Provided by: pipewire-bin_0.3.79-2_amd64 bug

NAME

       pw-top - The PipeWire process viewer

SYNOPSIS

       pw-top [options]

DESCRIPTION

       The  pw-top  program  provides  a  dynamic  real-time view of the pipewire node and device
       statistics.

       A hierarchical view is shown of Driver nodes and follower  nodes.  The  Driver  nodes  are
       actively  using  a  timer to schedule dataflow in the followers. The followers of a driver
       node as shown below their driver with a + sign in a tree-like representation.

       The columns presented are as follows:

       S

              Node status.
                     E = ERROR C = CREATING S = SUSPENDED I = IDLE R = RUNNING

       ID     The ID of the pipewire node/device, as found in pw-dump and pw-cli

       QUANT  The current quantum (for drivers) and the suggested quantum for follower nodes.

              The quantum by itself needs to be divided by  the  RATE  column  to  calculate  the
              duration of a scheduling period in fractions of a second.

              For a QUANT of 1024 and a RATE of 48000, the duration of one period in the graph is
              1024/48000 or 21.3 milliseconds.

              Follower nodes can have a 0 QUANT field, which means that the node does not have  a
              suggestion for the quantum and thus uses what the driver selected.

              The  driver  will  use  the  lowest quantum of any of the followers. If none of the
              followers select a quantum, the default quantum in the pipewire configuration  file
              will be used.

              The  QUANT  on  the  drivers  usually  translates directly into the number of audio
              samples processed per processing cycle of the graph.

              See                                                                            also
              https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ#pipewire-buffering-explained

       RATE   The current rate (for drivers) and the suggested rate for follower nodes.

              This is the rate at which the graph processes data and needs to  be  combined  with
              the QUANT value to derive the duration of a processing cycle in the graph.

              Some  nodes can have a 0 RATE, which means that they don't have any rate suggestion
              for the graph. Nodes that suggest a rate can make the graph  switch  rates  if  the
              graph  is  otherwise idle and the new rate is allowed as a possible graph rate (see
              the pipewire configuration file).

              The RATE on (audio) driver nodes usually also translates directly to the samplerate
              used by the device. Although some devices might not be able to operate at the given
              samplerate, in  which  case  resampling  will  need  to  be  done.  The  negotiated
              samplerate with the device and stream can be found in the FORMAT column.

       WAIT   The  waiting  time  of a node is the elapsed time between when the node is ready to
              start processing and when it actually started processing.

              For Driver nodes, this is the  time  between  when  the  node  wakes  up  to  start
              processing  the  graph  and  when  the driver (and thus also the graph) completes a
              cycle. The WAIT time for driver is thus the elapsed time processing the graph.

              For follower nodes, it  is  the  time  spent  between  being  woken  up  (when  all
              dependencies  of  the node are satisfied) and when processing starts. The WAIT time
              for follower nodes is thus mostly caused by context switching.

              A value of --- means that the node was not signaled.  A value of +++ means that the
              node was signaled but not awake.

       BUSY   The  processing  time is started when the node starts processing until it completes
              and wakes up the next nodes in the graph.

              A value of --- means that the node was not started.  A value of +++ means that  the
              node was started but did not complete.

       W/Q    Ratio of WAIT / QUANT.

              The  W/Q  time  of the driver node is a good measure of the graph load. The running
              averages of the driver W/Q ratios are used as the DSP load in other (JACK) tools.

              Values of --- and +++ are copied from the WAIT column.

       B/Q    Ratio of BUSY / QUANT

              This is a good measure of the load of a particular driver or follower node.

              Values of --- and +++ are copied from the BUSY column.

       ERR    Total of Xruns and Errors

              Xruns for drivers are when the graph did not complete a cycle. This can be  because
              a  node in the graph also has an Xrun. It can also be caused when scheduling delays
              cause a deadline to be missed, causing a hardware Xrun.

              Xruns for followers are incremented when the node started processing  but  did  not
              complete before the end of the graph cycle deadline.

       FORMAT The  format  used  by  the  driver  node or the stream. This is the hardware format
              negotiated with the device or stream.

              If the stream of driver has a different rate than the  graph,  resampling  will  be
              done.

              For raw audio formats, the layout is <sampleformat> <channels> <samplerate>.

              For IEC958 passthrough audio formats, the layout is IEC958 <codec> <samplerate>.

              For DSD formats, the layout is <dsd-rate> <channels>.

              For Video formats, the layout is <pixelformat> <width>x<height>.

       NAME   Name assigned to the device/node, as found in pw-dump node.name

              Names are prefixed by + when they are linked to a driver (entry above with no +)

OPTIONS

       -h | --help
              Show help.

       -r | --remote=NAME
              The  name the remote instance to monitor. If left unspecified, a connection is made
              to the default PipeWire instance.

       --version
              Show version information.

AUTHORS

       The   PipeWire    Developers    <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/issues>;
       PipeWire is available from https://pipewire.org

SEE ALSO

       pipewire(1), pw-dump(1), pw-cli(1), pw-profiler(1),

                                                                                        PW-TOP(1)