in most cases the problems you described are caused by not following the network recommendations:
OK, so what you have built is what we around these parts call a MOCK server, not a ROCK server. Folks who do this hang out in the Tinkering category of the forum, so I’ll transfer these posts over to a new thread there… You may find fellow DIY builders who can offer suggestions on your issues…
The point being that you should not run ROCK on that, run Linux or run Windows. Keep in mind that RoonServer is very single core oriented, so you want the fastest single core speed for a speedy RoonServer, not a lot of slower cores.
A Roon server Ethernet connected to a mesh network access point may work well. But a Roon server Wi-Fi connected to a mesh network access point is a bad idea all around.
How many albums/tracks? Adding music to a new Roon server can take hours, days, or even weeks to import fully. During that time, Roon can range from slowed down to overwhelmed.
And on a single thread basis, Ryzen PRO 4750U is not exceedingly powerful. It is a little bit more so than the Intel processor in a Nucleus Plus.
Got it. I’ve got approximate 3500 CD all ripped ALAC or FLAC. I hardwired the PC onto the network and everything seems to be playing fine now into the existing SONOS speakers, amps, and ports. Looks like another convert is join ing the community. Thanks for pointing the way. I’m going to build a proper NUC with an Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF and 16GB RAM - that should serve me for a few years. I was just testing the stability on my network.
Now I just have to figure out how to get ARC talking to my system
Search, analysis and some DSP is multi-threaded anyway. Database-related stuff is on a single thread. Sure, it’s possible to split this into multiple threads, but it’s also difficult and easier to create consistency errors.
Yes I was going to say that attaching the server via meshed wifi was probably the culprit. If I were you I’d hold off buying a NUC - the machine you’ve got should do the trick, especially if you run it as a linux box. I ran Roon virtualised on a less capable machine for a long time with no issues. Most issues I’ve had have ended up being network related - for real reliability, especially reliable multi room syncing of endpoints, ethernet is the way.
These days I run Roon in a Docker container on my Homelab server and it works great.